Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a privilege to be able to speak on this important legislation, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Income Thresholds) Bill 2021, around the indexation of thresholds for private health insurance. I say that because of course private health insurance is an integral part of our health system.

Members on the other side of the chamber have always had a crusade. They've wanted to destroy private health insurance because it gives everything they don't want Australians to have: empowerment—freedom to make choices and to determine their own destiny as to their own health care. What the Labor Party has always wanted for Australians is a sense of conformity, where they go into a system and are dictated to and have choice removed. Of course, in the end, we know what happens with that: you get conformity through poverty and through their concept of equality, which only amounts to poor standards and outcomes.

Private health insurance is actually about freeing up capital. It's about encouraging people to be able to make choices about their health care and to make informed decisions. And, of course, if they don't like the state system that is imposed upon them then they have an alternative.

There's a long history of this in this country. Australians forget that private health and mutualism were at the heart of our health system for most of modern Australia. People got together—they collaborated through mutuals or insurance pools—to provide assistance to each other and to manage out risk. That system of course delivered quality health care based on choice and ensured that Australians understood the importance of health care but also that health care costs. Of course, as soon as you push that cost further away, the obligations and the sense of responsibility people have to it diminishes.

That's very different to the situation in the Goldstein electorate. In fact, the Goldstein electorate has more private health insurance policies than it does enrolled voters. That has a lot of to do with the fact that we have a lot of international visitors or permanent residents who live in the electorate for professional reasons and the like. We are very proud of our commitment to private health insurance. We have exceptional private hospitals and exceptional standards of quality of care, because Goldstein residents understand that, if you want health care that reflects all stages of life—without a race to the bottom, as the Labor Party would have—a private health system not only allows them to have it but also frees up resources in the public system to improve outcomes for the rest of the community.

Of course, there is no time more critical to talk about the necessity of quality health care than right now. I say to all my fellow Victorians how distressing it is that we've witnessed another lockdown in the great state of Victoria. We of course had a number last year, particularly the very long one which led to people being locked down in their homes for many months—and the human toll that took both in terms of physical health and mental health—and people not being able to live out their lives as usual. Through the great endeavours and effort of Victorians over a prolonged period of time, we got to a situation where we were able to eradicate COVID-19. Despite the constant celebrations of members opposite that they somehow claim this is a victory for the Victorian government, it was not; it was a victory for the people of Victoria and their sacrifice—not just to protect themselves and their families, though they did, not just to protect their communities, though they did, and not just to protect their fellow citizens in the state of the Victoria, though they did, but also to protect the entire Australian community so that they didn't have to go through similar measures. And we continue to be in a situation where Australia largely has been COVID free throughout most of this pandemic.

The 25 cases and the multiple exposure sites in Victoria now bring back, I suspect, for many people a form of PTSD, back to that lockdown period, and a fear about where we are heading and the measures that will be taken. That's justified, because people went through an arduous and difficult time last year. If it's repeated, even if its for a short period, as we had in March, it again raises questions about the measures that are being taken by the state government, their efficacy for things like hotel quarantine and whether it's viable et cetera.

But I see what the members of opposition have been complaining about in this discussion around health, which is that they think that the current outbreak in Victoria is somehow the consequence of the Commonwealth. I'm not disputing that acting state Premier Merlino wants to attack the federal government to avoid responsibility, and I understand that the opposition want to focus their energies on the Commonwealth and somehow blame us for what is happening in Victoria—and, of course, they're free to engage in their shrill and hysterical commentary as they see fit. But the reality is, as the member for Oxley mentioned, that three million doses of the vaccine have been spread out in the community.

Of course, we want more Australians to get vaccinated. Make no mistake: whether in Victoria or any other state in the Commonwealth, you have a responsibility not just to yourself but also to your fellow citizens to get vaccinated because, if you do not, we risk losing every single gain we have had and put your family members and friends at risk. Yesterday we had more than 104,000 doses administered. There was always going to a build-up to mass vaccination. Now we're very clearly, at 100,000 a day, driving an agenda for vaccinations across the community.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't problems. I just got an SMS from a constituent talking about the fact that there are people being turned away from vaccination hubs in Sandown in Victoria. You just need to read the press to and see how a sick Melbourne boy was turned away, I understand, seven times from testing yesterday at a state government testing facility. In fact, there were reports yesterday that many people got turned away at 4.30 in the afternoon—so still within the working day. People finished work, they took their responsibility seriously and they went off to get tested at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne and they got turned away because they found the testing centre was closed—the one run by the Victorian state government. This is farcical that that scenario has presented itself. Is it really too much to expect that testing centres are available and open to the community, understanding simple things like their need to go to work? People will be working increasingly from home over the coming week as we go into a seven-day lockdown, so that flexibility will be freed up. But surely someone in the Victorian Department of Health could have said, in the lead-up to yesterday afternoon, why don't we keep the mass testing and vaccination centres that are available open because we've just announced a number of cases, and Victorians might need to either get vaccinated or tested to fulfil their responsibility? It defies belief. But somehow, according to members of the opposition, that is the Commonwealth's fault.

One of our biggest challenges, one of our biggest tasks, and it doesn't matter who we are, whatever side of the chamber we sit on or within the rest of the community, is to take responsibility for encouraging people to get vaccinated. Deputy Speaker Gillespie, you would have seen the data from research that came out only the other day on the reasons for hesitancy among the community. We as the Liberal government are not in favour of forcing things into people's bodies and compelling people to do things against their will; certainly I'm not, as the member for Goldstein, as members well know. It's simple to go and look at why are Australians hesitant about the vaccine? Fifty per cent of people are afraid of the side effects and there was concern that emerged out of the AstraZeneca vaccine earlier the year. But we also need to be realists that the risks of COVID-19, the spread and the health consequences that could come directly from that far outweigh any risk that Australians may experience from the potential side effects—which, by the way, are treatable—from taking a particular vaccine and particularly the AstraZeneca vaccine. The federal government has gone on to order substantial amounts of the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine booster so those who need additional assistance can get it and to make sure that people across different age and risk profiles can get a vaccine that's appropriate for them. But our responsibility is not, as the members of the opposition want to do, to constantly deride, attack, undermine, ridicule, and as the Prime Minister accurately reported yesterday, not focus on fighting the virus but focus on fighting the government, who are trying to get Australians vaccinated. It is actually to focus on: what do we need to do to get Australians vaccinated? That's where this government is and remains, while the opposition's position is to focus on trying to attack the government and fight the government.

In the end, we're in one of these kind of 'team Australia' moments and certainly in a 'team Victoria' moment, where we need to rally together and work together in the hope that we can eliminate this, not just for the impact and success of the great state of Victoria but, frankly, for the rest of the nation, because, if there is mass exposure in Victoria, it will necessarily follow through to the rest of the country. But instead, what we're hearing from the opposition is simply a partisan Labor moment, where they're interested in arguing for themselves. That's incredibly dispiriting and disappointing because the people of Victoria, frankly, deserve better than that, and the people of Australia deserve better than that.

What we need is a health system that makes sure it can protect and support people at times of risk and need. We have complications at the state level. As I said, you have people being turned away from vaccination and testing centres in the state of Victoria despite their desperate efforts to do the right thing. We have Australians who are hesitant about the vaccine and the risks they feel to their health, and our job as leaders is surely to reassure them and to encourage them to take that responsibility. My hope is that Labor members might for once transcend their desperate attempt at partisan rhetoric and focus on the mutual good of the Commonwealth and actually improve the health and welfare of the Australian community.

We know, of course, that has been something that has deprived them to date. We now face a choice and a moment, and we are at a critical moment not just for Victoria but for the Commonwealth: if we want to keep Australia COVID-free and reduce our exposure to the risks of the virus and the risks of transmission, members of the opposition will stand and support the government in its measures to do everything it can to get Australians vaccinated, and every alternative is merely partisan rhetoric and interest paraded as public interest.

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