QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Health and Ageing and Deputy Leader of the House) (14:45): I thank the member for her question. I don't agree with various aspects of the modelling that the shadow minister has obviously picked up from the industry, and I'll address that. But she asks why we have taken this decision.

As we've made clear from the time I announced it, before the Treasurer's budget speech, we have taken this decision—which is a hard decision, I accept—to fund a necessary expansion in aged-care services: to deliver more beds, to deliver more packages at home and to deliver better care. One of the reasons why we had to do that, to the shadow minister's question, is the appalling state that the former government left the aged-care system in when we came to government.

After their cutting the budget time and time again, leaving the sector in a position described by the royal commission in one word—neglect—we unapologetically have prioritised investment in care and dignity for older Australians who need it. Now, this is a hard decision, but it is a decision that returns the treatment of private health insurance subsidies to its original position, which did not differentiate between age groups.

What we will now see is two households next door to each other on exactly the same income who take out private health insurance receiving the same level of support from taxpayers for the payment of their private health insurance premiums. In the case of most members of private health insurance, taxpayers will fund about a quarter of their private health insurance, and that will remain the case.

Now, the shadow minister has talked about some modelling. The Treasury has made it very clear what the modelling of this will mean—at about 44,000 people leaving private health insurance, or less than half a per cent of membership, at a time when membership is increasing by two per cent. The shadow minister parrots modelling from the insurance industry.

We well remember when the insurance industry said that 1.6 million people would leave private health insurance when we means tested the private health insurance premium under the last government, and, indeed, insurance membership went up. It didn't go down at all. We also know that Melbourne university—not the government, certainly not the insurance industry—last week indicated modelling that was even more modest than the modelling released by Treasury.

I'll return to the question of why we are doing this. We are doing this as a hard decision to fund the necessary budget investment in an aged-care system to support a growing number of older Australians who need it. So the question is: what is the opposition proposing here?

We don't do this aged-care investment? We don't invest in more beds? We don't invest in more packages?

Or have you got another idea to pay for it? If you have, tell us what it is.