Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly in response to the matters raised by Senator Hurley in this chamber earlier today. I want to place on the record some facts that Senator Hurley did not place on the record. First, the government was advised that coalition senators would most likely not be attending the particular Senate inquiry that Senator Hurley referred to, conducted by the Senate Standing Committee on Economics. Second, the government was advised through a formal process of the Selection of Bills Committee, and also the government was advised directly, via the chairman and the secretary of the committee through verbal representations the week before the committee was held. So it was no surprise that opposition members were not going to attend this particular committee inquiry. The inquiry was a sham; there is no doubt about that. Unlike what Senator Hurley indicated to the chamber a while ago, the Senate as a whole decided to send the matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs with a reporting date of 5 August to give the Senate and the committee ample time to examine the issues, to examine the evidence and come back to the Senate with findings in the form of a report.

It is important when senators do make statements in relation to committee inquiries and activities within committees that all the facts are placed on the table of the chamber, and not just selective facts such as those that Senator Hurley decided to impart today. By adding these comments I hope that the public are more informed, and also that Senator Hurley understands that these matters will not go unchallenged when they are raised. This coalition has been very determined to get the full facts into the public arena, to a proper, full inquiry by the right committee that represents the right portfolio area, and that committee can report back to the Senate in due course.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to add to the comments made by the Manager of Opposition Business and comment on the statements made by Senator Hurley a little earlier. It is quite unbelievable that government senators would bring this matter up again. They should hang their heads in shame. They did try to quite inappropriately rush an inquiry into a broken promise on private health insurance rebates. We understand on this side why the government wants to avoid scrutiny into a broken promise; we understand why the government wants to rush it.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

10000 Troeth, Sen Judith (The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT) 1The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTOrder! Senator Cormann has the floor and I ask that other senators refrain from interjecting. I call Senator Cormann.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are very sensitive on that side about this because they know they are wrong. Here they are, with a broken promise that will push up the cost of private health insurance for at least 2.3 million Australians by between 14.3 and 66.7 per cent. Senator Hurley was trying to say that this was wrong. But she knew it was not wrong. She was so keen to rush to a quick inquiry before the relevant Hansards were even available from Senate estimates; she was so keen to rush to an inquiry even before the Treasury evidence and the health department evidence was available. She would not have had a chance to review what Treasury had said in evidence at estimates. It was Treasury who said that the cost of health insurance would go up by up to 66.7 per cent for those Australians as a direct result of the Rudd government’s broken promise on private health insurance rebates.

That is only one issue. There are many other issues. Health and Treasury also made it very clear that they still expected about half a million fewer Australians to be in private health insurance as a result of last year’s measure on Medicare levy surcharge thresholds. There is going to be a huge impact on our public hospital system; it is going to be terrible news for the health system. It is something that deserves a proper inquiry by the Senate, and it is a proper inquiry that this government was trying to avoid. They were tricky; they were trying to go through a rushed process before any of the stakeholders had a proper opportunity to prepare themselves, to put proper submissions forward. They were trying to get this thing out of the way before the Senate had an opportunity to express a view. I am stunned that government senators would even bring this up again, because they had the good sense earlier in the week to roll over and not resist the reference by the Senate to a proper inquiry before the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, where all of these issues could be fleshed out in great detail. This is a government that is trying to avoid scrutiny of the disastrous impact that its broken promise on private health insurance rebates will have on our health system.