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

Mr Speaker, I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately:

That this House calls on the Prime Minister to explain why she has broken yet another commitment to the Australian people when she said that Labor was committed to maintaining the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate and in particular why:

(1) the Prime Minister is forcing six million customers to drop or downgrade their private health insurance cover by forcing up premium costs;

(2) in the face of rising cost of living pressures, the Prime Minister is adding over 10 per cent to the cost of premiums;

(3) the Prime Minister is not telling the truth when she says that this is about targeting rich people when half of all people with private health insurance earn less than $50,000 per year and over three million earn less than $35,000 per year;

(4) the Prime Minister is pretending that cuts to the private health insurance rebate will be good for the public health system when it will mean over 845,000 new procedures will be forced onto public hospital waiting lists that are already under pressure at a cost of $3.8 billion; and

(5) the Prime Minister is playing the class war card in a desperate attempt to fix Budget black holes brought about by waste and mismanagement.

Standing orders must be suspended because nothing is more important than securing the integrity of government and nothing is more important than protecting Australian families from yet another Gillard government rip-off. This is a government, and this is a Prime Minister, which has broken commitment after commitment, and now another commitment is going down the drain. This is why standing orders have to be suspended. We have had a string of them. We have had the broken promise to the member for Denison and we have had the broken promise on gay marriage. We have had, notoriously, the broken promise on the carbon tax and now we have—this is why standing orders must be suspended—the broken promise on private health insurance. The former Prime Minister wrote just before the 2007 election:

Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.

This is why standing orders must be suspended. The former Minister for Health and Ageing, before the 2007 election, said on many occasions:

Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing private health insurance rebates.

This is why standing orders must be suspended. Finally, the Prime Minister herself has said:

Your correspondent should have no concern that Labor will erode—

mark that word—

or abolish the 30 per cent rebate on private health insurance. Labor is committed to the maintenance of this rebate and I have given an ironclad guarantee of this on a number of occasions.

This is why standing orders need to be suspended. What is her excuse? Her excuse is, 'Oh, there was an election.' What she is trying to avoid is the fact that the government tried to break this commitment almost as soon as it was elected. This is why standing orders need to be suspended now.

In the last parliament there were some courageous Independents in the Senate who kept the government honest. I say—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—let the Independents in this parliament be just as honest as the Independents in the last parliament. That is the job of Independent members of parliament—to keep the government honest, not to allow the government to be dishonest. On the subject of Independents, I have a quote here describing the means testing of the private health insurance rebate as 'one of the most retrograde pieces of legislation that I have ever seen'. You might recognise that statement, Mr Speaker, because it is a statement of yours. This is why it is so important that standing orders should be suspended—so that the parliament can debate the importance of keeping governments honest and keeping families decently, not abusing them with yet another Gillard government rip-off. Standing orders ought to be suspended because the forgotten families of Australia have already suffered abundantly at the hands of this government. Look at the way prices have gone up since late 2007: power prices up 50 per cent, gas prices up 29 per cent, water prices up 46 per cent, health costs up 20 per cent, education costs up 24 per cent, rent 21 per cent, and we all know that interest rate rises under this government—and they are happening again—have added hundreds of dollars a month to the cost of mortgage repayments. And the carbon tax is coming. We all know the carbon tax is coming and that it will do such terrible damage to the families and industries of this country. And now yet another hit on the forgotten families of Australia. This is why standing orders must be suspended.

Two-and-a-half million people, who should have been able to believe this Prime Minister and this government, are to be ripped off. This parliament, and you included, Mr Speaker, has a heavy responsibility to keep this government honest. Every single member of this parliament has a responsibility to keep this government honest, to stop the 10 per cent rise in premiums that will take place if this goes through, to stop the hit on 3½ million people earning $35,000 a year or less, to stop the hit on the public hospital system that will have to do 845,000 more procedures as people abandon their private health insurance. It is a $3.8 billion hit on the public hospital system as a result of this Prime Minister's health tax.

This is why standing orders need to be suspended. We heard the Minister for Health in question time today talking about superclinics and nurses. Not a single dollar is going to be invested in the public health system as a result of this change. The reason why this government is slugging the families of Australia is that it will not tackle its own waste, because it is chronically incapable of tackling the waste, the mismanagement and the extravagance for which it has become a notorious byword. This is all about 'bodgying up' a surplus. That is what it is about. It is not about health. It is making up for the repeated waste, incompetence and dishonesty of this government. That is what it is all about.

What is at the heart of so much of what the government do? They hate people to succeed. That is why standing orders must be suspended. They hate success. They do not like people to succeed and, if people do succeed, they hit them. They hit them with the baby bonus means test that they promised was never going to happen but which happened. They hit them with the family tax benefit means test, which they said would never happen but which happened. They are hitting them, or about to hit them, with cuts to private schools. Mark my words; this is the next hit on the aspirational classes of Australia and it is coming like a steam train from this fundamentally dishonest and incompetent government.

Today—and this is why standing orders must be suspended—it is the private health insurance rebate promise that they are breaking. The politics of envy, the politics of the class war, belong back in the 1970s and the 1980s. Isn't it interesting that it should be trotted out again by this Prime Minister who, let's face it, when she is under pressure, goes back to her days as convenor of the Socialist Forum, the old Australian union of activists? She cannot help herself. That is what she comes out with whenever she is under pressure.

Make no mistake about this: this is just the beginning of the assault on private health insurance. This is just another foretaste of the assault on aspiration, of the assault on people who want to get ahead, that we will see from this government. This attack on the universality of the private health insurance rebate foreshadows—if the government's logic is to be believed—an attack on the universality of Medicare. That is what they will be calling 'middle class welfare' next. I predict that this Prime Minister will at some stage in the next few days come to the dispatch box and say, 'There will be no further changes to private health insurance under the government I lead.' She will be a liar if she says that. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition seconded?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion. If anybody needed any reassurance that this government is built on a lie, then they should look no further than this latest betrayal of the Australian people. This government went to the 2007 election saying to the Australian people that under no circumstances would it introduce this change. In question time today, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health tried to say to us that somehow they sought a mandate in 2010 for this change of position. But have a look at the time line and you get an understanding of the depth of betrayal that this government has undertaken on the Australian people.

This is a government that in February 2009 said to the Australian people that this rebate was not going to be modified at all. That was before the 2010 election, Minister Plibersek. This was not a mandate that you sought at the 2010 election. You went with a lie to the Australian people in the 2007 election and you betrayed that by the time of February, March, April and May of 2009. This is a government that did not seek a mandate for a change of policy in 2010. We should put a stop to that lie and that latest betrayal right here and right now.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am uncomfortable with the use of the term 'lie'. The honourable member would assist the chair if he withdrew it.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Speaker. Their record speaks for itself. This is a Prime Minister who, as we said in question time today, made a commitment to the Australian people that this change—this so-called reform—would not be introduced. This is a government which has tried to portray private health insurance in this country as some sort of playground for the rich. When you look at the facts, however, nothing could be further from the truth. We know that in this country almost half the population has private health insurance. We know that, of those people, about five million are on incomes of less than $50,000 per annum. We know that a million people who have private health insurance are on incomes of less than $25,000 per year. These are people who will be affected by these changes.

This government goes around—and of course you cannot rely on any figures that they put into the public debate—saying that, of the 11 million Australians who have private health insurance, about 30,000 will drop out as a result of this change. Does anybody believe for a moment, knowing the track record of this government, that those numbers will hold up? You are going to rip $2 billion—or $2.4 billion, depending on their estimates—out of private health insurance in this country and somehow only 30,000 out of the 11 million people with private health insurance are going to withdraw. It is an absolute nonsense and I do not think anybody should believe those figures.

The government's own insurer, Medibank, estimates that it alone will lose many thousands more than that figure of 30,000. HBF, the biggest provider in Western Australia, say that, just in WA, 208,000 people—or 23 per cent of their members—stand to lose all or part of their rebates. These people are not rich. These are people who are struggling with all of the cost-of-living pressures which have been heaped on them by the Labor government over the last four years. So, yes, this government has been coming into this place telling untruths about the figures—about how much impact there will be on the private health insurers and on those people with private health insurance in this country.

The other issue people need to be made aware of is that, when people flee private health insurance or when they downgrade their cover, those people are going to end up in the public system. We have a universal system in this country. People can turn up to a public hospital without charge to themselves—the taxpayer picks up the bill. Those people coming out of the private health system will put extra pressure on the public system. The people who are already waiting hours and hours in emergency departments right now will know that that situation is only going to get worse under this Prime Minister.

I do not think that this government can be believed about the impact of this change over the short term, let alone the longer term. I think that is why standing orders need to be suspended—because this Prime Minister needs to come into this place and explain to the Australian people why she misled them at the last election and why she has continued to mislead them every day since. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would remind the member, for next time, that he ought to more closely address the actual motion before the chair.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion before the chair is yet again for a suspension of standing orders—the 38th time in the 43rd parliament that we have had question time disrupted in order to hear those opposite essentially have a dummy spit about the fact that they are still on that side of the House. Ever since August 2010 we have had the longest dummy spit in Australian political history.

We should not suspend standing orders to accommodate such a dummy spit. We have important business before the House. In total, more than 10 question times have now been lost as a result of these suspension motions. Time after time, those opposite have moved these suspension motions without building any case whatsoever. In this particular case, the PHI legislation is actually before the parliament. So what they are saying is, 'Suspend standing orders and stop the debate on private health insurance so we can have a debate on private health insurance.' How absurd. For that reason alone we should reject this motion to suspend standing orders.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke about class war. This is a guy who has declared class war on working families on behalf of Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart. This is an opposition which comes in here day after day to defend the entrenchment of privilege rather than promote the enhancement of opportunity. Day after day, issue after issue, you can see it. It comes from their guts—and I will come back to that term later. In their guts, they defend the entrenchment of privilege—because it is all about who they are, where they have come from and where they want to stay. They have a born-to-rule attitude, which is why we see these dummy spits time after time—always defending the top end of town.

I am not surprised they want to suspend standing orders rather than have question time. No matter what issue you look at, they are out of touch. Look at the issue of the banks. The shadow Treasurer had an absolute shocker last week and I would have thought it had to get better this week. But today he said, 'If the banks are under funding pressures, if you look at their funding profiles and if you speak to people in markets, you can get a feel for what is happening.' That is what he is saying today. He is out there defending the banks for putting up their interest rates last Friday. Over the weekend he was complaining, but today we get the opposite.

That is the position that they have had. The shadow Treasurer, the shadow finance minister and the Leader of the Opposition have been all over the shop on all of these issues. And yet the Leader of the Opposition has the hide to come in here and speak about honesty and trust. Indeed the suspension motion they have moved here today would go to that. This is a guy who said, in a speech to the Sydney Institute:

One man's lie is another's judgment call.

That was his position on 5 June 2007. In September 2003, he told the Herald:

… there are some things the public has no particular right to know.

Of course we know that in May 2010 he said this:

… sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.

That is what he had to say, in his own words—do not believe him unless it is written down, unless it is scripted.

There are some big debates before the nation—there is one about a return to surplus, and one about fairness and opportunity. Those opposite, who speak about truth, said during this debate that 3.5 million Australians earning under $35,000 a year would be impacted by the legislation before the House. They know that is not true.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I counsel the Leader of the House that the question before the chair is that the motion be agreed to. I draw him back to the motion to suspend the standing and sessional orders.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, Mr Speaker—the reason we should not suspend standing orders is that in order to receive no support as result of these changes a single person has to earn above $124,000 a year and for a couple it is $248,000 a year. If we do not have a suspension of standing orders, we can get all those facts out there, with the scare campaign ending. Those opposite do not want members of this House to have an opportunity to debate these issues in full, in substance, because they always lose debates of substance. Those opposite are just reduced to saying no to absolutely everything—unless it is something to help the big end of town, in which case they say, 'Yes; how high can we jump?' That is the position they take.

We have a debate here about manufacturing. There were two or three questions about the economy today before those opposite got back in the gutter, which is the place they are most comfortable. The facts are that between 1996 and 2007, under the former government, manufacturing's share of GDP fell from 11.5 to 9.4 per cent—nearly a fifth. Its share of total employment declined from 12.8 to 9.9 per cent—from one in eight workers to less than one in 10 workers. They would have you believe that companies seeking to go offshore is a new phenomenon, but the former Prime Minister was happy to open the offshoring of Australian jobs. At the opening of BlueScope Steel in Vietnam, on 20 November 2006, he said it was a happy occasion, he hoped the company did well and hoped it made lots of money, paid taxes, as it would, repatriated money back to Australia and employed lots of Vietnamese people. That is what he had to say when he was opening a facility that would take jobs offshore from Australia.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will return to the substance of the motion.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, those opposite want to suspend standing orders so they can have more yelling, more rhetoric—but not debate of issues of substance. They oppose absolutely everything, which is why they engage in this behaviour. Because of their $70 billion black hole, they will not even repeal the means test. They say we should suspend standing orders to debate these issues but they will not even regard the issue as significant enough to commit to repeal the changes that are in the legislation. They cannot, because if they did that the $70 billion black hole would just get bigger and bigger and bigger. That is why they are reduced to this negativity. That is why the opposition leader defined himself, when he became opposition leader, as follows:

The job of the opposition is to be an alternative, not an echo; to provide a choice, not a copy.

I thought to myself that that was a bit familiar. I know I have likened the Leader of the Opposition to Barry Goldwater, and Barry Goldwater said this when he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination:

I will offer a choice, not an echo.

That was on 3 January 1964. The Leader of the Opposition has modelled himself on Barry Goldwater, which is why 'In your guts, you know he's nuts' is so appropriate for this Leader of the Opposition.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader will return to the motion under discussion.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, he has modelled himself on Barry Goldwater because—

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the House should withdraw that comment. It is totally unparliamentary to refer to people with mental health problems like that.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the honourable member state what he considers unparliamentary?

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Using the term he has, about being nuts.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would immensely assist the chair if the Leader would withdraw.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I was just quoting Democrat Barry Goldwater, who he has modelled himself on.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader will withdraw.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure what I am withdrawing, Mr Speaker, but in deference to you I will withdraw.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader will withdraw absolutely, without the words 'in deference to you'.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Speaker. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition for the suspension of standing and sessional orders be agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.