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

I seek leave to move a motion in the terms circulated in the chamber relating to the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives package of bills.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, and at the request of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Abetz, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Abetz moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the consideration of the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2012 and related bills.

I move this suspension because this is yet another betrayal of the Australian people by the Australian Labor Party. It is another betrayal from the most serial of betrayers, the Prime Minister herself. This is the Prime Minister who betrayed the Australian people with the carbon tax, and she is at it again with private health insurance. Julia Gillard and other Labor members have, over many years, repeatedly ruled out any changes to the private health insurance rebates. They have been totally and utterly false about their positions.

I take the Senate back, if I may, to the then shadow minister for health, Julia Gillard, on 2 September 2004:

I grow tired of saying this: Labor is committed to the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate.

In the Courier Mail, on 23 September 2004, she reiterated her commitment. She did it again in October 2005, saying:

The truth is I never had a secret plan to scrap the private health insurance rebate and, contrary to Mr Latham's diaries, do not support such a claim. For all Australians who want to have private health insurance the private health insurance rebate would have remained under a Labor government. I gave an iron-clad guarantee of that during the election.

But wait for the punchline:

The difference between Tony 'rock-solid, iron-clad' Abbott and me is that, when I make an iron-clad commitment, I actually intend on keeping it.

What a joke! The hypocrisy of the woman! Then we had Nicola Roxon on Meet the Press, on 23 September 2007, saying, 'We are committed to the 30 per cent.' Then, when she was asked by Steve Lewis, 'So you won't wind back the 30 per cent private health rebate, despite the fact that Labor has been ideologically opposed to it in the past?' Nicola Roxon replied, 'No, we won't.' On 26 September 2007, the former Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, said:

The Liberals continue to try to scare people into thinking Labor will take away the rebates. This is absolutely untrue.

Then we have the letter of 20 November 2007 from then Prime Minister Rudd to the Australian Health Insurance Association, reiterating this commitment in writing, but the letter was not even worth the paper it was written on. After that federal election, former Prime Minister Rudd said that the private health insurance rebate policy 'remains unchanged and will remain unchanged'. We kept getting these promises that Labor would retain the rebate.

In a speech in October 2008, Nicola Roxon was again making this commitment, yet during Senate estimates it was revealed that, while Minister Roxon was giving that public assurance behind closed doors, she and other senior members of the government were seeking advice on how to progress changes to those private health insurance rebates. They were firmly committed to retaining the existing rebates in public, while secretly working on plans to reduce and scrap them. We know that Minister Roxon first obtained advice from her department on 12 January 2009, and the advice on how to change the rebate was being sought by the health minister's office as early as December 2008. Treasury provided advice on means testing the rebate on 20 February 2009 at the request of the Treasurer.

This is the hallmark of the Rudd and Gillard governments. They say one thing and they do another. We know that these cuts will affect and further add to Labor's cost-of-living burden on working Australians. After years of waste and mismanagement, Labor is hiking up prices for working Australians. We know that Labor's premium hikes will force people to drop private health insurance and will downgrade their cover, and this will further stretch the overstretched public hospital system. Labor is wrong to imply that private health insurance is only for the rich—5.6 million people with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000 and 3.4 million have an annual household income of less than $35,000. Given this government's history, we are very concerned that, unless these bills are discharged from the Notice Paper, the Australian public will be hit again. Consequently, I seek support for a suspension to enable this discharge motion. (Time expired)