Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

They are very sensitive on that side about this because they know they are wrong. Here they are, with a broken promise that will push up the cost of private health insurance for at least 2.3 million Australians by between 14.3 and 66.7 per cent. Senator Hurley was trying to say that this was wrong. But she knew it was not wrong. She was so keen to rush to a quick inquiry before the relevant Hansards were even available from Senate estimates; she was so keen to rush to an inquiry even before the Treasury evidence and the health department evidence was available. She would not have had a chance to review what Treasury had said in evidence at estimates. It was Treasury who said that the cost of health insurance would go up by up to 66.7 per cent for those Australians as a direct result of the Rudd government’s broken promise on private health insurance rebates.

That is only one issue. There are many other issues. Health and Treasury also made it very clear that they still expected about half a million fewer Australians to be in private health insurance as a result of last year’s measure on Medicare levy surcharge thresholds. There is going to be a huge impact on our public hospital system; it is going to be terrible news for the health system. It is something that deserves a proper inquiry by the Senate, and it is a proper inquiry that this government was trying to avoid. They were tricky; they were trying to go through a rushed process before any of the stakeholders had a proper opportunity to prepare themselves, to put proper submissions forward. They were trying to get this thing out of the way before the Senate had an opportunity to express a view. I am stunned that government senators would even bring this up again, because they had the good sense earlier in the week to roll over and not resist the reference by the Senate to a proper inquiry before the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, where all of these issues could be fleshed out in great detail. This is a government that is trying to avoid scrutiny of the disastrous impact that its broken promise on private health insurance rebates will have on our health system.