Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to discuss the issues contained within the Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy Surcharge Thresholds) Bill (No. 2) 2008. There are many questions as to how we have actually come to this position and about the changes from the initial policy proposal. In doing so, I say to the member for Solomon that, when research has been conducted, one might have a look at what the former coalition government inherited from the former Labor government and see that there was a marked improvement in aged-care beds, there was a marked improvement in the number of doctors and there was a marked improvement in the numbers of nurses’ places made available. To just give a set of figures that does not truly reflect growth and truly reflect action taken is quite mischievous and quite misleading in the House.

I rise to talk on this issue this evening because we have gone from an initial policy proposal where the singles threshold level would have been raised from $50,000 to $100,000 and the couples threshold level would be raised from $100,000 to $150,000. When we went to the election last year, there was no actual demonstrated policy from the Labor party that they were planning to change these threshold levels. They failed to inform people that this is what they were planning. In fact, they had decided to make these changes. It appears, when we listen to the speakers, that changes are being made in the interest of working families and in the interest of the Australian taxpayers. In fact, the government knows that it is actually going to have a windfall gain out of this policy. The government themselves have predicted the numbers of people who will leave their private health insurance. Therefore, they will not require the 30 per cent rebate and, therefore, the government will not be paying out the 30 per cent rebate and there will be a massive saving to the government.

Is that massive saving being put into relieving the hardship of the working families that many of the opposite side talk about or relieving the plight of older Australians, who, might I say, are the biggest claimants on private health insurance? Many older Australians have kept their private health insurance because they see, particularly in New South Wales, the disgraceful demise of public health. They are not game to drop their medical benefits. They are not game to drop their private health insurance. In fact, I had a lady in my office last week who gave me a sincere and disturbing account of her experiences as a pensioner within a public hospital system that cared little about the problems that she was experiencing with her health, which is why she feels she must keep her health insurance above and beyond any other thing that she pays out for.

We have had this disgraceful demise in New South Wales at the hands of a Labor government. I do not think anybody could deny that what is happening in health in New South Wales is just unacceptable. My concern is that we have older Australians, who are the biggest claimants, and working families doing it tough. In fact, they will do it even tougher. The more people who drop out of health insurance, of course, the fewer people there are to bear the cost of private health. I suggest that, if anything meaningful is to come out of this, there should be added incentives, over and above the 30 per cent rebate, for those people, particularly older Australians, who have kept their private health insurance.

What we have is a mishmash and a hotchpotch of ideas. We have an Independent senator, Steve Fielding, who has argued in the upper house for extra assistance to deal with premium price increases and for an increase from the 30 per cent rebate to a 35 per cent rebate. We have another Independent senator, Nick Xenophon, who has argued for lowered thresholds—around $67,000 for singles and $134,000 for couples—and for the thresholds to be indexed. So we have a toss-up between two proposals. I do not understand on what basis these changes were made and what formula was used to determine the changes and to say, ‘Okay, we’ll move from our initial policy proposal of moving from $50,000 to $100,000 for singles and from $100,000 to $150,000 for couples and we’ll have a revised threshold of $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples, which would be indexed.’ That seems to be trying to make deals on the side. If we are going to have an all-in discussion as to exactly what might be of benefit, I would like to put my two cents worth in as well and ask why the government would not offer some relief to those older Australians having no gap—‘Stay in your health insurance and we’ll guarantee you no gap with the money that we are saving from all of those people who are going to drop out of their private health insurance.’

We know, because the government themselves predict, that there will be about 583,000 people who will drop their private health insurance. They have revised that down from 644,000, of course, because they have reduced that threshold to $75,000 for singles. Even with the revised levels, though, Access Economics estimates that by 2012 over one million Australians will have dropped their insurance or not taken health insurance out. Access Economics also predicts that, with thresholds set at $75,000 and $150,000 for singles and couples respectively, by 2012 over 770,000 episodes will have shifted from the private system to the public system—a massive extra burden.

I am speaking about this bill because of my concern as to how my electorate in the Riverina will cope with this additional pressure on the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. I appeal to the government and the minister to ensure support for places like Wagga Wagga in particular and Griffith, which need additional facilities. In 1970 there was a sod turned for a new hospital in Wagga Wagga and here we are in 2008 and there has still been no move to construct that new Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. Let me explain what the problem is and why I am so concerned about this exodus of people back into the public system. We had Griffith Base Hospital and we had Wagga Wagga Base Hospital—we had a hospital in most towns. Then it was determined that Griffith would be downgraded basically to a local hospital and that Wagga Wagga would be made the base hospital—the regional referral centre. Was one dollar put into the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital for it to become a regional referral centre? No. What happened was that two-bed wards were made into four-bed wards and four-bed wards were made into eight-bed wards. Women and men share the same shower and toilet facilities—absolutely unacceptable! The children’s ward is eaten out with white ants, to the point that there is almost more danger for your child in the children’s ward than from their illness as a result of the white ant infestation and the fact that it could collapse because it sits out in a wing and is a filled-in veranda area.

We have a calamity, a catastrophe, that saw thousands of people rally in the streets of Wagga Wagga. They came from all over the region to implore the former Minister for Health in the New South Wales state government, Reba Meagher, to commit to building a new Wagga Wagga base hospital. We were tired of the false promises and the let-downs. I might add that coalition governments before did the same thing to Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, but over the last 13 years it has been unbelievable to see what has taken place. The referrals that have taken place in Wagga Wagga Base Hospital have been extraordinary. The staff do a magnificent job under the most trying of circumstances. You could not ask for better staff, but under what conditions do they work? Even on the day when the former health minister, Reba Meagher, was coming into Wagga Wagga to have a look at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, the Greater Southern Area Health Service had to clean up an operating theatre that had been deluged by a small fall of rain—one of the very few that we have received in the last seven years—which absolutely filled up the operating theatres. Our operating theatre times have been cut back. Everything has been reduced. We have one private hospital that has been trying to manage the whole of the private health insurance industry in the electorate. That is Calvary, and they are doing a significantly good job.

We had a promise and a commitment by the former health minister, Reba Meagher, that the new Wagga Wagga base hospital would be built. Then blackmail took place in the most disgraceful way. We were told by the health minister that the coalition, having not supported the privatisation of electricity under former Premier Iemma with his and Costa’s bold plan to privatise electricity in New South Wales, which was not supported by their own party or their unions and which would have seen members of their own party, for once, crossing the floor to vote against it—and funding for the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital was linked to the privatisation of electricity. That was a lie. The former minister, Reba Meagher, should stand condemned for lying to the people, because at no time was that new hospital linked to any electricity privatisation. It was a disgraceful lie.

I am very concerned about the legislation currently before us in the House. With the initial legislation we would have had a reduction in government expenditure by it not paying the 30 per cent rebate of $959 million. There would have been a reduction in revenue of $660 million, but the government saving would have been $299 million. There has been no breakdown of the expenditure and the revenue provided to us for this legislation, but there seems to us to be a government saving of around $354 million. We have heard a lot from the government side of the House about all the money that the Commonwealth is putting into the hospital system to support the mass exodus into it. It is a load of codswallop. During the Senate Standing Committee on Economics inquiry into the bill, the Western Australian government stated that people dropping insurance would lead to higher hospital operating costs in the magnitude of over $50 million per year in Western Australia alone—one state. Imagine what it is going to equate to in states like New South Wales. It is quite extraordinary.

It is a fact that the government really offered no compensation to the public hospitals and did not conduct any exercise to determine just what the spin-off and the effect of this legislation would be. They are clearly going to let this just play itself out and then blame the states because hospitals are the states’ problem. They are not a federal problem. Everybody is told that hospitals are the states’ problem, so it is easy. We hear about stopping the blame game. Gosh, it is all you hear about in this House on a continual basis, yet all you hear is blame, blame, blame. What will in fact happen is that I will be told in the House, by the Minister for Health and Ageing or by the Prime Minister, about the impact of this legislation on my electorate, particularly on the public hospital system and how it cannot cope with the added people who have presented to them as a result of dropping their health insurance, and that it is a state issue. Hospitals are a state issue. We will see where the blame game really starts and finishes when this takes place.

As I have said, I think that something meaningful should come out of any change to health insurance. People who are paying health insurance should get incentives. They get their 30 per cent rebate. That was put in place by the former government and has had an enormous outcome. We have seen an increase of 10 per cent of people participating in health insurance. There were a suite of incentives offered by the former government to encourage people to take out health insurance: Lifetime Health Cover, a 30 per cent rebate et cetera. If we are going to make changes, let us make a change so that those people who pay for private health insurance, particularly those older Australians who make the most claims on their private health insurance, will have no gap payments. Give them back the money that the government will save from the people who will exodus from private health insurance. Provide that no gap.

It seems to me to be such an anomaly. I listen to people who come and ask: ‘Why is it that we pay such significant private health insurance and we get a 30 per cent rebate but, when we use it, it costs us so much money? It can cost us thousands and thousands in gaps. But if we had the same procedure in the public hospital system and loaded the public hospital system up, even if it were an emergency procedure, it would cost us nothing.’ It is a valid question and a valid concern for people. So let us start to ease the burden. Let us start to look after a particular part of our community to begin with—older Australians. If the government is not going to provide the $30 a week rise in the pension then the minister should seriously consider having a no-gap policy and providing the savings to older Australians who are paying health insurance and using the private health insurance system. They should not have a gap. If anything is to come out of this legislation, let that be one of the good results.

If everyone is forced back into the public health system in my electorate, it simply will not cope. I urge and plead with the minister to get involved in the rebuilding of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital to ensure that the people of the Riverina are able to get access to health care of the quality that they should enjoy—the same as any city person would.

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