Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026

Ms JORDAN-BAIRD (Gorton) (16:55): I rise today to contribute to the debate on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026. In Australia we're dealing with two realities—one, we have an ageing population, and, two, we have younger generations who are not afforded the same opportunities that their parents and grandparents were.

As we legislate for a better future for all Australians, we need to hold both these realities and account for both. We want to set up a system that helps all of us and senior Australians in our communities to age with dignity, and we want that system to be fair. Right now, two households living next to each other on exactly the same household income will receive a different level of taxpayer subsidy depending on whether they're over 65 or under 65.

That has become a hard policy to defend. It means that two households on the same income can receive different levels of government support based only on their age and that doesn't really make sense. The original system didn't include this differential treatment according to age, and we want to bring it back to that original design.

I want to be clear and echo some of the comments from the Minister for Health and Ageing. We're not taking away the private health insurance subsidy that is paid to Australians. What we are doing is changing the rate to ensure that it's effectively age neutral so that the government will pay a subsidy for people's private health insurance that is based on their income rather than their age.

This is a difficult decision, but it's made for good reason, because every single dollar that we're saving through this change is being invested into our ageing population, backing our aged-care system with over $3 billion investment in this recent budget and delivering more aged-care beds and better care for older Australians. We're holding both of those realities.

For our ageing population, we are investing heavily in improving aged-care services, and, for our younger generations, we are creating a fairer system that works for everyone. Every single dollar that we effectively save through these changes will be invested in new aged-care services that, frankly, we just have to start putting in place if older Australians are going to get the care and dignity they deserve.

People aged 65 and over will still receive significant government subsidised discounts of up to 24 per cent on the premiums private health insurers charge them, the same as the rest of the population. A single person earning $101,000 or less a year currently receives a 24.118 per cent rebate on their private health insurance premium. The government will continue to deliver this income based support.

Returning to income based rebates restores fairness in the rebate system and frees up funding to provide more dignity and care to older Australians. A few months ago, I spent some time with the Deer Park Probus Club, who hold monthly meetings at the Deer Park Club. This is a fantastic volunteer group for seniors in my community in the western suburbs to connect, with activities including a recent trip to Daylesford and other regional towns.

I spent some quality time with them, answered questions and listened to them. Thank you so much to Marie McVey for the invitation. The common theme from this was how the aged-care system wasn't working for them, how the wait times for Support at Home places were too long, how they struggled to get personal care services and had to pay out of pocket, and how—while they're not the only ones—older Australians are experiencing these challenges right across the country.

It's why we're listening to older Australians, their families, advocates and providers. Our $3.7 billion investment into aged-care services will make sure older Australians can access the care they need when they need it. That includes delivering 5,000 additional aged-care beds every year and focusing on making sure people with limited financial means can access quality residential care.

We're doing this by building subsidies and increasing and restructuring the accommodation supplement, giving providers the certainty they need to build and maintain quality accommodation. And we're making it easier for older Australians to access support at home by increasing the number of Support at Home places, expanding the supports available, improving assessments and working to bring down wait times.

Personal care services like showering, dressing and continence support will be free alongside clinical care. This is huge. By making sure older Australians won't have to make a co-contribution for these services, we're recognising them for what they are: essential.

We're also expanding the End-of-Life Pathway so that more people on palliative care can access the support they need at the very end of their lives, and we're strengthening dementia care with 20 additional Specialist Dementia Care Program units and an expansion to the Hospital to Aged Care Dementia Support Program. These measures build on the changes we delivered in our last term of government.

They're about making aged care fairer and more accessible, giving providers the certainty they need to invest in quality care and accommodation and building a system that will support older Australians for generations to come. Because every Aussie deserves to age with dignity, with access to quality care and with the choice to live safely and independently for as long as possible.

But it's not just our aged-care system. It all ties together with our public health system as well. This is something we know well in the Labor Party.

We introduced the PBS. We introduced the NDIS. We introduced Medicare.

And today, we're committed to making sure our public health system continues to have the capacity to care for Australians when they need it. This includes our record investments in Medicare, including the opening of 137 urgent care clinics across the country—like those near my own community, in Sunshine and Melton—and our landmark agreement with the states and territories to deliver record funding for our public hospitals and secure the future of the NDIS.

Under this agreement, the Commonwealth will provide an additional $25 billion in funding for public hospitals. That means Commonwealth funding for state-run public hospitals will reach a record $220 billion between 2026-27 and 2030-31. For Victoria, that means an additional $5.8 billion in public hospital funding over the next five years.

This matters because when you or your loved ones find yourselves in a position where you need to go to the hospital, you shouldn't have to worry about whether the system has capacity to care for you. Every Aussie should be able to walk into a public hospital knowing that the doctors, nurses and health professionals caring for them have the resources that they need.

We also need to make sure that Australians can access a GP in their own community. This is important in fast-growing communities like Thornhill Park in my electorate. Thornhill Park is one of Melbourne's fastest growing suburbs.

There are more families moving in, more homes being built and more people who need regular access to health care. But the community is facing a GP shortage. Locals are having to travel outside their suburbs to see a doctor.

For families with young children, older Australians, those living with disability or anyone relying on public transport, this is a real barrier. Earlier this year I visited Thornhill Family Clinic, which provides such an important role in providing primary care to the local community. But the clinic is facing difficulties attracting and retaining GPs.

Part of the problem is that the area is classified as MMM1, meaning it is regarded as a major city or metropolitan area in Australia where there are plenty of available GPs. But the reality tells us something very different. Thornhill Park is an outer suburban area with a rapidly growing population, and the lived experience of the community is that there is a genuine shortage of doctors and insufficient capacity to meet local demand.

This situation highlights a significant limitation in relying solely on geographic classifications to determine workforce need. For this reason, I advocate for the reclassification of Thornhill Park and a review of the DPA classification and workforce needs in Thornhill Park that take into account the suburb's rapid population growth, limited public transport, demographic diversity, access barriers and actual availability of local GPs so that suitably qualified doctors can continue practising at Thornhill Family Clinic and ensure the community does not lose existing GP capacity.

But access to a GP is one part of making sure Australians can get the health care they need. It's not only about having a doctor nearby but also about making sure that Australians have the information they need to make informed decisions about their health care and that they can understand the costs they may face. This is particularly important for Australians with private health insurance, and it's why we're making sure Australians with private health insurance have more information and more power when making decisions about their health care—because we know that navigating private health can be complicated.

The costs of seeing a specialist can vary significantly, even for the same procedure in the same part of Australia. For families already dealing with the everyday cost of living, unexpected medical bills can be really difficult to manage. That's why we're strengthening the Medical Costs Finder.

We want Australians to be able to see individual medical practitioner fees and insurer out-of-pocket data for common medical services. This information can be drawn from Medicare hospital and insurer billing data that the government already collects, so you can get better information without creating unnecessary admin work for doctors. We're also making sure that people can have more confidence in their private health insurance.

Under our legislation, insurers will need ministerial approval not only when changing premiums for existing products but also when introducing a new product or making changes that reduce the cover, benefits or terms of an existing product. And we are also banning product phoenixing, where an insurer closes an existing product and then opens an identical or similar product at a higher premium.

When you pay for private health insurance, you deserve to have confidence in what you're paying for. You deserve to understand the costs, to understand your cover and to be able to make informed choices about your health care. That's what these reforms are about.

At the heart of this bill is a really simple principle: we need a healthcare system that is there for Australians when they need it and a healthcare system that is fair, accessible and sustainable for generations to come. That means making the difficult decisions that see our funding do the most good—making sure that our ageing population can access the care they deserve, investing in our public hospital system, strengthening Medicare and giving people with private health insurance the information and protections they deserve so that they can make informed choices about their own health.

We have a responsibility to make sure that, when Aussies need access to health care, that access isn't determined by their age or their income but by their needs. We are working towards a fairer and stronger healthcare system. I commend this bill to the House.