Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is an absolute pleasure to be able to follow Senator McGauran, Senator Cormann and all those from the coalition side who have outlined in such an eloquent and passionate manner the reasons why this government’s approach on this issue is just so flawed. Senator Cormann, who has become the Senate’s pre-eminent advocate for the health industry over a range of issues in this chamber over the last 12 months or so, has pointed out time and time again in various debates on private health insurance that this government is simply out to do this industry in. It is purely an ideological crusade from those on the other side of this chamber who wish to destroy the private health insurance industry.

This is an industry which provides a service that millions of Australians choose to take out. Some 9.7 million Australians at the end of the March quarter of this year had private health insurance. Some of them, I am sure, would be listening right now to the broadcast of the Senate’s proceedings. There are 9.7 million of them out there who dip into their pockets and pay a little bit out of their hard-earned income to provide for private health insurance.

Why is this important? It is important because it injects balance into the health insurance system. It injects alternatives into the health system for Australia. A health system which relies purely on the public sector, which relies purely on public health, Medicare and our public hospitals, is a health system that is a stool trying to stand on just one or two legs. It will not work.

The private health sector—private hospitals and private health insurance—is the important third leg to that stool. It is what will make it stand, make it work and make our health system survive. Instead it is being gutted by policy measure after policy measure of this government.

The government have a track record. They have form, as Senator McGauran alluded. When the Labor Party were last in government, they decimated private health insurance and they are on the way to doing it again this time. When they were last in power, private health insurance participation rates dropped from 67 per cent in 1983 to 33½ per cent in 1996. So, in the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating governments, they almost managed to halve the participation in private health insurance.

If they were to do the same to the nearly 10 million people with private health insurance in Australia today, it would wipe five million people out of the private health insurance industry. Is that the goal of the Minister for Health and Ageing? Is that the goal of the Prime Minister—to take five million Australians out of private health insurance? That sure seems to be the plan they are pursuing. That sure seems to be what they are pushing towards with the types of measures that they have pushed in their last budget and again in this budget.

Senator McGauran did an excellent job, as did Senator Cormann, of outlining how this is a breach of faith with the Australian public. It is another breach of faith, layered upon the many others, where the Rudd government has broken its word, broken its bond and broken its commitment to those Australians who voted for it. They should have every right to feel let down and disappointed by the fact that, time and time again, they have been doublecrossed by a government which gave its word and went on to break it.

Senator McGauran referred to the letter sent and signed by Kevin Rudd, federal Labor leader and member for Griffith, dated 20 November 2007, to the Australian Health Insurance Association. It says:

Both my Shadow Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year that Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per rebates for older Australians.

There it is in black and white—it may have gone to them in colour at the time; I do not know: a demonstration that the now Prime Minister, the then Leader of the Opposition, was willing to say anything and do anything to con his way into the office of Prime Minister.