Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We will get to that issue, Senator Abetz, but let us look at Lawler electorate. In Lawler, 36.3 per cent of residents have access to this over $3 billion of funds that we are waiting for here. That is the choice that the opposition makes on this issue: their constituents should subsidise the private health insurance of the people in Mr Abbott’s electorate in the northern beaches of Sydney.

I go to the issue that has been raised by Senator Minchin and Senator Abetz: this folly that the government puts forwards that somehow or other the private health insurance rebate has reduced pressure on public hospitals. Where are the facts? Where are the figures? Where are the numbers? Where is the reduction in work being done in public hospitals?