Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate that, Mr Acting Deputy President. I would never want to impute impure motives to such a pure individual as the Treasurer. But may I say that this particular measure does smack, in part, of the politics of envy. The point I was making is that it seemed to be part of a suite of measures and seemed to be in part authored by a Treasurer who seems to be very keen on the politics of envy.

The coalition has always believed that choice is important, in both health and education, and I believe this measure is one that appeals across the various income groups in the community. My colleague Senator Brandis spoke about the number of low-income Australians who use the private health insurance incentive or have private health insurance cover. Indeed, to go through some electorates close to my own heart, let me start with the electorate of Dobell. In Dobell, 46.1 per cent of voters have private health insurance—not 20 per cent, not 25 per cent, but 46.1. The number of persons covered by private health insurance in that electorate is almost 60,000 people. In Robertson, another fine upstanding electorate, 55.5 per cent of voters have private health insurance. The total of persons covered with private health insurance in the electorate is 73,869. That is a lot of Australians in Robertson who are covered by this measure.

If I go to a safer Labor seat, Blaxland, once occupied by the Hon. Paul Keating, 42.7 per cent of voters have private health insurance. The total of persons covered by private health insurance in the electorate is 60,516. In the seat of Grayndler, the cradle of Anthony Albanese, 60.1 per cent of voters have private health insurance. It is even higher than those seats on the Central Coast. The total of persons covered by private health insurance in the electorate of Grayndler is 77,898. They are the people who the Hon. Anthony Albanese is going to be harming through this particular measure. If we go to Hunter, a safe seat in the Hunter Valley, 51 per cent of voters have private health insurance. The total of persons covered by private health insurance in the electorate is 66,346. In the seat of Newcastle—a good working-class seat; I was born in Newcastle—55.2 per cent of voters have private health insurance. The total of persons covered by private health insurance in the electorate is 69,726. In the seat of Shortland, next door, just to round it off, 50.8 per cent of voters have private health insurance. The total of persons covered with private health insurance in the electorate is 65,971.

People scrimp and save to have the peace of mind of private health insurance. And what we are talking about here is not some select group people in Vaucluse, Toorak or the relevant parts of Adelaide or Perth—Peppermint Grove or wherever. We are talking about a swathe of people in a swathe of electorates who would be disadvantaged by this particular measure going through. So I stand up here disillusioned with the promises Labor made that it would retain the private health insurance incentive. I am very disillusioned and concerned about the deterioration of the risk pool and the impact that that will have on upward pressure on premiums for all 12 million Australians with private health insurance, with more people forced to utilise overstretched public hospitals.

After years of waste and mismanagement Labor is hiking prices for working Australians to pay for their own budgetary and other shortcomings. My concern here is that, at a time when the cost of living is without a doubt the No. 1 issue in federal and state politics across the country, here we have a government adding to the cost of living. We have already had initiatives around the carbon tax, which will add to the cost of living—and may I say that the evidence mounts every day that those costs are going to be higher than the government has estimated. Already we have received information around increases in landlord leases and the like, reflecting an increase in the carbon tax going through their books. What we have is a tax that will cascade through the stages of production. It is not a GST, where there is only a price effect on the final consumer; it will cascade through the various stages of production. The cost of living is being exacerbated and then we have other measures like the private health insurance incentive means testing that we are talking about here today, which will add to that as well.

I come back to a point I made earlier: the government is in danger of creating even further poverty traps and even further entrenching effective marginal tax rates up the system. The main impact of that would be on secondary income earners in families. I do not believe this was a tough decision for Labor to take. We get a lot of breast-beating and braggadocio about tough reforms and tough fiscal decisions. This was not a tough decision for Labor to make, given its history of promises to remove the private health insurance incentive in the past. It backflipped on that promise and then said, hand on heart, that it would keep it. Sadly, that promise as well has not been kept. It is one of a number of promises that have not been kept.

They can say that they were mugged by reality on the first day of coming to government. We are not talking about that; we are talking about attempts to do this some years after coming to government. The only other explanation I can think of is that, apart from the ideological intent behind this measure, budgetary pressures forced the government into taking these measures. All I can say is: if only the government had listened to the coalition at the time of the global financial crisis! We supported the first round of stimulus but we were prudent, we wanted to wait, because it was clear Australia was not going to be affected in the same way as other countries. We were prudent then and we have been proven right by history in that regard. Unfortunately, Labor put into the system a whole series of programs. For example, with Building the Education Revolution, there are still schools around the country receiving grants. Once the program was implemented it was very hard to stop. We all acknowledge that, but the point is that it can no longer be presented as a fiscal stimulus program, continuing as it does at a time when the economy has been in more than recovery mode.

Sadly, we were saddled with a much bigger debt and deficits coming out of the global financial crisis than were necessary, and that has necessitated the government taking all sorts of measures. Yet, disappointingly, last year when there was a window of opportunity for the government to take more stringent budgetary measures, they squibbed the opportunity to do so. There were $22 billion worth of savings in last year's budget but $19 billion worth of new spending, so the net bottom line contribution over the forward estimates was $3 billion.

People say, 'Okay, what's the coalition committed to doing?' The coalition is committed to restoring this sort of measure as soon as it is affordable. We see it as having a policy rationale that is robust. We want to maintain a strong private pillar in the health system and we believe that is going to benefit the health system as a whole. We believe that, if we can come to power within 18 months, there is sufficient time to reverse this measure and some of the damage that will be done in the meantime to the health system as a whole.

I call on the government, if they are serious about health reform, to also review the COAG health reforms that they have put into the system. I do not believe, as I said earlier, that these reforms will necessarily lead to structural change in the system in the way that we want. They will not restrain the growth in health costs or improve health outcomes. I call on the government to take a more comprehensive approach. It is a pity that the government did not respond to our calls for a committee to further review this legislation and perhaps have a broader overview of what can be done to promote a better, more affordable and sustainable health policy going forward.

Finally, Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, I did not have the opportunity to check out what the private health insurance statistics may be around places like Springwood in the seat of Macquarie. I am certainly going to make it my business to do so and to remind people in that electorate that it is very important for them to maintain their private health insurance and the impact that this measure will have on their capacity to do so.