Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 before the House is not a health bill at all. It is not concerned with providing health services to the people of Australia. The reality is this is actually a Treasury bill. It is concerned with an illegitimate government and its dodgy smoke and mirrors budget. It actually should be being presented by the Treasurer, certainly not the Minister for Health, and we should be discussing the $386 million that the government is planning to claw back out of the hands of those Australians who take responsibility, who are directly concerned with their health and who invest in their own health. However, since the Labor government is prepared to use this duplicitous manner, we will discuss the impacts of this measure on the health of the Australian people.

The bill amends the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to remove the private health insurance rebate from the lifetime health cover loading. We should take note that the explanatory memoranda of the bill trumpets it proudly that the intention of this bill is to ensure that all recipients of the income-tested rebate receive a comparable benefit relative to their premium cost disregarding any lifetime health cover loading that applies. This statement, I believe, could be straight from the lines of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister. It is a Labor government sugar coated spin—one thing we are used to—way of telling us that this government is actually slashing the rebate received by private health insurance holders—ordinary Australians.

The government is actually trying to convince private health insurance holders that they will be better off when they say that all recipients of the income tested rebate receive a comparable benefit relative to their premium costs. The reality is far different. For Australians who did not take out private health insurance before their 31st birthday and who will therefore have to pay the additional fee imposed, the lifetime health cover loading cost will not be rebated. This means a reduced rebate for the consumer whose private health insurance will actually cost them far more. In fact, it is reported it will increase premiums from 10 to 27.5 per cent on July 2013, directly affecting—as we know—lower-income Australians and the 67,396 with private health cover in my electorate of Forrest.

Of course it is going to be the government that makes the most money out of this deal, not the Australian citizen, yet the government has the dreadful gall to hide this fact in what is deceptive prose. It might be argued by those opposite that it improves the incentive to take up private health cover but in reality this is again—as we are used to with this government—a spurious and misleading argument. It implies that there is not a sufficient incentive now to take out private health insurance.

Debate interrupted.

See this speech in context