Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And how the government have reduced the economies of scale and in so doing made it much harder for the very families they are purporting to support.

I have made the point already that seniors are completely locked in in this fiasco. If it were as simple as a discount for working families and it all adhered to your popularity polling I could appreciate that. I could appreciate that everything else is going pear-shaped so you are going to try and convince those working families that they no longer have to pay a Medicare surcharge. But that is not the case at all. They are not going to see more food on the table or more petrol in the tank from this measure. This is just a measure to forgo saving for your health care from now through until you turn 60. Those same people will be looking to finding the health cover that they need; they will be looking at a public hospital system that is not delivering for them and they will be forced back to private health care and will have to pay the community rating. It is short-sighted. It is enormously attractive. I am sure when you did your polling it said, ‘If we can sell this off as making it easier for working families, it is something we should do.’

I think it is a great shame that many on the other side in government do not actually know the history of healthcare reform, how hard it has been to develop a truly blended healthcare model, how hard it has been to build up the number of Australians opting for private health cover. Oh, how easy it is to take that away. But you have done it in the most disingenuous way possible. This government has done it by writing to the health insurance sector and promising them it will all be okay. It is almost like one of those ‘Just wait until we get into government and we will change it all’ corflutes for some to have pinned up outside the health insurers. If only they had noticed the corflute. What we have now is that reduced base and the great tragedy that for so many Australian seniors their premiums will be going up. They are locked in and that is all a result of this government’s actions tonight.

Debate (on motion by Ms McKew) adjourned.

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