Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) 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]. I will commence my contribution to this debate by commending Senator Bushby, who, like a number of my other colleagues, raised the issue of the Prime Minister’s promise to the nation prior to the last federal election that he would not remove the private health insurance rebate. This to me has been the core of this debate. Articulated by coalition senators throughout this debate has been the core issue of a broken promise. It is worth repeating again. It will be in Hansard many times so that, when people read each of these speeches in coming months, they can clearly understand the core promise that was broken by Mr Rudd. I will read it again for the benefit of listeners:

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—

as Senator Bushby clearly said a moment ago—

the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

Mr Rudd said that in a letter addressed to the Australian Health Insurance Association on 20 November 2007 which has since become public.

The core issue is commitment by a government to the people of Australia. If you make promises during an election campaign, the people, when they go to the ballot box, expect to have those promises fulfilled. Promises on health matters are always core promises. Health matters are very significant. I have three quotes I wish to read out on the theme of promises or commitments that the Prime Minister made to the Australian people prior to the last election. The first one is from a press conference held by the Prime Minister on 29 February 2008. This is generally on keeping election promises. He said:

Trust is the key currency of politics, and unless you can be trusted to honour that to which you’ve committed to do, then, I’ve got to say, you’re not going to obtain the enduring respect of the Australian people.

Well, Mr Rudd has broken his own promise as well as breaking other promises. In breaking this commitment on the private health insurance rebate, he does not have the enduring respect of the Australian people. He then said, to the National Press Club, on 27 August 2008:

When we formed government, I said I had no intention of recycling the absolute cynicism of previous governments - making a swag of pre-election commitments then reneging on them as “non-core” promises.

He also said, at the Australian War Memorial, on 17 March 2008:

We’re going to adhere to the integrity of the budget process but all working families, all working families will be protected by our Government in the production of that budget and we will honour all of our pre election commitments. Every one of them, every one of them.

Well, he is not going to do that. If protecting working families does not involve keeping the private health insurance rebate, what does? That is an essential element in the budgets of many families. That is what keeps them in the private health insurance system.

My colleagues have indicated, in previous contributions to this debate, that the burden upon the public hospital system will be increased exponentially in some areas because of people dropping out of the private health insurance system. We have an overburdened system as it is. To add complication to this by removing the rebate is just beyond comprehension. I cannot understand why a government with the flavour of Labor want to hurt families. That does not make sense. Their rhetoric is certainly not matched by their actions in relation to this legislation.

I contrast a promise that Prime Minister Howard made in 1996. Mr Howard has often been badgered about this promise, but let us get clearly on the table the facts about how his honesty and integrity stand up to Mr Rudd’s. In 1996, Mr Howard promised there would be no goods and services tax introduced, and he kept that promise throughout that term of government. During that period it became obvious that a GST was required and would be—as it has proven to be—very beneficial to this country. What did Mr Howard do? He said: ‘I gave a commitment not to introduce the GST. However, on the evidence now facing me, I want to introduce a GST. But I will go back to the people and let the people of Australia decide before that implementation takes place.’

Let us contrast that with what Mr Rudd has done. Mr Rudd said prior to the election, ‘There will be no removal of the rebate.’ Now he has introduced legislation into the parliament to remove that rebate, to hurt the working families he so wants to protect, without giving the people of Australia a chance to make a decision about that. A promise was given by Mr Howard. He changed his mind and then went back to the people in a very open, honest and sincere manner. A promise was given by Mr Rudd. He changed his mind and said, ‘Let’s run the legislation through the parliament; let’s not include the people in this decision.’ That shows a huge contrast between the style of government that Mr Rudd has now and the honesty and integrity that we had when we were in office. We had the guts and the fortitude to say, ‘Yes, we have changed our minds but we’re going to go back to the Australian people to get their approval before we implement legislation which is going to have a serious impact on their lives, financially.’

Mr Rudd’s legislation is going to have a serious financial impact on people’s lives. That is one aspect of this debate, and that has been covered adequately by all of my colleagues. However, the main aspect is going to be the psychological, emotional and physical comfort of the Australian families who will have to opt out of the private system and go into the public system. The public system, as we know, is overburdened.

I want to highlight some issues from my home state of Tasmania in relation to the overburdening of the public system. We have an election coming up on 20 March in Tasmania—as you would be aware, Acting Deputy President Hurley, as you are also from the lovely state of Tasmania. The election will be fought on a number of issues, but a contrasting issue will be health. We have a leader, in Will Hodgman, and a shadow health minister, in Mr Brett Whitely, who wish to improve the waiting list times in our Tasmanian hospital system, enabling Tasmanians to have elective surgery and other aspects of treatment at a rate that the current Labor government cannot achieve.

If Mr Rudd’s bills concerning the rebate pass through this place, the good work that the Tasmanian Liberals are about to undertake if they win office—and all indications are that they are going to come very close to winning office—will be undone. The hard policy line that the Tasmanian Liberal team want to take will be undone because of the additional workload that will be placed on hospitals. There are 218,000 Tasmanians who currently have health insurance—that is 43.2 per cent of the population covered by private health insurance—which is assisting to take the burden off the public sector. If this rebate is removed, that burden will be placed squarely back onto the public sector by the so-called ‘working families’ that Mr Rudd wants to protect.

We are talking about income levels where the rebate will be removed. We are talking about income levels that are not really high. Take a married professional couple with three or four children. The combined income of the two professionals—teachers, policemen or nurses—will be hit fairly significantly by the rebate. This is an important aspect that I think the Prime Minister and his health minister have overlooked—the rebates are going to cut into ordinary families. The thresholds are ridiculously low for families who get out there and work, contribute and assist in easing the burden on the public system.

Waiting times in Tasmania, as I indicated, have increased from 34 days to 46 days, and 7,750-odd people are on these waiting lists at any given point in time. That is an increase of 600 people on the waiting list since 2006. Now, if the rebate is removed, we are going to have the terrible situation of additional people being placed on those waiting lists. Our hospital systems, as they are currently managed, could not run with those additional burdens.

We have had others indicating that the rebate should not be removed. In particular, some of the key industry stakeholders have indicated that the rebate should stay. We could argue that, yes, the private health industry has a vested interest in maintaining rebates. However, the fact is—as Senator Bushby put it—that every one dollar that is placed into the private health system saves two dollars in the public health system. That has to be a good thing. That has to be something that this government should want to continue.

Why does the government—in the false set of economic figures—want to remove that assistance from the private sector and place it squarely on the public sector? It just does not make sense. Again, as I indicated, if Mr Rudd is concerned about looking after working families why is he doing this? What is the purpose of putting this hurt onto families? As some of my colleagues have asked, is it some kind of ideological warfare? The facts do not add up. The argument that it will be assisting working families does not add up. And there will be a public backlash, which the government probably has not even thought of.

Is this something deep-seated, deep-rooted? Is this an evolution of something that started way back in the past? Does it not really matter what the facts and figures are or how they are presented—do they just think, ‘We don’t want to see people on a salary over $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000 getting a rebate’? Is there some deep-seated issue that we are not of aware of and that the government are not coming clean about?

I do not know; I just know that the policy does not make sense and that the community backlash would be enormous. That is why—I go back to my point about broken promises—the Rudd government will, mostly likely, not go to the people on this issue. There would be a backlash. So they have to pass it in the mid-term or towards the latter days of this period of the parliament. If we went to the coming election with this policy, I am sure Mr Rudd would feel the full brunt of the people of Australia. And maybe, if this bill did pass through the Senate and become law, the people would remember and there would be a backlash towards the Rudd government for breaking yet another promise.

This goes to the core of what Mr Rudd’s government is doing in breaking promises—more than any other government that I have ever seen. A litany of promises is slowly but surely being compiled and documented. The original shine on this Prime Minister, along with the original thought that this Prime Minister would be good for Australia, is slowly but surely coming off. It is becoming a talking point throughout this country that Mr Rudd is not standing up for what he first said.

I go back to my point about the contrast with Prime Minister Howard. When he changed his mind he had the guts and the decency to go to the people of Australia and say: ‘I’m changing my mind. The coalition has a different view to what we had prior to the last election. I’m going to give you, the people of Australia, a chance to make a decision on this, and you can throw me out of office or re-elect me.’ History tells us that we were re-elected on that issue, and the GST has become a prominent part of Australia’s economy and has assisted the states enormously.

So Mr Rudd needs to rethink this. He needs to really consider the impost he is placing on families. He needs to really consider the implications of breaking yet another election commitment. If he does have any decency about him, he should just come clean and say: ‘It’s a mistake. We are focused on an ideological issue here. It does not make sense. Let’s just drop it.’ But I think we have come to see that there is a little bit of arrogance creeping into the prime ministership. I think the Prime Minister thinks he is not vulnerable at all. I just hope that the Australian people judge him correctly on this issue and try to sort through the smokescreens to see why the government wants to remove this rebate and really consider the other promises that the Prime Minister has made and failed to deliver on.

These promises go over many, many issues. I do not have enough time to highlight them all, but there are a lot of things: Fuelwatch, GROCERYchoice and the takeover of hospitals that was intimated by the Prime Minister. Now he just wants to have a takeover of discussions about hospitals; he does not want to take them over at all. He said he would be simplifying paperwork and reining in corporate salaries. He has had issues with bank deposit guarantees and even with where he was going to live, as well as the Special Envoy for Whale Conservation. The list of issues that this Prime Minister is committed to and has completely ignored or failed to deliver upon goes on and on.

As I said in my opening remarks, nothing goes to the core of Australian issues and honesty as does health. Health is a very important issue in this country. Health is a very important issue for all the working families and others in Australia. Promises that were made—promises that potentially could have changed a decision at the last election—have not been kept. A promise on health is one you do not break, and you do not continually break promises on health through an election period or through the cycle of a parliament. I think Mr Rudd really needs to take a long, hard look at where he is going with the health rebate and stop the silliness and apologise and come clean to the Australia people.