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

Time and time again they kept saying: ‘Don’t you worry; we’re not going to take these rebates away. Don’t you worry; we know you’ve got them factored into your budget. Don’t you worry, health insurance industry, we know that you are relying on this to survive. Don’t worry out there in the health sector—doctors in private hospitals—we know that you are relying on this to keep your doors open. Don’t worry, state governments, other owners of public hospitals and workers in public hospitals; we know that you want a balanced system and that you want to make sure that the private health industry is there to take some pressure off you. None of you need to worry.’ But, no, they were just saying and doing anything to get elected. That is what Ms Roxon and Mr Rudd were doing when they were talking about health insurance.

Indeed, as Senator Cormann just mentioned, even after the election—in fact right up to 24 February this year—the federal health minister was continuing to say:

The government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.

Anybody who knows anything about the federal budget development process knows full well—Senator Cormann and others exposed this as true during the Senate estimates process—that by 24 February you would have a lot of these plans in place. You would have been doing a lot of the background work and would know that you are well and truly considering, if not already committed to, changes to measures such as this: changes to the private health insurance rebate.

The government were by no means firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates on 24 February 2009. They were not committed to it at all, because they were actually doing the work behind the scenes to change it. So they were misleading the Australian people not only throughout the lead-up to the election but afterwards. They were continuing right up until the budget this year, just hoping that they could scoot this one under the radar and that nobody would notice that they had broken this very significant promise—this very significant trust and bond—that they had tried to establish with the Australian people.

The Prime Minister likes to talk, in his own quirky language, about changes to things and to give assurances that he would not change things. Indeed, in talking about private health insurance he used one of those quirky phrases he is renowned for. He said that they would not change it: ‘Not one jot; not one tittle.’