STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator SCARR (Queensland) (13:56): I compliment Senator Steele-John with respect to that contribution. He makes extraordinarily important points, and we need to do better as a country. I mean, that is just not good enough.

So good on you, Senator Steele-John, for your ongoing advocacy in relation to those matters. I refer to the Labor government's appalling decision to abolish the private health insurance rebate for Australians at the age of 65 and over. This is an appalling decision that is going to make private health insurance unaffordable for tens of thousands of older Australians.

This is what the National Seniors Association says about this appalling policy '… it could see up to 270,000 people drop their cover and up to 400,000 reduce their level of cover,' and that's compared to the Labor government's forecast of only 44,000. This is what the Council on the Ageing says about this appalling policy: Axing the higher private health insurance rebate for older Australians risks hitting 1.2 million pensioners with higher costs and putting even greater pressure on already stretched public hospitals.

This is what the Australian Medical Association says about this appalling policy: the AMA says it is 'unconvinced' the measure will deliver genuine net savings once the flow-on pressure to public hospitals is counted. The flow-on pressure to public hospitals goes to the heart of this matter. In my home state of Queensland, there are 1,100 public hospital beds occupied by older Australians waiting for aged care.

This is the worst possible time a government could abolish the private health insurance rebate. Labor should reverse this appalling policy before it's too late.