Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Age of Dependants) Bill 2021. This bill sets a very dangerous precedent in terms of the definition of 'disability'. While the Greens will be supporting the bill, we will be moving amendments that address that particular issue because of the fact that the definition under the bill is a participant under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013. Using a threshold of an NDIS participant is problematic because it will restrict disabled people from accessing the benefits of this measure. Only 449,000 people are currently participants of NDIS, whereas the ABS estimates there are 4.4 million disabled people in Australia. Applying the definition of an NDIS participant will restrict access to these policy changes—that is, nearly four million disabled people that will be restricted from accessing the benefits of this policy. That's why the Greens will be moving the amendments. We are very disappointed that Labor won't be supporting them, because they are such important amendments.

We believe that we need a review. In fact, we have another amendment about that. Now, this bill is about to be chopped through. The minister for health, Minister Hunt, has written me a letter about the review, not supporting the legislative approach which we want, but committing to a review. I seek leave to table the document from Minister Hunt.

Leave granted.

I also seek leave to table the rest of my speech.

Leave granted.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.