BUSINESS

Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Manager of Opposition Business) (15:33): I move: That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Wannon moving the following motion immediately: That this House requires that the question on the second reading of the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026 not be put until such time as every Government Member has spoken during the second reading debate.

It is absolutely critical that every single member of the government speaks on this piece of legislation. Just to give you a sense of why it's so important we hear from them, 1.2 million pensioners are going to see their private health insurance go through the roof as a result of this bill. We want to make sure that every single member of the government knows this and is happy to publicly support it.

I'll tell you what happened when the health ministers from around the nation—state and territory—got with the federal health minister: they slammed him. Every single one of them said: 'How in good conscience can you do this to pensioners? How in good conscience can you do this to the public health system?' Guess what this does—it cost-shifts from the Commonwealth to the states and territories, and their public health systems are already under pressure.

They're already under stress. Why would you say, 'Okay, we're going to make that worse'? Let's have a look at what happened with the state and territory ministers.

There's the Labor premier of Western Australia. What did he say? 'Don't do it.' What did the South Australian premier say? Once again, he's Labor.

What did he say? 'Don't do it.' What did Chris Minns in New South Wales say? 'Do not do it. Our public health system cannot afford it. It's under pressure enough.' Do you know one of the reasons why it's under pressure?

The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors isn't doing his job properly. We're seeing people in hospitals being forced to stay in hospitals, because there are no aged-care beds for them. All of the Labor premiers said no.

And then what did the others say? The Northern Territory said: 'Don't do it. Please don't do it.' What did the ACT—which is, once again, Labor—say? 'This is going to put pressure on our public health system.' The Minister for Health and Ageing talks a big game: 'Everything's going swimmingly.

No problems to see here.' Yet every state and territory across the country, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria—well, if you've tried to get into public health in Victoria, good luck. They are broke. They've broken the health system.

They've broken the economy. They've broken their roads. They've broken everything, and this is going to make it worse there.

But every state and territory across the board is saying, 'Don't do this.' We want to hear every single member on the other side putting their name to this, because they're going to live to regret it. It was obvious as soon as this was announced, because as soon as it was announced in the budget—and, once again, did they say before the last election that they'd do this?

No. Did they take this to the Australian people? No, they didn't.

When it was announced in the budget, everyone knew immediately that this was problematic. I looked at it and just went, 'No, this is just the wrong thing to do.' I did my listening posts after the budget—and I won't forget this, because it was so sad that this lady had to approach me because of what this government is doing. A lady from town of Lismore—that's Lismore in Victoria, not Lismore in New South Wales.

It's a small town of 350 people. It's a lovely rural community. She came up to me on the listening post and she said: 'Sadly, my husband died of cancer two years ago.

We needed private health insurance for him. It saved him because he was able to get access to health care he needed. We were able to get that in an affordable way.

Since his passing, as a pensioner, I've been making sure that I can save to keep the private health insurance going because I've got cancer as well. I want to be able to get the care that my husband got, because I know that's going to be critically important to me as I battle this. 'I don't know how I'm going to be able to do that, because my insurance bills are going up.

My electricity bill's going up. My gas bill's going up. My private health insurance bill is now going to go up.

Everything is going up, and I'm not going to be able to afford this. What do I do? Do I all of a sudden scrimp and save on what I need to feed myself to keep myself strong, to battle through this cancer?

Or do I give up my private health insurance? If this gets through, that's what I'm going to be faced with.' I made a commitment to her that I would fight to try to make sure that these private health insurance changes didn't get through. It is incredibly sad to have someone come to you and say, 'Please help me, as I battle with cancer, deal with what this cruel Albanese Labor government is doing to me.' That is why we must hear from every single member.

You have to own it. Every single member of the Albanese Labor government needs to own this decision. You could sort of understand it if they'd looked at it and said, 'Well, it's not going to have much of an impact.' But 1.2 million pensioners?

This isn't some sort of trivial amount. That's what you're doing. Those poor pensioners are already struggling because cost of living is going through the roof, and this is what you want to do?

Well, if you're going to do it then every single one of Labor's MPs should stand up and say, 'This is why we are doing this.' I can tell you this will not age well. And I have no doubt that, in the end, you will have to reverse this. You'll have to reverse it for two reasons, and I'll go back to where I started.

The first reason is the states and territories are already saying: 'Enough is enough. What you're doing to our public health system is wrong. You're putting more pressure on it through this decision.

You're putting more pressure on it, through the incompetence of your aged-care minister, and it is buckling.' The first time people are going to get a chance to say how bad it is and how they are feeling about it will be in the Victorian state election, and I can tell you that it's going to be overwhelming. The second reason why this has to go, why it has to be opposed and why all of you have to own it, is you're about to make life so hard for 1.2 million pensioners who are already dealing with the cost-of-living crisis.

They're already seeing their power bills go up. They're already seeing the price of what they can buy at the supermarket go through the roof. They're already seeing their insurance costs go through the roof.

And now they're about to get another whammy with their diesel or their petrol, their fuel prices, and their gas prices going through the roof as well. Hopefully, those opposite will vote for this because we want to hear from every member; none of them would want to be hiding away from such a callous decision as this. If you're going to make a callous decision like this, you want to stand up and make sure you're owning it.

What we have to hear from them is what is the advice you give to these 1.2 million pensioners? What are you going to say to them? Now's your chance, every single one of you, to look those 1.2 million Australian pensioners in the eye and say, 'This is why we're doing this.' The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Chesters ): Is the motion seconded?