David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

These figures—and I am quoting directly from the budget, so I don't know if the member for Shortland has a different interpretation on numbers which are factual—are a very significant increase in health expenditure. The changes in this bill are a part of that sensible approach to health expenditure. The freezing of the indexation in relation to the private health insurance rebate and related matters will assist in addressing some of those broader budget challenges whilst at the same time being part of an overall approach to the health area of government policy, where health expenditure continues to increase—going up, not down—on an annual basis every year. That is a very important point to note.

What we cannot and will never do as a government is go into that intellectually dishonest and lazy place of putting out press releases, saying there are going to be surpluses and not doing the hard work to actually make them happen. That is not what this government are about. We are about sensible and methodical planning and a part of that is sensible planning which enables continuing investment in health services.

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