Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. May I start by saying that, just like with many other things about this government, the Australian public were certainly not told about a hike in the Medicare levy surcharge before the last federal election. These two surcharge bills, together with the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009 [No. 2]which, interestingly, will be conditional on the surcharge bills—set up a framework for hitting the Australian public with another big new tax. It is now very clear, as if we did not already know, that this government cannot be trusted because it will say one thing and do another. This government is a fraud, and that is just as evident in health as it is in many other areas.

These bills go against all the commitments that Prime Minister K Rudd and Ms Roxon gave to the Australian people before the election. They lied to the Australian people before the election and they have lied since. Look what they said in 2007. It is important that we take the Senate back to what this government and the now health minister said then. In September 2007 she stated:

On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians. The Liberals continue to try to scare people into thinking Labor will take away the rebates. This is absolutely untrue.

Then in a letter to the Australian Health Insurance Association the Prime Minister stated:

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 cent rebates for older Australians.

Federal Labor will also maintain Lifetime Health Cover and the Medicare Levy Surcharge.

He went on to state:

Labor will maintain the existing framework for regulating private health insurance, including the process for full approval of premium increases.

This letter is not worth the paper it was written on because it is very clear that the Prime Minister, on 20 November 2007—there he is—was prepared to tell the Australian Health Insurance Association in writing, no less, that he was not going to change the system and here we are for the second time with the Prime Minister pushing for these changes. So not only did they make these hollow promises before the election, but after the election Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon confirmed Labor’s position, sometimes in quite spectacular form. In February 2008 in the Australian the Prime Minister said:

The private health insurance rebate remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.

In May 2008, on Macquarie Radio, Nicola Roxon stated:

… we continue to support the 30 per cent, 35 per cent and 40 per cent rebate for those Australians who choose to take out private health insurance.

And then, in October 2008, in a speech to the Australian Health Insurance Association conference, Nicola Roxon stated:

Private health insurance consumers will still be able to claim the 30 to 40 per cent rebate, and the Lifetime Health Cover incentives will remain in place.

In February 2009, in the Age, the Minister for Health and Ageing, Ms Roxon, stated:

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

On Channel 9, with Laurie Oakes—this was later in the piece, when the Prime Minister had finally confessed that he was going to break another election promise—to try and justify the broken promise that these bills represent the Prime Minister drew on what at that time was the unpublished Intergenerational report. He told Laurie Oakes:

What the intergenerational report tomorrow will reveal for the first time is that the cumulative impact of knocking that major reform back is in the order of one hundred billion dollars over the next several decades.

He plucked a figure out of the air of $100 billion. Our Prime Minister is very good at doing that, plucking figures out of the air. As everybody knows, there was no $100 billion in the Intergenerational report. We all looked for this magic figure, and guess what? It was not there. It was nowhere to be found. The Prime Minister was, yet again, caught out lying and then he had to fudge it a bit.