Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to the decision of the previous Labor government to reform and means test the private health insurance rebate, a decision which delivered $100 billion in savings over 40 years. I refer to the Prime Minister's promise before the election to fully restore the private health insurance rebate. Treasurer, will the Intergenerational report reflect the cost of restoring the private health insurance rebate?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, we would love to be able to afford to do so, but you left us with no money. In fact, worse than that, you took away whatever money was there. So we now need to repair the budget mess that you created. We now need to go down the path of making the difficult decisions that Labor failed to take to make sure that Australia can afford its future. Unfortunately, Labor left us with a deficit they said was going to be $18 billion but in fact was $48 billion, and instead of leaving us a budget with surpluses that they not only claimed would be delivered—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield has been warned. That is his last chance.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in fact they claimed they actually had delivered surpluses. They claimed credit for surpluses that were never delivered. And we have to fix the mess. Therefore, there is not all the money there that we would love to deploy for things that would help to sustain and strengthen the medical system, such as investing more in private health insurance. We would love to do that, but we cannot afford to do that. Why? Because of the budget mess we inherited.

The best way to fix that is to start to reduce your spending. As you will see when the Intergenerational report is released tomorrow, we have been able to restrain the extraordinary spending trajectory that was left behind by Labor. We are able to halve its impact on long-term debt, but there is still much work to be done. The second thing in relation to health is we should be welcoming the fact that we are all going to live longer, and that is a great thing. We are about to have an ageing boom, not an ageing bust in Australia—an ageing boom of grand proportions—and we should embrace that and welcome that. But, most importantly with greater longevity, we want to ensure that people have a decent quality of life, that they have decent health care. The things that are going to extend our quality of life, improve our quality of life, include investing in medical research, include the use of new technologies, include—and are embraced by the community—things like preventative medicine, better health care—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We don’t have the money for it! How much are you spending on prevention?

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat will desist. The Treasurer has the call. There will be silence on both sides of the House.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would say to the Labor opposition just this: please do not blame us for the mistakes you made, but let us get on with the job of fixing the mess that you created, because we are absolutely determined to give Australia the very best future that every Australian deserves.