Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

It is outrageous, Senator Edwards. Apparently, some of the directors have not been playing fair; they have been pocketing the very big money that they get and not giving it to the unions. So the unions have sued them. That is a court case that I really want to follow through. But I am still waiting for Senator Dougie Cameron, who I read has been a director of one of these industry super funds, to tell me what board fees he got from that position. It would be very interesting to hear that. No doubt, he might come and tell me in his contribution. But he might claim that running an industry super fund is his way of getting business experience. If it is—and I very much doubt it—I suspect that the business members on those boards are the ones that run them and the union members just go along for the ride.

However, I digress from my point in that the removal of this health insurance rebate will increase enormously the burden on hospitals right throughout Australia. But as a Queensland senator I am very concerned that they will impose heavily on the health system in Queensland, which is almost breaking under the strain and which creaks its way through. Because I do not want this to be misunderstood, I repeat that the men and women—the doctors and nurses, orderlies and support staff—who support those hospitals do a fantastic job in difficult circumstances. The Labor Party has administered health to the extent that for—what was it?—three or four weeks the nurses could not even get paid. This is the system. Some of them tell me that they still have not been paid their full entitlements from that time. But it is not the minister's fault; it is not the Premier's fault and it is not the Labor Party's fault. It is always someone else's fault.

So I am concerned with this bill before us. On that point alone—and there have been a lot of very good arguments raised in this debate so far on why this legislation should be defeated—I call on Queensland Labor senators to cross the floor and vote against this. They know that this legislation, when passed, will throw extra burden onto a health system in my state of Queensland which is already unable to deal with the tasks before it. It is essential, I think, that I do call upon Labor senators from Queensland in particular to join us in defeating this bill so that the already overworked system in Queensland will not be further burdened because of the removal of the health insurance rebate.