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

Here we go again. The Labor government do not take no for an answer. Here they are again playing politics with our health system. They are playing politics to hide their failures in the health portfolio. Before the last election they promised the world, but they have delivered next to nothing. We have had review after review, reviews of the reviews and photo opportunities around Australia. We have had budget cuts to the health portfolio while the Rudd Labor government have been going on spending spree after spending spree in other parts of government. We have had cuts to chemotherapy treatment which, only because of the scrutiny of the Senate, we have had put on the backburner. We have had cuts to patient rebates for cataract surgery which, only because of the scrutiny of the Senate, the government have had to do a backflip on. We have had cuts to the Medicare safety net even though the government promised before the election that they would not cut the Medicare safety net. We have had a $740 million cut to spending on private health insurance rebates.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Cormann, I will ask for the conversations around the chamber to cease as I am having difficulty hearing you.

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

Madam Acting Deputy President, it would be an absolute tragedy if you could not hear what I have to say in relation to Labor’s health portfolio failures because this is a very important contribution and I hope that people right across Australia hear what I have to say here today on behalf of the opposition. This government has failed the Australian people on health. This government has failed patients across Australia. Before the election Labor promised they had a plan to fix public hospitals. But what did we get after the election? Nothing. We got reviews, more reviews and reviews of the reviews.

Why are we wasting a whole week on yet again debating a piece of legislation for which this government knows it does not have the support of the Senate? Its so-called Fairer Private Health Insurance bills have been defeated before. Equally, this bill will be defeated. The government knows this, yet we are spending hours and hours debating this. Do you know why the government is wasting this time? Because it is playing politics and wanting to set itself up for a campaign in the lead-up to the next election whereby it can blame everybody else, except its own incompetence, for its failure with the health system. It knows that it has overpromised. It knows that it has underdelivered. It knows that patients across Australia have been let down by the Rudd Labor government.

Those opposite know that there is a serious risk that they will be punished for their failure with the health system at the ballot box come the next election. So they are trying to set themselves up for the excuses that they are going to roll out. Just wait for the Prime Minister to come out, in the lead-up to the next election, and blame their failure to fix the health system on the fact that this legislation did not go through the Senate, even though it was Kevin Rudd himself who gave before the last election to the Australian people an ironclad guarantee and a most emphatic commitment—an absolutely ironclad commitment—that they would retain and not do away with the existing private health insurance rebates. But what have we got in front of us? We have got an unfair private health insurance incentives  bill. We have got before us a piece of legislation which is going to be bad for our health system and bad for patients across Australia.

We on this side are committed to a strong and well balanced health system. We are committed to a health system in which all Australians can have timely and affordable access to quality hospital care. We are committed to a health system which has both a strong and well-funded public system and a strong and well-supported private system. We are committed to sensible, strong incentives that encourage Australians who can afford to do so to take responsibility for their own health care needs, to put additional resources into our health system. What have we got with this government? We have a government that has done absolutely nothing in health, that has wasted two years and that is looking for a political strategy to save its bacon in the lead-up to the next election. Who is caught up in the middle of that? Patients across Australia. Millions of patients will see their private health insurance rebates reduced or scrapped altogether as a result of this measure. Even more patients will have to compete, with all the people leaving private health over a period of time, in trying to get access to our public hospital system.

If this legislation were to be passed, it would be yet another part of Labor’s constant ideological war against private health. Labor have form on this, and they are at it again. They have never liked private health. They have never liked the important role that private health has to play as part of our overall health system. They thought before the last election that it was important, in order to win votes, that they convince the Australian people that they had learnt the lessons of the past. Before the last election Labor went out of their way to convince the Australian people that they would no longer pursue their ideological crusade against Australians with private health insurance, yet here they are at it again. So, rather than fixing the health system, Labor’s actions will make our health system worse. They will put further pressure on our health system at the same time as they will be doing nothing to fix the public health system issues that they have previously identified. This is an absolute disgrace, Madam Acting Deputy President, and I do think it is important that you can hear what I have to say on behalf of the opposition in relation to this issue, so I thank you for having asked my colleagues to quieten down so that you could listen very carefully, particularly to the very important point that I had to make in relation to this piece of legislation.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order! It being 12.45 pm, we now move on to non-controversial bills.