Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Off the back of the last piece of business before the House, I congratulate both the shadow minister for ageing and the Minister for Ageing for the way in which they were able to facilitate what is certainly a very important visit in an area in which we all, as a nation, have a definite responsibility to improve the outcomes. We need to make sure that people in Indigenous communities, particularly the aged, are able to enjoy a standard of care which would be expected by other Australians. As the shadow minister for health and ageing, I will also endeavour to provide bipartisan support wherever possible to make sure that we can satisfy ourselves that standards are improving, that increased funding is flowing and that ultimately the living standards of those residents concerned is improved.

I want to continue my comments from this morning in relation to the Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy Surcharge Thresholds) Bill (No. 2) 2008 and restate my disbelief that this government would proceed with a bill that will put further pressure on the public health system in this country. It really defies belief that this government would force up to one million people out of private health insurance, adding hundreds of thousands of procedures to the waiting lists of the public hospitals right around the country—this at a time when the public hospital system is at breaking point.

Any Australian family, any older Australian and any person in this country  who has been in need of emergency medical attention would be able to tell the story of their experience, or of that of somebody known to them, when they visited a public hospital basically anywhere around the country. They would tell you the story of the tremendous support they received from the staff at the hospital, but they would tell you of their great frustration at the period of time they had to wait. You hear countless stories right around the country—in particular from older Australians who, in some cases, have been on waiting lists for many years—and it is very hard to explain to those people why this government would be putting extra pressure on those waiting lists which potentially would see people on current waiting lists waiting even longer.

It is hard to imagine that this government have any credibility in the area of health policy when they are pursuing the same ideological outcomes as the state and territory Labor governments have been pursuing over the last 10 years. When you dig a little deeper you understand that this is a government driven by ideology and with the same sort of health priorities, the same style of health management, as we have seen at a state level over the last 10 years, and that is, as I said earlier today, most concerning.

The coalition government achieved a great deal over 11½ years in this country, not just for the economic situation—and that is most pertinent at the moment because this is a government that have inherited a fundamentally strong Australian economy. They inherited an economy with a surplus, not the deficit that we inherited when we came into government in 1996. They inherited no net government debt. When we came into government in 1996 we inherited $96 billion of government debt, paying about $8 billion a year in interest. We provided to the incoming government at the November election a prudential regulation system in this country which is now obviously the envy of the world. It was all that work by the Commonwealth over the last 11½ years that has provided us with the ability to support health services in this country, health services for which the federal government has a responsibility, health services which we have to make sure we get right today so that with the ageing of our population we are able to cater for tomorrow.

I mentioned to the House earlier today some of the achievements of the coalition government in relation to private health insurance. The latest data from the Private Health Insurance Administration Council show that 10.9 million Australians, 44.7 per cent of the population, were covered by private health hospital cover. Significantly, in the 12 months to June 2008, the biggest growth of any age group was in the 25- to 29-year-old category, with an increase of 53,313 people. These are the people the Rudd government expects to drop their coverage, reducing the pool of people and resulting in increased premiums.

So my message today is to pensioners, to older Australians, to many self-funded retirees who are finding it difficult to make their budget balance in these very difficult economic times and to families. They need to ask this government why they are introducing a policy in the form of this bill which will effectively drive premium prices in this country through the roof and which will displace all of those people out of private health insurance and onto the waiting lists of an already stretched public system. The government need to explain that to the Australian people. The Australian people need to demand answers to these questions. Why would you pursue such an ideologically driven policy which will provide poorer health outcomes for every Australian?

Australians understand the way insurance works in this country. They understand that the risk is spread amongst people who insure. They understand that some of those 10.9 million Australians, like younger people before they have families, do not claim very much at all by way of their private health insurance. By and large, they are not, fortunately for them, in a stage of life which presents them with complicated medical issues or procedures that require a lot of money to address. They are the people who average out the price for older Australians. This is a very important principle for people in this debate to understand.

If you remove one million of those people, particularly younger people who do make health insurance affordable in many cases for a lot of older Australians or people who are struggling on smaller incomes to pay their private health insurance, then it stands to reason—and all of the independent evidence backs this up—that the health insurance premiums in this country will rise unnecessarily and they will preclude in many cases people who have paid health insurance for a long time and are approaching a stage of their life where they need that satisfaction of mind. They maintain their private health insurance so that if they are ageing in a facility somewhere or in a community they will have the support of a private health system. Some of those people will, tragically, out of this circumstance be driven out of that system. That is an unacceptable position to adopt, but it is one that this government has ideologically adopted.

As I understand from media reports, there have been some developments in relation to the position of Senator Fielding and his stance on this matter. Members will recall that the senator voted against the bill in its original form in the Senate, which blocked its passage, and the amended bill is the one that we debate now in this chamber. I understand from those media reports that Senator Fielding says now that he will pass government budget measures, including this particular measure. That decision is, of course, one entirely for Senator Fielding, but some of the important points that Senator Fielding made in his contribution to the original debate need to be borne in mind today. People need to recognise that the opposition posed by Senator Fielding, the coalition and many other people right around the country who are independent of the parliamentary process but who are nonetheless experts in health, and the concerns that we all share, still need to be borne in mind. Senator Fielding’s contribution to the debate should not be dismissed because of his current position. People still need to bear in mind the very important consideration that Senator Fielding gave to the first bill. The reasons for which he decided to vote against the first bill still stand. The fundamental corruptness of this as good public policy still stands. This will still result in bad outcomes for Australians, some of which I have detailed before and some of which Senator Fielding has detailed both in the chamber and outside. Those outcomes still stand. Those difficulties which make this bad policy have not gone away.

This is a measure which will deliver bad financial outcomes as well. There has to have been, by my estimation and on the advice that I have received, some deal stitched up or an intention to stitch some deal up with the state and territory governments. The state and territory governments around the country will not tolerate hundreds of thousands of procedures going onto their waiting lists without corresponding compensation from the Commonwealth. To his credit, the former Western Australian Labor health minister told the Senate inquiry of the $50 million a year extra which it would cost the Western Australian health system to facilitate, on the estimates available at the time, the extra procedures in the public hospital system in WA. I spoke of that earlier. He was the only one at the time, when you went around the country, that had the guts to say that this was going to be a financial burden on the state and territory governments.

It stands to reason that if Western Australia was demanding compensation for that $50 million then the other states and territories will follow suit. So, importantly, this minister needs to explain to this House and to the Australian people what deals have already been done. How many millions of dollars of Commonwealth taxpayers’ money have you promised to state and territory governments? How will that compensation flow? What is the justification for that money flowing if it exceeds any savings to the Commonwealth? If the money which has to flow from the Commonwealth to the states exceeds any savings to the Commonwealth, why would you pursue this policy? The health system in this country cannot stand with either private or public as the only options. The same arguments prevail in education as they do in health. If you take away the private sector and the capacity of people to be able to contribute to their own medical health insurance, the pressure on the public health system in this country will be unbearable. That is why we stand opposed to this policy. It is why we will not support this bill either in this chamber or in the other place. It is why we hold fast to our very strong belief that, in a population of 20 million people where over 10 million people have private health insurance, safeguards need to be put in place to make sure that that is a viable system into the future.

If you took all of the Commonwealth revenues that we put into private health in this country and transferred them into the public health system tomorrow—if you effectively closed down the private health sector—the public health system would still collapse under the weight. There is nothing but ideologically driven desire in this debate. There is no other rational explanation as to why this government have taken the stance they have. They need to be honest about where it is they think private health insurance will be heading in this country over the next 10 years. There is a lot of rhetoric from this government; there are a lot of thought bubbles; there are a lot of one-day policy media release announcements which ultimately amount to nothing. This government have to explain why they are striking at the heart of the private health insurance system in this country at the same time as they are striking a near fatal blow to the public health system. None of their state counterparts could have supported this in public or private discussion. The federal department of the minister, the Department of Health and Ageing, opposes this measure. This is a Treasury driven measure which will be bad for families. It will be bad for older Australians. This government needs to decide whose side they are on. Are they on the side of the bureaucrats and boffins associated with this decision or are they on the side of the 10 million Australians who have private health insurance? (Time expired)

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