Kay Elson (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister outline to the House measures that the government is taking to make private health insurance a better product? How committed is the government to the private health insurance system and how does this benefit my electorate of Forde? Also, is the minister aware of any criticism of the health system, in particular the private health insurance rebate, and what is the government’s response?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for her question. I appreciate her strong support for the health professionals in her area, many of whom require the private health insurance system to sustain them. Let me make it clear to the House, including the member for Forde, that support for private health insurance remains one of the signature policies of the Howard government. Thanks to these policies, particularly the private health insurance rebate, private health cover has grown from just 30 per cent to some 43 per cent of the population. That means than nine million Australians, including 40,000 people in the electorate of Forde, now enjoy the security and choice given to them by private cover. Next year the government will make a good product even better by allowing the funds to extend their basic tables to cover treatments that will reduce or avoid the need for hospitalisation.

Despite the obvious success of our private health insurance system, members opposite still want to rip the guts out of it. They hate private health insurance. They particularly hate the private health insurance rebate, which the Leader of the Opposition once described as an extraordinarily bad piece of public policy which, in his words, ‘reinforced failure’. Then we have the member for Perth, who described the rebate as ‘a public policy crime’. At the last election, members opposite said they would keep the rebate. But we know that they had a secret plan to destroy it. The former Leader of the Opposition, in his celebrated diaries, said that Medicare Gold was ‘my plan for killing the private health insurance rebate’.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this really necessary?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. He will not debate the point of order. The honourable the minister is in order. I call the minister.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know why the member for Grayndler does not like the diaries—because of what Mark Latham said about the member for Grayndler. Mark Latham said:

Medicare Gold was part of my plan for killing the private health insurance rebate ... It required a lot of work to model the private health insurance applications and to secure the cooperation of the states, all handled by Gillard.

This week, the member for Lalor said again that she actually supported the private health insurance rebate. But, given Labor’s history of duplicity on this subject, you cannot take her assurances at face value. We know from what she said this week that she hates private health insurance.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lalor is on very thin ice.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She is still a socialist at heart, and she wants to turn Medibank Private into Medibank Public. That is what she wants to do. It is now up to the Leader of the Opposition to say exactly where he stands on private health insurance. In particular, will he keep the rebate and will he give an undertaking not to means test it or otherwise limit it? If he will not do that, the Howard government is not only the best friend that Medicare has ever had but the only friend that private health insurance has ever had.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Owens interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Parramatta is warned!