Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to oppose the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011 and the cognate bills. The reason is not out of some great ideological preference, although there is clear philosophy behind our position on this, but out of a practical concern for the impact on the cost of living for millions of low-income Australian workers and pensioners, and out of a concern for the long-term sustainability of not just our private health system but also our public health system.

Let me start by setting out the framework of the impacts of these bills on the real world. Let me begin not with any presumptions of the opposition or assertions that others might make but with the hard world of Deloitte's Australian Health Insurance Association study, entitled Economic impact assessment of the proposed reforms to private health insurance, dated 28 April 2011. The first and most significant figure is a simple one, taken from page 1 of the executive summary:

Private health insurance premiums will rise 10 per cent above what would otherwise be expected. As premiums rise, private health cover will become less affordable for all consumers, that is, not just those who are in the tiers.

By 'tiers' they mean those to be affected by the phase-out of the 30 per cent rebate. What is fundamental here is that this bill is not simply a change in the rate of rebate for upper income earners, as has been presented by the government. It is a major change in the cost of private health insurance for all Australians, and that means that low-income earners, pensioners and single-parent families will simply have higher costs. The answer is very simple.

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