Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors, Tourism and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy Surcharge Thresholds) Bill (No. 2) 2008. I have to say how extraordinary it is to listen to the contributions of the members of the Rudd Labor government as they talk about savings, responsibility and a long-term vision. These are all very sound, very forthright principles that probably on first blush would be worthy of support. But there is an extraordinary reality when you actually dig into the detail about what Labor is proposing with the bill that is before the House. This is the second time that it has come before the House and that Labor has tried to institute these changes to the Medicare levy surcharge threshold.

I listened with great interest to the member for Dawson as he spoke about how this bill is fundamental to helping working families and to ensuring that those Australians have the opportunity for a tax saving. If in isolation all you listened to were those comments, you might think the member for Dawson had something constructive to say about providing income tax relief to Australian working families. If you did not know that this Labor government was imposing $20 billion of new taxes on the Australian people, you might think that there was some sincerity in the comments of the member for Dawson. But the reality is that those members opposite come to this debate with no sincerity and they are, for all intents and purposes, naked when it comes to this debate. The reason they are naked is the sheer hypocrisy we hear from members opposite when they talk about the need to ensure that working families have a tax break, the sheer hypocrisy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the sheer hypocrisy of the member for Dawson and those before him.

No doubt those from the Australian Labor Party who stand up after him will also say, ‘Working Australians deserve a tax break; it is very reprehensible that the opposition is not supporting this bill.’ I say back to Labor government members that, if working Australians deserve a tax break, how can you be part of a government that is imposing $20 billion of new taxes on Australian working families? How can you come into this chamber and make the claim that you are motivated and genuinely concerned about working Australian families when you are so happy to impose $20 billion of new taxes on the Australian people?

I say to the people of Mackay: look at the member for Dawson and understand his sheer hypocrisy when he says, ‘This is about savings.’ I tell you what: this is certainly about savings—make no mistake about it—but it is not the savings of working Australians that the government are motivated by; it is not the savings of those Australians who are doing it tough in this current climate; it is not the savings of pensioners and self-funded retirees that the government mean when they talk about making savings. No. Do not swallow that hook, line and sinker because the only savings the government care about are the savings to their outlays. They are the real motivation for the Rudd Labor government making these changes and the real reason the government want to increase thresholds. It is not because they have a long-term genuine belief about the need to ensure we have adequate thresholds when it comes to private medical insurance. It is about making sure that the Rudd Labor government do what they can to continue their ideological attack on private health insurance in this country. So, when the member for Dawson and members opposite talk about their great desire to ensure that there is a long-term vision and a responsible policy platform for private health insurance in this country, just think about those key points. It is those points which underscore the coalition not supporting this legislation before the House.

The Rudd Labor government’s moves, through this legislation, will force hundreds of thousands of Australians from private medical insurance into the public system. This is a very real and genuine concern for members of the opposition and is the reason we will not support the short-sighted, politically reckless decision of the Rudd Labor government to change these thresholds.

I live on the Gold Coast. I have the great fortune, together with other members, of representing a city of some 500,000 people. I must say that, had we a great public hospital system, I would be less concerned about the ramifications of this exceptionally short-sighted decision by the Rudd Labor government. But the reality is that, on the Gold Coast, I have seen over the past year or two the very real consequences of a state public health system which, frankly, is absolutely disgraceful. I have read on the front page of my local newspaper, the Gold Coast Bulletin, about women giving birth in hospital storerooms because there are not enough beds for them. I have read how the Gold Coast Hospital is regularly placed on bypass because there is not enough room within the facility and how Gold Coast patients requiring oncology services have to travel up the road to Brisbane. Then we discover that the plan for which the Rudd government likes to claim responsibility will force around 500,000 people from the private system onto the public system. You start to scratch your head and wonder what this government is really up to.

What would motivate the Rudd government to increase the number of people moving from the private system, where they are covered, onto long public hospital queues? What would be the reason the Rudd government would seek to do that? We know that it is about savings but, as I said, it is not about tax savings. If it were about tax savings, the government would not stand up with barefaced hypocrisy and claim on the one hand that they are all about providing tax relief to working Australians through this measure while on the other hand introducing $20 billion of new taxes. When the Labor Party can look the Australian public in the eye and explain why they are prepared to impose $20 billion of taxes on working Australians, claiming to be sincere about this measure, that will be the day the Australian people will start to take them seriously, but that day is a long way away—a very long way away. Those from the Labor Party who have come before the chamber will not be able to address that issue because they are more concerned about the spin and the Rudd Labor government’s need to sell this issue as in some way ensuring that there is a benefit to people when, in reality, the only benefit will be enjoyed by the Rudd government.

When this legislation was initially introduced into this House—let’s call it the surcharge threshold mark 1—we know that the savings to the Rudd government as a result of no longer having to pay the 30 per cent rebate would have amounted to about $959 million. The reduction in revenue was about $660 million, a government saving of some $299.7 million dollars. Under the new legislation—and there has not been a breakdown provided by the government—we expect a government saving of some $354 million as a result of this change to the Medicare threshold. That is what this government is concerned with. That is what motivates the Rudd government to make sure that this legislation is passed. It is not about what is good for working Australians; it is about what is good for the Labor Party, and what is good for the Labor Party is a chance to save $354 million.

It is not only the coalition that has very genuine concerns about the ramifications of this legislation but also various state Labor governments. To cite but one example, during the Senate inquiry into this matter the Western Australian government stated that people dropping insurance would lead to higher hospital operating costs of the magnitude of over $50 million per year. That is just for Western Australia and just for one year—$50 million of additional operating costs. That was the Western Australian Labor government, and the same will apply in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the territories, as those hundreds of thousands of Australians walk away from their private medical insurance to go to the public system. The savings of some $300-odd million will flow to the Rudd government, and all the costs will be picked up by the state Labor governments. Let us not also forget that our brilliant state Labor governments across this country have managed to rack up about $90 billion worth of debt!

At a federal level, the Labor Party likes to claim that it comes to this debate with clean hands. It is happy to thrust the cost of this initiative onto the state Labor governments, which are already carrying a burden of some $90 billion. Today I read with interest that the state debt in New South Wales is growing at $18 million a day—$18 million a day is the legacy of the Labor Party there after being in office for a long, long time. Now we know that the Rudd Labor government is going to put even more people onto the public hospital queues in New South Wales. I say to the people of all the states in this country to dig a little deeper into this legislation and they will find the real motivation of the Labor Party when it comes to why it wants to make these changes to the thresholds. When a Labor member says to them, ‘We are doing this because we believe in tax breaks,’ ask the Labor member, ‘Why are you then imposing $20 billion of new taxes?’ When a Labor Party member says that this is about giving people choice in health, ask them what the 500,000 or so Australians are meant to do that move from the private system onto the queues in the public system. I say to constituents on the Gold Coast that they should come to this debate genuinely concerned about what this change means for the wonderful staff at the Gold Coast Hospital. The staff do a sterling job at that hospital, with very limited resources. They do a sterling job when they are ill equipped by a state government that is completely up to its eyeballs in debt. They do a sterling job when it comes to functioning as a hospital that is so very far below the needs of the region.

I also say to my many constituents who are aged 60 and over that they should be very concerned about the ramifications of this change to the Medicare levy surcharge threshold. The Minister for Health and Ageing has never wanted to address this issue. The question is: what will this change mean for private medical insurance premiums? We have not had a clear answer from the health minister, and I think other members opposite will never address it either. We know from the modelling that the most likely impact of this change is that health insurance premiums will skyrocket. We heard the Labor Party claim before the last federal election that they were concerned about cost-of-living increases. We heard the Minister for Health and Ageing make statements that she was concerned about hefty increases in the premiums for private medical insurance, yet we saw at the beginning of this year a tick and flick by the minister for health for premium increases of around six or seven per cent. We will see, as a direct result of this legislation, private health insurance premium increases of probably around 10 per cent.

We now see a vicious cycle starting. As a result of these changes, private health insurance premiums will increase by around 10 per cent next year. This will lead to a whole new tranche of people who will drop their private medical insurance because they are either unable to continue to afford to pay or without the desire to pay. The government has already conceded that those most likely to drop their private medical cover will be the fit and relatively young—perhaps I should say the young and relatively fit—Australians aged between 18 and 30 or thereabouts. The result is that older Australians, and in particular those in my electorate who rely on private medical insurance so that they are not a burden on the Australian population through the public system, will no longer enjoy the benefits of a very high level of private medical cover.

The coalition have a very proud track record in this area, because we believe in private health insurance. More importantly, we are prepared to stand up for private health insurance. We do not do it at the exclusion of the public system; we do it in addition to support for the public system. That is in stark contrast to the Labor Party, which fundamentally and at its core remains ideologically opposed to private medical insurance. We know there are many members of the government who, if they had the opportunity, would scrap private health insurance or, at least, would do their very best to ensure that private medical insurance was so expensive—with no government subsidy whatsoever—that very few Australians would have it. I recall when I was a teenager the Prime Minister at the time, Paul Keating, standing up and proudly boasting that he and his family did not have private medical cover. How extraordinary that you had a person who, in present day terms, was probably earning around half a million dollars a year proudly boasting that no-one in his family had private medical insurance as if, in some way, any health related costs that he or his family enjoy should rightly be paid for by taxpayers with no contribution coming from those individuals. This is the kind of daft ideology that the Labor Party supports. That is why the former government, this coalition, were committed to doing what they could to reverse the damage done, initially by the Whitlam government but then subsequently by other Labor governments, by ensuring the level of private health insurance coverage was turned around. The Howard government increased coverage by 10.8 per cent so that national coverage increased from 33.9 per cent to 44.7 per cent. In my electorate of Moncrieff, the coverage was even higher. In excess of 50 per cent of individuals in my electorate had private health insurance. They fundamentally believe that there is an important responsibility they have to make a contribution towards their health costs if they can afford to do so.

The coalition government introduced the 30 per cent rebate and rebates at 35 per cent for those aged 65 to 70 and at over 40 per cent for those aged over 70. Lifetime Health Cover and the Medicare levy surcharge were initiatives taken by the coalition to ensure that we did what we could to increase the number of individuals who have private medical insurance. It was built on the fundamental premise that, if you can afford to, it is worth while that you make a significant contribution to the cost of your medical cover. That principle is under direct attack by this government’s changes in this legislation. That is the reason why the coalition will simply not support Labor’s changes here.

As much as this change is dressed up to be about providing tax relief to working Australians, that is simply not believable. How can the government on the one hand claim to be concerned about providing tax relief to working Australians and yet also impose $20 billion of new taxes on those same Australians? It is completely unbelievable and it is completely hypocritical. The sole argument put forward by Labor members opposite—that this is about tax relief—cannot be believed, because the facts do not support their assertion. On the other hand, the coalition’s position is very straightforward.

This is designed to save the Rudd government some $350 million in revenue. This will, based on modelling provided not by the coalition but by the stakeholders themselves, drive 500,000 or so Australians from the private system to the public system. Those people living in my electorate on the Gold Coast and those Australians who have a genuine interest in public health matters would know that the very long public hospital waiting lists—the queues for surgery and the queues for elective surgery—and all of those problems are going to get much worse before they get any better under the Labor government.

Finally, if there is concern, let it not be the concern that I have expressed here today but the concern that has been outlined by those operators in the industry and, importantly, by the state Labor governments, the very real concern about the multimillion-dollar impost these changes will have on the public health system. I say to my pensioners on the Gold Coast, my self-funded retirees and those aged 65 and over: look at this issue with great concern and dig a little deeper than the spin that we hear from the Labor Party about how this is all designed to save them money. If you believe that paying an extra nine or 10 per cent on your health insurance premium is the way to a sustainable health system and if you believe that the way to ensure that we as Australians get better access to health care is to force hundreds of thousands of people from the private system to the public system then you would support this bill. But if you think that is a step in the wrong direction then you will not support this bill. I am certainly proud to be part of the coalition, who remain resolutely and steadfastly opposed to this very short-sighted and bad decision of the Rudd Labor government.

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