PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Ms ROBERTS (Pearce) (12:14): The incorporated speech read as follows— Private health insurance is an important part of Australia's health system. It provides choice for millions of Australians, supports our private hospital sector and complements our universal public health system. But that does not mean every subsidy within that system must remain unchanged forever, regardless of whether it remains fair, well targeted or the best use of taxpayers' money.

The Albanese Labor government is not abolishing the private health insurance rebate. It is not removing income testing. It is not preventing older Australians from receiving assistance with the cost of private health insurance.

From 1 April 2027, Australians within the same income tier will receive the same rebate regardless of whether they are 64, 65 or 75. At present, a person in the base income tier aged under 65 receives a rebate of 24.118 per cent. Someone aged between 65 and 69 receives 28.139 per cent, while a person aged 70 or older receives 32.158 per cent.

The question is whether two Australians earning the same income should receive substantially different taxpayer subsidies simply because one is older. The government believes assistance should be targeted according to capacity to pay rather than age alone. And let us be clear: the Commonwealth will still provide around $7.9 billion through the private health insurance rebate this financial year.

I also want to address the National Seniors Australia survey relied upon heavily in this motion. I respect National Seniors Australia and the important advocacy work it does. We should listen carefully when older Australians raise cost-of-living concerns.

But survey results must be represented accurately. The survey found that 8.4 per cent of respondents were considering dropping hospital cover and 12.5 per cent were considering reducing their cover. Considering doing something is not the same as doing it.

The figures of 270,000 people dropping their insurance and 400,000 downgrading are extrapolations based on an assumption that those responses are replicated across the entire insured population and that those considering a change ultimately make that change. National Seniors itself says those figures would occur only if its survey findings were reflected across the wider population.

The government's published impact analysis estimates that by 2028-29 there will be around 0.4 per cent fewer people aged 65 and over with private health insurance than there otherwise would have been. Importantly, the total number of older Australians holding private health insurance is still expected to increase. The government has also acknowledged there may be additional demand on the public system, but the modelling describes that increase as marginal.

So the suggestion that the government has failed to consider participation or public hospital impacts is simply incorrect. Nor is the government pretending that nobody will pay more. The estimated average increase for affected older Australians is approximately $250 a year.

Some people with more expensive policies, including some gold policies, will experience larger increases. We acknowledge that. But governments must also decide where finite taxpayer dollars produce the greatest benefit.

The reform will save approximately $3 billion over four years, with those savings being invested back into aged care. That means more residential aged-care capacity, investment in specialist dementia care and, from 1 October, eligible older Australians receiving Support at Home no longer facing out-of-pocket charges for essential personal care such as showering, dressing and non-clinical continence management.

We are not taking money out of health and putting it into consolidated revenue. We are redirecting an age based subsidy towards services overwhelmingly used by older Australians themselves. As the member for Pearce, I represent many older Australians, and I know private health insurance matters to them.

I also know that affordable aged care and access to home care, dignity and independence matter enormously. Reasonable people can debate whether the balance struck by this reform is the right one. National Seniors is entitled to put its case, and the government should continue listening to the concerns it raises.

But this motion takes a survey measuring what people are considering doing, extrapolates those intentions across millions of Australians and presents the resulting figures as though they represent the likely outcome of the policy. They do not. The government's approach is based on published modelling, maintains a substantial private health insurance rebate and redirects savings from removing an age based uplift into desperately needed aged-care services.

That is a reasonable and responsible reform.