Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is it vital that parliament pass the government’s legislation reforming the private health insurance rebate and Medicare levy surcharge?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for his question. The government is committed to returning the budget to surplus as quickly as possible and to paying down debt. As a result of the global financial crisis having a very severe impact upon the budget, the government has to make tough decisions with respect to the budget position. Indeed, in the 2009 budget we did make tough decisions. Some of the critical tough decisions were application of a means test to the private health insurance rebate and an accompanying reform of the structure of the Medicare levy surcharge. These changes produced an estimated saving over the forward estimates of almost $2 billion and a saving for the budget over a period 10 years of just under $10 billion. Treasury modelling indicated that the net impact of these changes on the take-up of private health insurance would be very limited. They would be very, very marginal. They would mean that I would pay more and that people on incomes like mine would pay more for private health insurance. But I am afraid I do not see the logic of why ordinary working people on 50 or 60 grand a year should have their taxes paying subsidies to my private health insurance when many of those same working people cannot afford private health insurance for themselves. I do not see the logic of that.

The conservative parties—the Liberal Party and the National Party—are blocking these savings in the Senate. They are now facing the second attempt by the government to get these changes through the Senate and they are continuing to play games, trying to avoid the issue but, in effect, blocking these changes in the Senate.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will resume his seat. The House will listen quietly to the minister’s response.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the opposition is doing is protecting subsidies for higher income earners, doing great damage to the government’s budget settings at the same time as claiming that they would be more fiscally responsible—they would have lower deficits—than the government. Yet the impact of their position would be to add $10 billion to the government’s debt.

There has been one small glimmer of hope in this whole affair, and that is my opposite number, Senator Barnaby Joyce, the shadow finance minister, who on 12 January indicated that he was prepared to consider supporting the government’s position. Unfortunately, his view did not last very long and a few weeks later he indicated that he had retreated from that position. Over the past week or so, Senator Joyce has gone very quiet. I saw him on Q&A Monday last week and we have barely heard from him since; I am worried something has happened to him. I am worried he has been got at or something. I am concerned he might have been abducted by aliens or something! There is a real worry about whether Senator Joyce is now going to have an independent view on anything. He has made a career out of his alleged independent view on things; I would like to see him step back up to the plate on this issue and adopt the fiscally responsible position to move beyond the stream of consciousness stuff that we have had from him to adopting a fiscally responsible position that will assist the government to return the budget to surplus and to pay down debt.

It would appear that the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, has finally caught up with the shadow finance minister. He has gagged him, he has bound him and he has sat him in the corner, and now the shadow finance minister cannot express a genuine view. I have a message for the opposition: the task of getting the budget back to surplus is a fundamental priority for the government and, instead of claiming that, were you the government, you would actually get the budget back into surplus quicker, how about you behave in accordance with that as an opposition now? All we get is the bloviating from the giant windbags like the member for North Sydney, but they do the opposite in practice. So it is now time for the big test in the Senate: are you going to support the government’s efforts to return the budget to surplus or are you going to support ordinary working people paying subsidies for millionaires’ private health insurance?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will refer his remarks through the chair.