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

In debating the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009 and associated bills, we are debating one of the many promises of the Rudd government in the health portfolio, as we discussed a few weeks ago. Before the election we were promised the world by the Rudd government on health, and they have delivered next to nothing. We were promised that they would fix public hospitals and, if not enough progress had been made by the middle of 2009, they would move to take over the running of public hospitals in Canberra. We were promised that they would leave intact and retain the existing private health insurance rebates and that they would retain the private health insurance policy framework put in place by the Howard government, which helped to restore balance to our health system. And, of course, we were promised by the Rudd Labor government before the election that they would not reduce the extended Medicare safety net. We were promised a new era of cooperative federalism on health—the Commonwealth working together with the states and territories to fix our health system. We have had broken promise after broken promise after broken promise.

Our public hospitals are under more pressure now than when the Rudd government was elected. Average waiting times for elective surgery are now longer than what they were when the Rudd government was elected. And what have we had? We have had a review for 20 months—the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission process—only to be followed by a review of the review. We now have the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, travelling around Australia for photo opportunity after photo opportunity just to make it look as if they are doing something. There has been no progress whatsoever: no action, no outcomes, only bureaucratic processes and a political strategy to make people believe that there is something happening when there is nothing happening.

The private health insurance rebate promise was one of the most emphatic promises before the election. The Rudd Labor government was going to retain the existing private health insurance rebate. It was repeated by the Prime Minister and it was repeated by the now health minister, Nicola Roxon, again and again.