STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (16:00): I rise to add my voice to the growing chorus of Australians against the government's proposed changes in the budget to private health insurance rebates. This bad economic policy, bad health policy and bad social policy will decrease the quality of public health care in Australia today. It's difficult for me to express it, but I want to read a message from Nancy in my electorate.

She and her husband are 73 years old, and she states that they've worked tirelessly for many years to be able to support themselves when they retire. They've paid for private health insurance to cover their children and themselves. They didn't qualify for a rebate for many, many years., At their age, when their health starts to fail, they feel that they've done everything right and haven't always qualified for the private health insurance rebates.

Now that they have, they have eye specialists, heart specialists, bone specialists, colon cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer—too many issues with their health to name—and they're in the final stage of their ageing. The government's changes will impact them right at the point when the insurance is supposed to kick in to actually make that difference in quality of care at this stage of their lives.

And what are they going to do? Just like thousands of people in my electorate and across this country, they've told me their means are such that they will go back into the public system queues, in many cases, and scrap their private health insurance. What a retrograde change!

I want to thank Nancy and her husband for passing this on to me. I want to say to the thousands in my electorate that the coalition will oppose these changes. We will fight to get the rebates back, because it's sensible health policy, it's sensible economic policy and it's sensible social policy.