Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2012 debate is important and once again underlines the Gillard Labor government's rank hypocrisy and incompetence. Private health care is a vital service to this nation and something which often fills the void in our public hospital system. Like my coalition colleagues, I am deeply concerned about Labor's attack on private health care. The changes that this bill seeks to enact will affect the Lifetime Health Cover provision, which was enacted by the Howard government 13 years ago. The Lifetime Health Cover is a loading on private health insurance premiums which is applied at a rate of two per cent for every year when someone over the age of 30 years takes out hospital cover. A cap of 70 per cent is applied. It is designed to ensure people take out private health insurance at an early age and maintain their cover.

Presently, the government pays the private health insurance rebate on the value of the total premium paid by the policyholder, including the LHC loading component. A second component of the bill ceases direct claiming of the private health insurance rebate through the Department of Human Services incentives payment scheme. This will take effect on 1 July 2013. The explanatory memorandum states that very few people access the rebate through the scheme and 99.9 per cent of rebate claims are said to be made by way of the premium reduction scheme or through tax offset claiming—that is if you can believe that. The $386.3 million saving from this measure is on top of savings—call it 'cuts'—of $2.8 billion resulting from means-testing changes to the private health insurance rebate implemented on 1 July 2012.

The Howard government sought to ensure that people take out private health care at an early age and maintain their cover; yet the Labor government is seeking to claim the savings announced in the most recent Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook by attacking private health care and those the Lifetime Health Cover sought to benefit. This is after Labor and the Prime Minister herself repeatedly ruled out any changes to the private health insurance rebate. Through announcing these changes and through means-testing, it looks as though private health insurance rebates are another broken promise from this broken Labor government.

We are only debating this today because the government is rushing this legislation through the parliament. Haven't we heard that time and again—Labor rushing legislation through this parliament! This bill was introduced only in the last sitting week. Because of this government's desperation, it has denied the opposition the ability to properly consider the legislation—and obviously that is the tactic of the Gillard Labor government. Here we see, again, the trickery—the smoke and mirrors—the desperation and the deceit of this government. The government is being tricky by introducing this bill in cognate with the bills which were debated last year. It is a swindle—it is a typical Labor swindle.

But this is not anything new to the people of Australia. They know full well the waste, the chaos and the mismanagement which has occupied this government now for 5½ sorry years. They know Labor's economic mismanagement is why it is trying to save money through changing the way private health care works. Again, it is a class warfare attack. We have heard the member for Hotham—indeed, we heard yesterday the member for Batman—talk about the fact that this class warfare has to end.

In short, we are debating this today because the Labor government's mismanagement is such that we are facing a budget emergency. As such, the coalition is very concerned about Labor's latest attempt to recoup that money, including the fact that this change will make private health insurance more expensive for Australians regardless of their age and income. Given the way these changes are set up, the effect will not be felt by individuals, families or the health system until April of next year—well after the 14 September election.

The means-test cutting which this government announced last year has yet to be felt, with around $1.2 billion in prepayments made as people seek to avoid the financial consequences of Labor's means testing of benefits. We are deeply concerned that this bill will add even more complexity to the private healthcare system.

As I said, this all comes after repeated assurances by the Prime Minister and by the government that they would not change the private health insurance rebates. I quote the then health minister, Nicola Roxon, the member for Gellibrand, in The Age newspaper on 24 February 2009 as saying:

The Government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.

This came after a further assurance on Meet the Press on 23 September 2007 that Labor had 'no plans' to change the private health insurance rebate. And as far back as 2 September 2004, the then shadow minister for health and now Prime Minister said that she was 'tired of saying this' when referring to Labor's so-called commitment—its supposed commitment—to the private health insurance rebate. Yeah, right!

In a letter to the editor in The Courier Mail on 23 September 2004, the now Prime Minister said that she had given an ironclad—ironclad! Do you believe that?—guarantee that the private health insurance rebate was to stay under a Labor government. But that iron was not to be. That iron did not even erode, that iron did not even rust; it just broke. It snapped, like many of the promises this broken government has given to the Australian people who, let me tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, deserve better. They deserve a lot better.

An ironclad guarantee made by the shadow minister for health then is now but a savings initiative for this Prime Minister. This is the same Prime Minister who once spoke with great passion about getting a fairer deal for the working families of this country. Yeah, right! These are the same working families that this attack on private health insurance rebates targets the most.

The Prime Minister should well have listened to the former Premier of New South Wales—indeed, a former health minister of New South Wales—Morris Iemma, who once said that by 2030 the incremental increase in health spending in New South Wales would have resulted in the entire New South Wales budget being required to fund health. Morris Iemma, who actually is a good man, was the New South Wales Minister for Health from 2003 to 2005 and the Premier from 2005 to 2008 until, unfortunately, the faceless men of Sussex Street caught up with him. But he is a good man, and it was a good quote and a good comment. The trouble is that by attacking private health it just puts a further strain on the public health purse.

This is the same Prime Minister we now have who, as I said, spoke with great passion when she was in a shadow role but now as Prime Minister is doing nothing but attacking private health and doing nothing but breaking her promise. In my Riverina electorate some 54.5 per cent of my constituents have some form of private health insurance. These constituents form part of the 12.4 million Australians who have private health insurance. These changes that Labor wants to rush through this parliament with indecent haste would seek to make private health care more expensive, more out of reach and more complicated for the 72,583 people in the Riverina who rely on such a scheme to support them in times when they need health care.

These changes will force the majority of my electorate to bear the brunt of Labor's economic mismanagement. I was contacted by many constituents to voice their concerns about these changes. Many of those constituents—the minister at the table, the member for Lindsay, might be interested to know—were once rusted-on Labor supporters, once rusted-on Labor voters, but they know the system is broke, they know the government is broke and they know that unfortunately this country is broke.

A husband and wife from Coolamon, who are self-funded retirees, have been in a private healthcare fund from the ages of 17 and 15 respectively. As with many self-funded retirees, this couple—good people; good, salt of the earth country folk—are concerned about the uncertainty of their future with low interest rates and the impact of the global financial crisis on their nest egg, on their savings. Given that, they say they are very worried about the cost of private health care growing with these changes. And these people are getting older; they are going to need to be calling on their private health care. But they now face the very real prospect that they will not be able to afford it. And why? Because this Labor government is broke and it has sent this country broke.

Given their age, my Coolamon constituents told me they are reluctant to drop out of the scheme as it is something they may soon require. Instead, sacrifices will have to be made in other areas in order to afford the cover they need. But these people are also facing daily struggles with paying the cost of living. Changes to the cost-of-living pressures were brought about by the economic mismanagement of the Labor government. Here is a quote that this fine couple said:

We feel like second class citizens. The government must remember: we are the ones who have worked and helped grow this nation's economy over the last 40 years, but these changes are pricing us out of the market.

The dwindling savings of many self-funded retirees like my constituents are forcing them to reconsider the type of cover they want or if having private health care is affordable at all. Unfortunately, we have gotten to that situation.

My constituents said, 'If too many people can't afford private health, then the strain on the public system will be immense'. Again, I hark back to those wise words of Morris Iemma, those wise words of somebody from old Labor who knew the value of public health spending, who knew the value of private health. He was a good man—he is a good man, Morris Iemma—but unfortunately now he must look with great regret at what is happening in Canberra. He must look with great regret at how the Prime Minister and her Labor government have taken this country down the path of deceit, of sending our country broke and of now making these unnecessary and unaffordable changes for most Australians to the private healthcare system.

'Scaling back our cover or dropping out entirely is a fear we live with,' said my Coolamon constituents. And they are right. They are passionate about their country, like all the good folk of the Riverina, but they want fairness. They want a better deal. They want equity. They are not getting it from Labor. Like many of their generation, my constituents are not looking for a handout. They have worked hard all their lives, and now they just want to enjoy their retirement without the stress and worry of spiralling health costs. They just want to be left alone to do what they want to do in their retirement. This government is just all the time putting its hands in the pockets of my constituents from Coolamon. Putting its hands in the pockets of ordinary everyday Australians; making out as if these people do not deserve something because once upon a time they earned too much money, because once upon a time they saved to provide for themselves in their twilight years. But now we have Labor reaching in like a thief in the night, stealthily reaching into their back pockets and taking the money out while at the same time with its economic incompetence making it so hard for these people with their day-to-day living costs.

The coalition's policy had been helping my constituents enjoy their retirement with the peace and the safeguard of knowledge their health care would be all right when they needed it most. You would have thought, given the repeated assertions by the Prime Minister, by the government, that my constituents had a friend in the Labor Party when it came to private healthcare rebates. But the words 'friend' and 'Labor Party' do not belong in the same sentence. It appears these constituents are just another number in a long line of Australian people who will have to bear the brunt of the absolutely disastrous way the Labor government has run this country. This is why the coalition and I share the concerns of my constituents about the impact these changes to private health insurance will have on the 54½ per cent of the people in the Riverina and around 12.4 million Australians who rely on private health care.

The government has a chance to instil confidence and certainty in these people, who face such an uncertain future under these changes. The government has a chance to make good on repeated assertions that it would retain the private healthcare insurance rebate. But do you think the government will do it? I do not think so. Instead that is why we are having this debate today.

The question remains as to whether they will do it. Like everything else with this Labor government, they will not. They make these changes, they bring them in at the last minute, and who do they hurt? It is the retirees, the people who put away to save money so that they can enjoy a decent and equitable life in their twilight years, who are going to be, unfortunately, calling on that private health insurance. They are getting older, they are joining the grey nomads, they are joining the ageing population. Just at that time, when they need support and help the most, what happens? Labor strips something away from them, forcing the price of groceries up with a carbon tax, forcing the prices of fuel up, and, now, changing private health insurance to make it so much more difficult for my Coolamon constituents and for the 54½ per cent of Riverina people with private health insurance who I represent.

Many of them, Minister, member for Capricornia, who are sitting up the back, used to be rusted-on Labor supporters. But they continually ring my office and say: 'What the hell is going on? I've voted Labor all my life but let me tell you: I can't wait for 14 September. I can't wait to cast my vote for the first time ever for the coalition. I can't believe I'm doing it but I'm going to have to do it because of the changes that this government has brought in.'

This is the latest in a long line of eleventh-hour changes that this Labor government is trying to rush through this parliament—as it has done with everything else. All the time they are hurting Australians, particularly regional Australians, who do it tough enough as it is without having this government once again, like thieves in the night, putting their hand in the back pocket of good, hardworking, decent, tax-paying Australians and taking their money away from them.

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