Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am in continuation, Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, having started my address last night amid the furore of Senator Carr and others who managed to wander in very late at night, very suspiciously after dinner, shouting me down. But I rise again in this early afternoon in this Senate to put the case—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are here to listen.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

of the Labor Party—you be careful, Senator Forshaw, with your interjections—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I’m here to listen. I’m here to listen to you.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have got enough to do: you just keep your head down and watch your preselection. There is a point to be made. Isn’t this funny? This is the very point I was being shouted down on last night by Senator Carr, that big voiced leftie. Now I am getting shouted down and interjected on yet again by the Labor Party backbench. The point I was trying to make was: where is the Labor Party backbench on the speakers list? There is not one of them. Not one of them is on the speakers list. Senator Forshaw, yet again, has failed. He never got up on the ETS and he is not getting up on this issue.

We are told this debate about private health insurance is a possible election trigger, coming through the Senate for the second time—that this will be raised by the Rudd Labor government as an election issue. But not one of them is passionate enough to get up on their feet and debate this coming election issue. It is bit different on this side. We have packed the speakers list. That is the very point. That is the point I was making: not one of them has the courage or the wit or the rebellion in them—if that be the case, being so suppressed by the Prime Minister’s office—to stand up and speak on this issue that you say you are going to carry to the next election, that you say is possibly going to be a double dissolution trigger.

I am not surprised, because this is probably the most cowed and compliant backbench ever in this parliament. The Victorian senators are the worst. They would have to be the worst lot of Victorian Labor senators ever to come through here. I have never heard them get up and speak—not very often anyway, and certainly not on issues of gravity. I am not surprised, because we have the most compliant cabinet ever elected to government. They are willing to sit and have cabinet meetings on Thursday nights, after long sessions of parliament, when everyone is tired and itching to get home. The Prime Minister tells them, ‘We’re having cabinet meetings every Thursday night now.’ They are tired, they are not listening and they are dominated by the Prime Minister. It is a compliant cabinet.

This is a weak and pathetic government, and we are seeing that in the legislative program. It is coming through—don’t think it is not—the legislative program. You are ending up in a shambles and in disarray. You have a whole list of ministers that are now starting to fail after two years in the job. There is of course Mr Garrett. Could one minister be more incompetent? My memory goes back to Ros Kelly. I can tell you Mr Garrett has surpassed that piece of political folklore. Mr Garrett and his pink batts will surpass Ros Kelly and her whiteboard, now part of political folklore. But we are not short of them here in the Senate. We have Senator Conroy, the minister for good times, a good time Charlie—always has been a good time Charlie. Well, his good time Charlie days are about to end. And, of course, there is Senator Arbib. Now there was a nervous Nellie at question time yesterday! What a nervous Nellie Senator Arbib was, because he knows only too well he is caught up in the whole incompetence of it all. But there is more to the abandonment of the legislative program of the other side. And here comes their whip, who does all the spruiking for—

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. It is pretty clear that this is a filibuster, but could you draw Senator McGauran’s attention to the question before the chair. He is now talking about completely unrelated issues. There is no relationship to the bills whatsoever. If he is going to use the time of the chamber in the way that he is and filibuster on these bills, at least let him talk about them.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGauran, I draw your attention to the bills that are before us for debate.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to assure you, Madam Acting Deputy President, I have much research on these bills. I can show you my notes, profuse as they are. They all come back to the Senate economics inquiry on this issue. I am more than happy to enlighten the Senate of its findings. Senator Mathias Cormann has done a lot of work on this issue. The previous speakers have laid down the foundation argument that I will speak to and enhance.

Rest assured that I know all about the incompetence of Minister Roxon, who has flown under the radar. It is not just this issue; a whole array of issues in her portfolio ought to be brought out. Do not worry, I have done my research on the halving the rebate for cataract surgery, the disability care beds—which Four Corners did a show on; when it reaches Four Corners you know there are problems—her failure to meet her ambitious promise before the election on the number of nursing places, the $120 million she spent on the swine flu vaccine that is just sitting in storehouses—less than one-third has been used; what a waste of money—and the superclinics. We have perhaps two superclinics out of however many they promised. And it goes on. There was the attempt to cut $100 million from cancer treatment, which thanks to this side and public opinion did not get up.

I was in Ballarat recently for the community cabinet—‘community cabinet’?; it was Mr Rudd’s sideshow. That was all it was. You should have seen the glum faces on all of the ministers who turned up. What a joke. In this portfolio is the midwives issue, denying women the choice to have home births. That was what dominated the community cabinet. I got a guernsey; I was there in the front row. I could not believe it. It was a sight to see the one ego on display. He really does have a big ego. You have to see it to believe it, and you are all compliant to it. It is a joke. When are you going to stand up and speak on an issue?

This Prime Minister is so frightened of the midwives issue he is not willing to meet the public outside of a controlled situation. When he had to unveil the Kevin Rudd bust in Ballarat—as many of you know, in the gardens there there are busts of every Prime Minister—he did not turn up. He left the council, the Mayor and everyone else standing there waiting for him to appear at 11 am. He just did not turn up. He did not even ring ahead to say he was not going to turn up. Can you imagine the embarrassment and the frustration? Do you know why? Because there were midwives protesting there waiting for him and wanting to speak to him. Of course, they have dubbed it as ‘cowardly’. That is the portfolio I want to speak on.

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

Prime Minister Blah Blah.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Blah Blah—that is his new nickname.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator McGauran, it is unparliamentary to refer to members of this parliament in such a way. I ask you to withdraw that.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw that—and rightly so in the Senate we should not be using such terminology, but I do note that that is a term allowed in the House of Representatives. I know we are a little loftier than the House of Representatives and a little less cut and thrust, but I have noticed that term being used frequently in the House of Representatives. They have different standing orders, I accept that.

Talking about blah blah, let us look at the greatest blah blah of them all. I heard Senator Abetz saying that this is a comment that the Prime Minister used over 20 times in the lead-up to the election and has used since: one of the great moral issues of our time is, of course, climate change. We are whipping up the whole gravity of the issue. He has lived off the gravity of the issue in the last 12 months. Where is that great moral issue? Where are those bills we are meant to be discussing in the first week of parliament? We have been lectured by—

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, I make the point that whilst Senator McGauran may wish to filibuster, he needs to be in order. I ask you to draw him back to the subject.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this chamber historically we have allowed very wide-ranging speeches at the second reading stage. Senator McGauran throughout all of his speech—and I have been here for all of it—while he has sometimes referred to other matters he has always referred back to the bills. So I think that, as in the practice of the past, we do allow wide-ranging debates and he should be allowed to continue.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge Senator Ferguson’s contribution that we have allowed members to range widely in these debates. But in the time that I have been listening outside the chamber on my monitor and inside the chamber I have hardly heard this senator refer to the bills in question, which is why I have taken the points of order. So I simply suggest that if he has the material that he has claimed to have—and he has claimed to have a sheaf of material on the bills—that he actually refers to it.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator McGauran, both senators have made a good point I think. I do want to remind you that we are not debating climate change; we are actually debating bills relating to private health insurance, and I draw your attention to that.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will soon be referring to it. But it is essential to also discuss the priorities of these bills and the priorities of this government—

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In context.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In context, as my good colleague Senator Fifield says: why this Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill is where it is on a Monday and a Tuesday. Debating time in the Senate is—

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A filibuster.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not a filibuster—far from it. You are the ones running scared. I do welcome the Victorian senator, Senator Collins, who has come in here not to debate the issue but to interject. Where is Senator Cameron? We have Senator Cameron, Senator Forshaw, Senator Collins, some of the best interjectors in the parliament, and none of them will get up and actually debate. None of them will take their 20 minutes.

The point is that climate change ought to be debated now—and that is my point—not these particular bills. They have already been rejected by the Senate and we will reject them again—rest assured. These bills are going nowhere. You are going around in circles. You are a government in disarray. We have been lectured by the Prime Minister and Penny Wong on the great moral issue about rising sea levels, melting glaciers, extinct polar bears, the drying up of the Murray River, extreme weather patterns, world temperatures, the Antarctic melting—all of that, have I missed anything? Yes, the Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon of course. They are all in there—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order, Senator McGauran!

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought the whip was about to jump up again. It is all backed up by the great and honourable United Nations committee. This has been the issue of the hour, of the year. It is terrifying stuff. If any of that were true, I would be terrified. I would be terrified to think that the sea levels were going to swamp the eastern coast.

But it has gone off the agenda and these bills have been put in its place. There is a reason for that. They have sniffed the political wind and they have seen the shift. It was only ever a political exercise to begin with and the truth has won out. As I say, we quite welcome debating this issue about health—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. I have been listening to Senator McGauran now since he commenced today—and I did listen to his remarks last night in my room. I am just concerned that Senator McGauran is actually debating the bill that is listed as No. 2 on the Notice Paper, that is, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill and all of the other bills. I am rather concerned that he is debating the bill that is next on the list rather than the bills that are on the list. I was wondering whether you could draw his attention—

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bills that you do not want to debate!

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bills are on the red, and I am just very concerned that Senator McGauran has wasted nearly all of his time with the speech that he would have made for the next bill.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome Senator Forshaw’s interjection. I know that he is drowning in New South Wales politics at the moment, so any sort of—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What?

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it is either you or Senator Hutchins. You are not going to take the knife to Senator Hutchins—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Forshaw interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point is that any stance he takes—now that got you! Why don’t you get up and prove to your preselectors that you can debate the issues of the parliament. You are just not a good old interjector or capable of good old points of order.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order, Senator McGauran! Let me draw your attention to the bills and the debate that is before us. You have got less than four minutes left.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. I heard Senator Forshaw call Senator McGauran a hypocrite, and I thought you would have as well. It does not require a point of order to make him withdraw it, and I suggested he should be made to withdraw.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson is correct. I did use unparliamentary language. I was provoked by the former senator for the DLP or National Party or whatever he is today, but I happily withdraw the reference that I made.

The Acting Deputy President:

Thank you, Senator Forshaw. No, I did not hear that, Senator Ferguson, probably because there is too much screaming and yelling in the chamber. Senator McGauran, we will call you to finish your contribution.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He was made to withdraw. It made me sound like Billy Hughes. These bills, as I said, have been rejected by the Senate and by Senate committees—and they have been before every committee system—but most of all they have been rejected in the public arena. These bills have been pretty much universally rejected, this suite of bills with their aim of reducing the number of participants in private health. That is the intent; that is the aim; it is a budget saving. The government tell us that it is a budget saving of $300 million. They want to save $300 million from health but they do not mind wasting billions on pink batts. But that is the intent and the aim, and naturally only the Labor Party, and card-carrying Labor Party doctors perhaps, support these bills.

This is just plain bad public policy and we reject it on those grounds. It is estimated by the government alone that about 550,000 people will drop out of private health. Access Economics gives a truer picture, saying it is more likely that 700,000 to one million people will drop out of private health. And we know that, rule of thumb, every one per cent drop in public health forces the states to spend an extra $100 million on public hospitals. So do the figures yourselves. Access Economics says that 700,000 people will drop out—and that is the most conservative of figures—and with about 10 million people taking out private health you can see that there is as much as $700 million that will now be shifted onto the states’ hospital systems.

Our stance against this is not ideological, unlike the Labor Party’s—and you laugh!

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we do. We laugh!

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I started speaking on this last night, guess who waltzed in—the most ideological of them all, Senator Carr! Whatever influence he has in cabinet, he has got his fingerprints all over this. But we are not ideological—far from it. We do it on the grounds of good management policy and good health policy.

We have proved it in government. When we came into government the private health system was collapsing, making the Medicare system unsustainable. That was a fact. Even when you left government you accepted that. Some of your ministers, namely, Senator Richardson, even accepted that, and we had to pick up that system.

We had to tweak it in the first term. We introduced the surcharge in the first term. In the second term we introduced the 30 per cent rebate, and in the next term we introduced the third prong of our policy, the life cover. It requires a balance, and it was not until we put the three prongs in place that we got it right. It took several terms of government. And then you saw a surge in uptake of private health and, of course, the obvious rational effect—it is all very rational; it is not ideological: you take the burden off public hospitals so that those who need it—the needy people, those that deserve access to hospitals and are in urgent need, those underprivileged—will have access. That is why we seek a balance between private and public health. Madam Acting Deputy President, I am about to hand over to the former president who is well across this issue and, like him and all the previous speakers, I reject this legislation.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to follow my friend and colleague Senator McGauran, who made so many pertinent points during his speech, about not only this legislation but also a few extraneous matters, which I am sure have kept us both entertained and enlightened, I might say. It reminded me of one of the most important things my father said to me when I was a young lad. He said, ‘Son, if you never tell a lie you won’t need a good memory.’ I wonder whether, when we go back over some of the statements made by the Labor ministers since their change of position in relation to private health insurance rebates, perhaps their parents would have done well to have given them the same advice.

The reason I want to speak on the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009 [No. 2]and I do not get the chance very often to speak on bills—is that these are important bills because all Australians will be affected. It does not matter what the government says about the numbers who are going to be affected by the taking away of the rebate, the taking away of that rebate will eventually affect all Australians, not just the 11.3 million Australians with private health insurance. I rise to speak on this issue particularly because there are over 900,000 South Australians who are covered by private health insurance.

The Labor Party and Labor government ministers have been willing to say anything to support this tax increase—because that is what it is. If you take away the rebate it is equivalent to putting another tax on those people who are already contributing in a large way to private health insurance. It has always been said that every dollar that is given back in rebates to those who have private health insurance injects two dollars more through their premiums into the health system. That is something that this government just does not seem to understand. Labor has said that it needs this tax because of the global financial crisis. But I remember that it started its attack on private health—because it does not like private health insurance—in its first budget, well prior to the global financial crisis, so named, coming into existence. The Prime Minister says the money is needed for health reform. That is his reason for putting this additional burden on taxpayers. Minister Nicola Roxon says the money from this new tax will be used to fund e-health. So we have another view from the health minister as to why this new impost on people who have private health insurance is being put in place. Then a little later she said that the money from this new tax will be used for new medicines and improved technology. Then the Treasurer really capped it off recently when he spelt out in the budget that this new tax was to pay for the increase in the age pension. Who do you believe in the Labor Party? Which minister has got it right, or has anybody got a right?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No-one!

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I put it to you that, as my colleague Senator Cormann interjects, none of them have got it right. This is a tax of envy. It is another tax on those whom they think can afford it. But what they really do is punish those who cannot afford to be in private health insurance. What disturbs me more than anything is the fact that Labor, prior to the last election, repeatedly promised not to alter health insurance rebates. This reintroduced legislation once again breaks that promise that they made to the Australian people. Who are we to believe? When they come to another election and they start making promises to the Australian people, do we take them on face value or do we question them very suspiciously on the record of broken promises that they now have after a little over two years in government?

On 26 September 2007, Ms Nicola Roxon said:

On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

She then said:

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

The Liberals were not continually trying to scare people into thinking Labor would take away the rebate; they knew on past form that Labor would say one thing, get elected and do another. I think that was Peter Garrett’s mantra. And my good friend Senator McGauran had a little to say about Minister Garrett in his speech. I do not want to go on at length or I will have the whip coming in to suggest that I am not speaking to the bills, as he did to Senator McGauran. But, in fact, Mr Garrett said, ‘We will say one thing before the election but when we get elected we will do what we like.’ The Prime Minister in a letter to AHIA on 20 November prior to the election that same year said:

Both my Shadow Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year that Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

On 25 February 2008, the Prime Minister said:

The private health insurance rebate remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.

I am suggesting that perhaps his father should have said what my father said to me. I am not accusing the minister of lying or the Prime Minister of lying, but all I am saying is that if you do not tell a lie you will not need a good memory. Can you believe the Prime Minister? Can you believe anything he says? This is just one of the promises that he has gone back on. He said:

The private health insurance rebate remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.

It is no wonder that not one Labor Party senator will come in here and defend this decision—not one. You would have thought that at least some of the senators would have come in and given some reasons as to why there has been this change. But not one of them can defend this change in policy—the Prime Minister made a categorical statement and has now reversed it. In 2009, just last year, the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, said in the Age that the government is ‘firmly committed’ to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.

13:14:41

Over a period of almost two years—certainly 18 months—we had all of these statements saying that the private health insurance rebate would not be changed, guaranteeing it. The strange thing is that Minister Roxon’s comment in the Age was made on the very same day that the Prime Minister’s department was providing advice to the government about the specific proposal to slash private health rebates in the budget. You had Minister Roxon saying, ‘We are firmly committed to retaining the existing rebates’ on the very same day that the government was planning to slash them. These changes, of course, are going to further increase the cost of health care and put extra pressure on already overstretched public hospitals.

We even got to the stage where the Treasury in recent times estimated that just 25,000 people would drop their insurance. What a joke! On 16 October 2008 the minister for health, Ms Roxon, said that the projection from Treasury of the number of people who would drop out of private health insurance was just under half a million. Some projections have been even higher. If we get to the stage when you have got those numbers of people dropping out of private health, just think of the impact that is going to have on those who retain their private health and of the impact on public hospitals. Yet here we have a government which tries to maintain that, in giving $1 back to private health insurers for people who insure with private health—who then put $2 back into the system for every $1 that is rebated—that is somehow not going to have an impact on the health system, defies belief.

After the minister for health made this statement, the government was forced to admit that 1.7 million people with insurance would be directly affected, either dropping their insurance completely, or lowering their cover or paying higher taxes. The Australian Health Insurance Association estimated one million Australians would drop their health insurance.

I do not know of a more important matter that has come before this Senate in recent times, which is why I chose to speak directly on these bills. We have had climate change and we have had a lot of other things. The problem with this Prime Minister is that everything is a No. 1 priority. I think he has had about 12 No. 1 priorities in the last 12 months and now we have got to the stage when I do not know whether they have any No. 1 priorities. What should be one of their priorities is maintaining this existing private health insurance rebate because it is the only way we can keep our health system even moderately in a healthy shape. We all know that there are lots of other problems that exist within the health department. By lowering this rebate all they are going to do is add to those problems.

Increased premiums, which is what is likely to happen with people dropping out of insurance, will drive many of the most vulnerable Australians into the already overstretched public system. I have been around this place for a reasonable length of time and I remember that under the previous Labor government private health insurance coverage plunged to 34 per cent of the population. I remember distinctly the numbers that were dropping out of private health insurance coverage and the stress that that placed on our health and hospital system had to be seen to be believed. Somebody had to do something about it.

In the three stages that Senator McGauran spoke about earlier, the coalition managed by offering the incentives to get private health coverage up to 44 per cent; not as high as we would like to have it. Introducing the open-ended private health insurance rebate enabled more people to be encouraged into the system. Members of health funds contributed $10.6 billion to the Australian healthcare system in 2008, an increase of 10 per cent on the previous year. How much do you think this would decrease if we allowed this bill to pass? How much do you think that would impact on the healthcare system if we were to allow this bill to go through? It is with that in mind that, thankfully, with the support of the Independents, we will be able to knock this legislation on the head for the second time so that those involved with private health insurance will be able to have some confidence that they can maintain their cover and still receive their rebate in the future.

We have always believed as a matter of principle as a coalition in the right of all Australians to take charge of their own healthcare needs and plan for the future. We have always worked hard to deliver the incentives that will promote the uptake of private health insurance and take the pressure off Medicare. The efficiency of the private health system is absolutely paramount in relieving pressure on the very stressed public system.

Private health insurance in Australia is an issue that has been under debate for as long as I can remember. When I first joined Mutual Community, I think it was, in 1961—the year I left school—we had a very, very strong and healthy private insurance system. We have seen under Labor governments that coverage drop to 34 per cent. We have seen under coalition governments incentives provided to make sure that it is now up to 44 per cent. The incentives required are something that we should never allow to be taken away.

This is very important legislation. I urge my colleagues and others to vote against this legislation because I think it is in the interests of all Australians, but particularly those who want to maintain a sound healthcare system in Australia, that we do not take away incentives for ordinary Australians.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my privilege this afternoon to follow Senator Ferguson’s contribution. In Senator Forshaw’s interjection earlier he tried to defend the government’s view that somehow placing these bills at the top of the legislative agenda for this week did not reflect on the empty words of the Prime Minister about the greatest moral challenge of our time. His only defence was that Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was No. 2. Call this a plain reading of the English language, but I would assume that the greatest moral challenge of our time would at least rank No. 1 on the list of legislation in a sitting week.

Moving away from that, it is a pity that this debate is being conducted by one side of the chamber. It is a pity that there is no-one from the government standing up to argue their case and to defend their decision. I can only assume that it is out of a sense of shame because this is a clear breach of an election promise. My colleagues have outlined that in detail. There is no ambiguity in this. The Labor Party, the Prime Minister, who was then opposition leader, and then shadow minister Roxon explicitly promised not to take away the private health insurance rebate. They explicitly promised to keep it. Now, for the second time in under 12 months, they bring legislation forward in this place to do the very opposite of that. I will not go through all the quotes again, but there are two in particular that I want to mention. On 26 September 2007, in a media release, then shadow minister Roxon said:

On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

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

I do not see an asterisk on that press release; I do not see a footnote that says, ‘Except if you earn over a certain amount.’ It says ‘all of the existing private health insurance rebates’. There is no ambiguity there. Similarly, only days before the 2007 election, in a letter to the Australian Health Insurance Association, the then Leader of the Opposition said:

Both my Shadow Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year that Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

Again, there is no ambiguity, no footnote and no qualification. Nowhere does it say, ‘Except if you earn over this much.’ It says ‘the existing private health insurance rebates’. This bill, the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2], does the opposite. It is to the shame of Labor members opposite that they are not willing to come here and own up to that fact.

The truth is that we on this side knew that those words could not be trusted. We knew that the Leader of the Labor Party and their spokeswoman on health could not be trusted because Labor has always wanted to do in private health insurance. The dream of the Labor Party is to have a National Health Service type of system. The dream of the Labor Party is to remove the very choice that allows middle Australia to take care of their own health.

It is the same with independent schools. I guarantee that if the country is unfortunate enough to see the Labor government re-elected, the next schools agreement will do exactly the same thing. They will not stand by their word. This is an example of how they cannot be trusted at all. The government now claim that this legislation is necessary because of the global financial crisis. That is simply fiction, written by world-class fiction writers on the other side. Their fiction is world-class, if not the quality of their writing. Their first attacks on private health insurance began when we were talking about an inflation genie. Who hears about the inflation genie these days? No-one, because it is always an excuse. As Senator Ferguson outlined earlier, there is always a different excuse from a different minister. It is simply another broken promise in a litany of broken promises.

We could talk about the promise to take Iran through the international judicial process. We could talk about the promises to deal with Japan over whaling, the promises about the GP superclinics and the promises about ending the double drop-off. The list goes on. But very few issues are as explicit as this. What we know lurks under the surface of every Labor member and senator is a wish to do away with the universality of the support for private health insurance. That is what Labor wants to do and what this legislation does. Labor constantly says that Medicare cannot be means tested, that Medicare should be universal. But the one thing that cannot be universal is the ability for people to support their own health care. We have heard from my colleagues that $1 in the rebate buys $2 of extra spending. But Labor does not want that. It claims that spending should be determined in the health system on the basis of need, but—and this is the key difference—it does not want Australians to make that determination themselves. It wants the government, a bureaucrat or someone other than the person concerned to determine what health care that person needs and when they need it.

If its management of the public hospital systems in many of our states over the last 10 years is any indication, that should scare the hell out of many Australians. The other side of this chamber cannot be trusted. In my own home state of Victoria, over roughly a decade we have gained a million people but there are fewer hospital beds. How does that equation make it easier for people to access the health system? It does not. No number of press releases advertising how much money you have spent matter when it is harder to get in the door, when there are fewer beds, despite a million more people. The government is trying to make private health insurance harder to have and to appropriate for itself the choice about what health care Australians need and when they get it.

We know that more than half of surgical procedures these days are performed in the private health system. That is not something which this side is concerned about. That is a sign of a strong, mixed healthcare system. The private system allows people who can to prioritise and take care of themselves but also strengthens the public healthcare system by taking pressure off. If you did not have this support for private health insurance, the waiting lists would be longer. The waits on trolleys would be longer and the wait for critical care would be longer. But this government simply does not care. It is continuing its ideological war against choice, against the private health insurance industry and the private health sector. That war goes back for decades, because this is a philosophical fault line.

We believe that Australians should be supported to take care of themselves and their health. We believe that, just as we have a universal national insurance system in Medicare, having universal access to a health insurance rebate allows those who are more fortunate to contribute more to the cost of their own care. And it is those who can contribute to the cost of their own care or choose to make that sacrifice—and they are not all higher socioeconomic groups—who take the pressure off the public health system, who make it easier for those in genuine need, who are without those means, to access our public health system.

We know that this legislation, if it becomes law, will lead to an increase in premiums not just for those who lose the rebate but for all who have private health insurance. All that will do is create a cycle where people increasingly drop out of private health insurance. The people who will pay are not the people the government allegedly targets in this legislation. The people who will pay that price are those who will be pushed back in the queues in the public hospital system and it will be the other people who remain in private health insurance who seek to take pressure off the public health system and take care of their own health care.

The background to this rebate is important because the Labor Party talk about how they wish to take the rebate from allegedly high-income earners. The rebate was introduced at a 30 per cent level to prevent high-income earners having access to tax deductibility. As we know, if we have tax deductibility for private health insurance, the greater number of benefits go to those on higher incomes who are paying higher marginal tax. The rebate was introduced at a flat 30 per cent tax level and it already provides greater benefits, through the tax system, to those on lower incomes. It is another fiction of the Labor Party that this is somehow removing a benefit from wealthier Australians. The rebate was designed this way specifically to ensure that lower-income and middle-income Australians had access to effective, tax system based support, to underpin their choice of private health insurance.

I am sure we will hear from the Labor Party before the next election, just as we heard before the last election, that they will not do any more with the rebate—just as they have promised to do something about whaling, just as they will probably re-promise to do something about GP superclinics, the double drop-off and Iran. But this explicit promise, which has been broken by the Labor Party, ensures that their word can never be trusted. I urge Australians to listen to what Labor says now, to compare it with their actions in their first few years in government, as well as with what they said before the 2007 election. Just as they will undertake an attack on private health insurance—and this is only the first step, the first chink, in the armour of the private health insurance rebate which supports choice for millions of Australians—they will do it to independent schools and they will try to claim that it is to save money to put elsewhere. We know that the money being saved here will not be put into reform of the health system; it will merely go to plug the gaping deficits which this government has opened up.

There is no shortage of money with the Labor Party because it has the platinum credit card funded by Australian taxpayers. The government has prioritised things that rank so far down the list of the priorities of Australians and their families compared to health that it is completely unjustifiable that you would try to say that this is due to the global financial crisis.

This is merely the first step of Labor’s attack on private health insurance. It represents a breach of an explicit promise stated and restated by the now Prime Minister and the now Minister for Health and Ageing. Just as it is Labor’s first attack, and we will repel it from this side of the chamber, we will continue to do so in coming years because private health insurance and access to choice for Australians is a value and a principle in which we profoundly believe.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also draw attention to the hypocrisy of the Rudd Labor government in seeking to break the promise it made to the Australian people at the 2007 election that it would not interfere with the rebate applicable for private health insurance in Australia. I followed this issue very closely in the role I played at the time as Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, which overviews the Department of Health and Ageing, and also at the time of the 2007 election as a senator who was under considerable attack from a number of parties, including the Australian Labor Party, on the basis that I represented a Senate which had ceased to be accountable to the Australian people and that I represented a government controlled Senate which was incapable of holding the government of the day to account. I am sure members of this place will recall the very strong campaign steered by the organisation called GetUp! in which the argument was put very strongly that people should take back control of their Senate, that the Senate belonged to the people of Australia. We even had the Labor Party, the Greens and the Democrats uniting in television ads to appeal to voters to deprive the Howard government of its majority in the Senate. The argument was that the Senate was not able to perform its duty as a body which would question and hold to account the government of the day if the government had the numbers to control it.

How things have change. Now, a bit over two years later, we have a new government and a Senate which is not controlled by the government and we have the Senate proposing, with its opposition to this legislation, to hold the government to account for the promises it made to the people of Australia at the 2007 election. The Australian Labor Party, which were so very keen two years ago to give the Senate the power to block governments which did things they said they would not do at elections, now have done a 180 degree turn and believe that the Senate ought to pass this legislation and ought to allow the government to break the promise they solemnly made to the Australian people at that election—that they would not interfere with the private health insurance rebate. I have to say that I do not think the Senate should do that.

The Senate has acknowledged that the balance in our health system between publicly funded health care and privately supported health care is an extremely important balance to be struck and that our system would become unsupportable and unsustainable in this country if it were unable to provide for people to afford to take out private health insurance and contribute through their own pockets to greater choice in the provision of health care and to the greater financial sustainability of the entire health system. That is such an obviously true statement; it is almost an axiomatic statement that it rather explains the comments by the then shadow minister for health in September 2007, when she solemnly intoned:

On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

She went on to attack the Liberal Party for daring to suggest that the government had other intentions. She said:

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

It was not untrue; it was perfectly true. We drew attention, as Senator Ryan has pointed out in this debate, to the strong underlying hostility of the Australian Labor Party towards private health. We drew attention to the tendency of the Labor Party to want to undermine the mechanisms we had put in place to make private health insurance both more affordable and more sustainable. We predicted—as it turns out, perfectly accurately—that a Labor government would indeed attempt to wind back on our reforms in this area—reforms which had led to almost 45 per cent of all Australians having taken out private health insurance and thereby improving the capacity of our health system to deliver timely outcomes to Australians and taking pressure off our public hospital system at the same time.

I make no apologies for throwing this legislation back in the face of the Labor government and saying that it has absolutely no right to come to this place and expect the Senate to pass this legislation. It is a disgrace. It amounts to a betrayal of the people of Australia, who were told so many things about what this Labor government would do and who have been deceived on so many occasions in the process. The fact is that the balance in our health system is critical to maintaining an effective health system. It is at the heart of a health system which is, relatively speaking, the envy of many nations around the world. It is a balance in the system which preserves the capacity of people to make choices and to obtain care when they need it in general terms.

This legislation amounts to a tax on health insurance. It will make it harder for people on higher incomes to sustain their private health insurance. It is very likely in the medium- to long-term to lead to people giving up their private health insurance. In some ways, the only reason we have not seen a greater flight from private health insurance is that the public health system, over which so many Labor governments in this country preside, is for many people simply too scary to contemplate as their only safety net in the event that they become unwell. So we have the prospect in this debate of the legislation, if it is passed, undermining the capacity of Australians to afford private health insurance and placing a greater burden on the shoulders of our public hospitals around Australia because people will have given up private health insurance. If this legislation were to pass, there would certainly be an increase in premiums for all Australians who have private health insurance—and not many of those are on higher incomes.

We can see many unfortunate consequences of this legislation. We can see that the government has not thought through the implications of what it is doing here. We know this because the government has a policy on health which is all over the shop. The government was not going to take away the rebates, and now it is. The government was going to fix the public hospital system by 1 July 2009, and it has not. The government was going to hold a referendum to take control of the public hospital system if it had not been fixed by 1 July 2009, and we have no idea whether it intends to do that or not. I suspect that the government is, at this stage, completely at a loss as to what its policy should be.

The Senate is perfectly entitled to say to this government: ‘Go away and sort your policies out. Decide what you want to do. Decide how you’re going to deal with the crisis in Australian health and then come back with a plan to the Australian people and the Senate.’ In the absence of that plan, of that indication of how it is going to deal with this problem, health is a political plaything for this government, and the Senate is perfectly entitled to refuse to play that game. We are entitled to say that we will not engage in the process of passing legislation, the implications of which have simply not been thought through. The government has not explained how it will deal with the extra pressure which this legislation, if passed, would place on our public hospitals.

Every one of us in this place has heard stories of a hospital system in crisis, of longer waiting lists for elective surgery, of people fronting up to emergency departments and being unable to be treated, of people receiving absolutely shocking outcomes in the course of their accessing services in public hospitals. I acknowledge that that is not the universal experience and that many people get very good quality service from our public hospitals; but, regrettably, the number of times that the system fails because of pressure on it is very large, and that is unacceptable. We in this place have a duty to try and mitigate that occurring. This government does not seem to care about that. It wants to put pressure back on the public hospital system, and there is no plan or strategy for dealing with that in this legislation or elsewhere.

We simply assume that the government will somehow be able to persuade state governments or perhaps pay state governments to lift their game with respect to the performance of the public hospital system in order to cope with the additional demand, which surely will be the outcome of this legislation. All I can say to them is that, if that is their tactic, ‘Good luck’, because, frankly, the public hospital system in this country is creaking and groaning from the pressure that it is already under. It simply cannot afford to be placed under greater pressure.

We made it clear that the devices that we were putting in place were designed to support the capacity of Australians to make choices within the health system. We wanted that safety net to be a strong one for Australians who could not afford private health insurance or who chose not to take it out, so that there would still be access to decent quality services to the extent that we could influence that happening. During our time in government, we continued to strengthen the resourcing available to our public hospitals. Let us put to bed very firmly at this point in the debate the myth, which Labor has chosen to pursue and repeated in question time yesterday in this place, that the coalition took a billion dollars out of the public health system. You know that is not true. You know that is simply a falsehood. In every year that we were in government we continued to support to a greater extent the health burden taken on by the states through their public hospitals. When we came into government in 1996, we were supporting public hospitals run by the states to the tune of a little over $5 billion. When we left office in 2007, we had support running at twice that amount at a little short of $11 billion annually. So it simply is not true to say that any money was taken out of that system. But the amounts that we put into the public hospital system would simply not have been adequate to deal with the kind of crisis which the present Rudd government is seeking to shift onto the shoulders of our public hospital system. It simply will not be able to cope if this legislation passes and I sincerely hope that the Senate will not allow that to happen.

We also had the Labor opposition throughout the 11 years of the Howard government continually attacking rises in private health insurance premiums. Every increase in a premium that occurred was ritually attacked by the relevant shadow minister, whoever it might have been, and accusing fingers were pointed at the coalition for allowing this to occur. I note that there have been very significant increases in premiums. The minister for health herself was warning only a few days ago about some very significant increases coming down the line. She appeared to be shaking her finger in the direction of the health funds. When premiums went up under us, it was the government at whom the relevant shadow minister shook his or her finger, not the health funds. Why wasn’t the government doing something about rising health insurance premiums? That does not appear to be the policy of the present Rudd Labor government. They are choosing to blame private health insurance companies and frankly I think that is unfair. It will be absolutely unfair if this legislation is passed because the inevitable consequence will be that there will have to be a substantial increase over time in insurance premiums to account for those people who will leave the system. Of that there can be absolutely no doubt.

I think that the government has very badly failed to plan ahead for the needs of our health system, and the irony is considerable indeed that by all accounts we are seeing an increase in the government’s focus on health as a political weapon in the lead-up to the coming election. What was in prospect at one stage—an election based around the emissions trading scheme—seems to be evaporating in favour of an election built around health. With such a confused and incomplete picture of what it wants to do with the health system, with endless reports and reviews having put information on its table but without any tangible action to follow from that work, with a policy to increase the cost of private health insurance but no plan to support public health as a result of that policy, with all of these mismatched and confused policies in place it is astonishing that the government would expect the Australian people to trust it on the question of health at the coming election. But apparently that is what it is planning to do.

I think the Australian people are growing more cynical by the day with respect to what this government wants to do. They were a little more cynical when they saw the government attempt to cut rebates for cataract surgery, something which the government had mentioned nothing about before the 2007 election but which apparently became an area of high priority for them to pass. They banged their fists on the table in the Senate and said: ‘We must have this reform. Forget the fact that we did not mention this to the Australian people prior to the 2007 election.’ They said this was an essential reform. We were told that a cut in the rebate for assisted reproductive technology also had to occur, and again there was no mention of that being necessary before the 2007 election. The mother of them all was the government insisting that it is essential to their health reforms, such as they are, that they be able to rip billions of dollars out of private health insurance rebates. We even had the extraordinary claim that, if we did not pass this legislation, there were going to be tens of billions of dollars less available in the health system in the future to deal with challenges in the sector. Of course, if you are taking money away from a rebate and there is no hypothecation of the saving that you are making going back into the health system, then it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the money being taken out is not going to end up in the health system, and nothing in this legislation provides any guarantee or comfort that it will in fact be the case.

On my submission, the Senate is entitled to reject this legislation comprehensively, and to remind the Australian people that this is yet another broken promise by this Rudd Labor government, which is drifting, confused and unable to put together a coherent plan for health, much less the whole set of challenges facing the Australian community. The Senate is doing its job, the job it is supposed to be doing, the job it was set up by the Australian people to do, by rejecting this legislation, because we are holding the government to account. It promised not to interfere with private health insurance rebates and the Senate is absolutely entitled in those circumstances to say, ‘No, we will not support legislation for you to break the promise you made solemnly to the Australian people in 2007.’

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak wholeheartedly and wholesomely in opposition to the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and theFairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009. If the Prime Minister decides in his wisdom to use this legislation, if it is defeated, as a double dissolution trigger, then I say, ‘Bring it on!’ because I am quite happy to have a debate about the importance of health to the Australian people and about the importance of a balanced health system with public and private options and support for both. I am committed to upholding a duty of care for my fellow Australians and my fellow Tasmanians in particular.

We know full well that the government promised to the nth degree prior to the last election that they would not change the private health insurance rebate support. We have quote after quote from Prime Minister Rudd—he was then opposition leader—and the Hon. Nicola Roxon, the now Minister for Health and Ageing and the former shadow health minister, promising up hill and down dale that they would not change those arrangements one iota. They expressed strong support for the private health insurance rebate and the current arrangements, yet in this parliament last year they tried to push through changes which will adversely impact not just those who will have to pay increased premiums—those 11-million-odd Australians who have private health insurance and will obviously have to pay extra as a result of the drop-off resulting from the government’s changes—but also those in the public hospital system. They will be forced onto queues, and waiting lists and waiting times will increase.

We know that in Tasmania we have amongst the highest waiting times and longest waiting lists in Australia. We do not want to make it any worse. Last year, St.LukesHealth insurance organisation undertook research on the effect of the changes the government proposed at that time. I commend Colleen McGann, who is the head of St.LukesHealth insurance organisation in Northern Tasmania. She does a great job, she provides leadership and she supports a healthy community. Their research showed that as a result of the proposed changes Launceston General Hospital could face up to an additional 10,000 patients. That would have been a disaster for northern Tasmania. We know that the effect of this legislation if it were to pass would be to put pressure on the public hospital system. We do not want that. We want to have a balanced approach where those paying private health insurance premiums support the private sector and where there is also support for the public sector. I commend in this chamber the initiative of Will Hodgman, the state Liberal leader, on his announcement of the Smarter Health Care policy for northern Tasmania, released last Wednesday, when he said that under his proposal he would:

• Create a 28-bed transitional care facility at a refurbished John L. Grove Centre ...
• Provide four dedicated palliative care beds in Launceston, more than doubling palliative care availability;
• Significantly boost the ‘Hospital in the Home’ service for chronic disease, frequent hospital users and post discharge care;
• Establish Tasmania’s first Walk-in Care Clinic;
• Create eight funded positions for nurse practitioners to deliver a range of health solutions from the hospital to the home;
• Establish a $500,000 per annum Rapid Response Unit and GP Development Fund; and
• Fully fund the positions of doctors, nurses and allied health staff required to meet the construction of the expanded Department of Emergency Medicine, Acute Medical Unit, Day Procedure Unit and expanded ICU/HDU at the Launceston General Hospital.

Will Hodgman is doing a great job in Tasmania. He and the Liberals support the health system and they want a balanced approach. He says:

These initiatives, combined with the Liberal policy to spend $10m in two years to drastically cut elective surgery waiting lists through a strategic public-private partnership in our Sooner the Better policy, will ensure better health results all round for people in Northern Tasmania.

They have put together a very sensible, comprehensive health policy that will support the health of Tasmanians. We know that the track record of the Labor government in Tasmania is appalling when it comes to waiting lists and waiting times for Tasmanians, whether it be in the north, the north-west or the south. Tasmanians will have an opportunity to decide whether they want real change—whether they want to put up with waiting lists and waiting times that go on and on and on or whether they want those waiting lists and waiting times to be cut so that proper health care services can be delivered to Tasmanians. They deserve better than that which has been delivered under the Bartlett Labor government in Tasmania. They know that Will Hodgman and Brett Whiteley—I commend Brett Whiteley, the shadow minister for health, on the work that he is doing and the leadership that he is delivering on health—

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I see that some of the Labor senators from Tasmania are having difficulty comprehending. Why have they not lobbied their state colleagues to make sure that there is a cut in waiting times and waiting lists in Tasmania? We want to get a balanced approach. Will Hodgman is offering real change and Tasmanians will have an opportunity to decide, to vote, on 20 March to say, ‘Yes, we want to go forward under strong leadership, under the leadership of Will Hodgman, so there will be good health care, whether it be at the LGH or elsewhere.’

We know that the Premier put up a dud proposal to move the Royal Hobart Hospital next to a working wharf in Hobart. Can you imagine: they wasted thousands and millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on consultants, reports and reviews by the health department and others and they wanted to put the Royal Hobart Hospital into a working port? How absurd. What sort of vision is that? You have to redevelop the Royal Hobart Hospital proposal so that it delivers good health care to the people of southern Tasmania. They know what is best for them. We want them to decide on 20 March whether they will seek and want real change under a Will Hodgman Liberal government.

Debate interrupted.