Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2] is before us. It is entirely linked to the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. They go hand in hand. They are completely linked. You cannot debate this bill without debating the other bill to cut the health insurance rebate for thousands of Australian families. They need to be considered together.

The Rudd government wants to hike up the Medicare levy surcharge that Australian families will have to pay if they decide not to take up health insurance. Why is the government doing this? It knows very well that cutting the 30 per cent health rebate, which many Australian families rely on and depend on, will make private health insurance more unaffordable for many Australian families. The government also knows that, if you drastically reduce the health rebate, you face the huge risk of people exiting the private system and further overburdening our public system, which is already under the pump. Already, many families are going to feel the pinch after the announcement yesterday that health insurance is set to go up by another 5.8 per cent—around that figure—from April this year. That means that the costs to Australian families of comprehensive health insurance—which does not even include extras such as optical, physio and many dental services, and all the other expenses that families rack up throughout the year—will be just short of $3,000.

What is this government trying to do to help? I do not know about help: it is trying to jack up the Medicare levy surcharge so that all those people who cannot afford the increase in health insurance will be forced to grin and bear it—otherwise, they are going to be slugged with a higher Medicare levy surcharge. That is not fair. It is another Rudd slug.

This is like a double blow. It is like whacking the Australian public for six and then the very next ball whacking them for six again. First you get told that your health insurance is going to go up. Then you get told that there is nothing that you can do about it. This hardly sounds like the kind of policy that should be coming from a government that pretends to be looking after working families. The Rudd government has proven itself to be a phoney with health. It is all talk about helping families, but when push comes to shove it is all spin and no substance. The Rudd government is most vulnerable on health. I have been saying this for a while. The Rudd government has overpromised and underdelivered on health. This is clearly an issue for the Rudd government. They are not listening to the Australian public. The idea of making it harder for Australian families with health is not on. We will not be supporting a clear breaking of an election promise on the health insurance rebate. We will also not be supporting this idea of penalising families with a higher Medicare surcharge just because of the other bill that you are bringing in. It is wrong. The Rudd government needs to be held to account on this issue.