Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

That was an embarrassing spray from the shadow minister, who has been unable to get a question asked about a substantive matter in health since he became the shadow minister, and he certainly has not bothered to have any asked since the budget. I am sure that on a day like today the shadow minister was pleased that he had the opportunity to debate something that should have been a serious issue for this parliament. But instead we have had the shadow minister speak for 15 minutes on a matter of public importance, which was allegedly about private health insurance, and for the entire 15 minutes he did not bother to mention the eight million people who will continue to receive the full 30, 35 and 40 per cent rebates—the low-and middle-income earners who we agree need assistance. In these difficult financial circumstances it is particularly the low- and middle-income earners who might be making decisions to drop their private health insurance. He did not mention once that those people are going to continue to have the support of the government and that those people are in fact, in the difficult financial circumstances that we are in globally, the very people that we should prioritise.

I cannot sit here and have the shadow minister shed crocodile tears over people who are on very low incomes, scaring them that something is going to happen to their private health insurance, when in fact what the Liberal Party is trying to do is ask those very people to pay for the private health insurance of people who are better off—to pay for the member opposite’s private health insurance rebate and to pay for my private health insurance rebate. I do not expect people on low incomes to help fund my private health insurance. I do not think it is sustainable for the Liberal Party to act under the pretence of this being some massive attack on private health rather than a sensible and targeted change that is needed in these difficult financial circumstances. I do not think you can actually take the member seriously when he says he is worried about those people on low incomes.

I also cannot sit here and have the shadow minister cry crocodile tears over the issue of our public hospitals. You have to have a fair amount of gall to have been part of the previous government, part of the previous cabinet—oh, no, he was not in the cabinet—who pulled a billion dollars out of our public hospitals, happily washed their hands of it, blamed everything that went wrong on the states and were not a partner in trying to fix the system, and then expect us to have fixed every single problem after we have been in government for five minutes.

He wants to verbal the Prime Minister and me about the promises that were made, but our promises were very clear and we stand by them. We are going to make an assessment in the middle of this year of whether or not the Commonwealth should take over financial responsibility for hospitals. In making that assessment, we are going to look at the final report from the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the progress that has been made with our state and territory governments.

It does not serve our debate about health well to have the shadow minister constantly talking down the system, saying that things have got worse and ignoring that some of the indicators are improving. The truth of the matter is that the biggest indicator that is improving is the Commonwealth’s investment in a partnership with the states and territories. Of course, that investment will take time to start showing, but we have seen the things that we can measure quickly, like our investments in elective surgery, far exceed our targets. We have seen the states sign on to agreements for quite significant reform. We are seeing change. We are seeing emergency departments being rebuilt across the country. We are seeing new elective surgeries—I opened one fairly recently here in the ACT—with money from the Commonwealth that the previous government was never prepared to invest in the system.

If we are going to have a fair dinkum debate about private health insurance, that is fine—let’s have a debate. Let’s have a debate about whether or not somebody earning over $120,000 a year needs to have Commonwealth assistance via the rebate, paid for by the taxpayers—

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