Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011. The 'fairer' component of the title should be well and truly removed. I raise serious concerns about the grave impact these changes will have on our public health system, in my electorate and around Australia. The public health system is already significantly overstretched. As result of the introduction of private health insurance rebates, the Medicare levy surcharge and lifetime health cover under previous coalition governments, private health insurance coverage increased significantly, from 34 per cent in 1996 to 44 per cent in 2007. There is no doubt that this current initiative is a blatant cost-shifting measure, shifting costs from the Commonwealth to the states' public system, and again I suppose it shows just what a financially fragile position the government has put this country in.

This is the third time that the parliament has had to consider this legislation. It was introduced in the last parliament and in explicit promises in the lead-up to the 2007 election—cast-iron promises, or cast aluminium promises—federal Labor made it crystal clear that they were committed to retaining all existing private health insurance rebates. That was in a media release by the then health minister, Nicola Roxon, in September 2007. Frankly, the government has squandered a lot by incompetently managing initiatives such as the $2.5 billion home insulation scheme, which tragically cost the life of a young lad in my region. The National Broadband Network is costing $43 billion, and it is still ratcheting up. Then there is the $886 million blowout to pay for the government's failed border protection policy—and that is still going up; I think it is over $1 billion now.

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