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

Mr SMALL (Forrest—Opposition Whip) (18:35): Unfortunately, standing here in the House tonight to discuss the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026, we find ourselves seeing firsthand in cold, hard fact the Albanese government's absolute addiction to spending and the fact that they have run out of money, so they're coming after yours.

To strip back the private health insurance rebate for Australians aged over 65 is a blatant tax grab. That is what this is. This is not reform; this is a tax grab.

This will leave many older Australians, right at the time of their lives where they're transitioning typically to some sort of fixed income, whether that be super or the aged pension, and their ability to earn extra income is coming to an end—and yet that is the moment in time at which this government has sought to whack them with a truly difficult choice: to cut spending on other essentials or to downgrade their health cover.

Some local constituents of mine are looking down the barrel of having to drop their healthcare cover altogether, and we'll get to that. But, firstly, from a first principles point of view, if people drop their private health insurance cover, that only adds pressure to the public health system. In my home state of Western Australia, that will worsen the state's ramping crisis, which recently hit another all-time high just last month.

You really do wonder what the logic is of taking folks from a different health system and then forcing them into one that is literally crumbling at the seams in front of our eyes. Each night in Western Australia, we see a vision of streams of ambulances parked in the car park with patients onboard who can't get in the door to the emergency department. That's through no fault of our nurses and doctors who are absolutely doing their darndest to treat all Western Australians, but it is the reality.

The state government has overseen a crisis in our public health system at home, and now the Albanese Labor government is proposing to put fuel on the fire. It's a statement, I think, of some self-evident fact that, as people get older, they're more likely to need health care. Private health insurance has helped reduce that pressure on the public system, and that's why Australians currently get a slightly higher rebate to reflect the fact that they're still putting their hands in their pocket.

They're making a contribution, as most indeed have for decades, towards their own health care in this country. National Seniors Australia has found that as many as 45 per cent of people whose sole source of income is the age pension hold private health insurance. We aren't just talking about a cohort of the uber wealthy, those who at seeing the increase in their bill are in the luxurious position of not having to blink twice.

We're not talking about those people. We're talking about 45 per cent of these people who are on the age pension. They hold private health insurance and they are the ones facing the difficult decision as to whether or not they drop it altogether simply to continue putting food on the table.

Former AMA president Dr Michael Gannon has said, 'It'll affect individuals who have decided to put their health above holidays and their leisure pursuits.' These are people who have tried to do the right thing. So let's be really frank about this. It is simply unfair for this Labor government to punish these older Australians simply because the Treasurer has run out of money, simply because the Treasurer of this country is addicted to spending.

On this side of the chamber, the coalition supports choice. We have long believed that, if people work hard to pay for private health insurance their entire working life, they ought to be encouraged, not punished. That's why we will fight to stop Labor's cut to the private health insurance rebate.

We will fight it tooth and nail. The government should scrap this proposed cut and stop treating older Australians who have done the right thing for decades as its next great source of revenue, just another piggy bank to smash open as they hunt for pennies after blowing the lot. Couples aged over 65 with gold cover are being slugged up to an extra $1,600 a year from April 2027.

That's a staggering 21 per cent increase, and yet for individuals it's no better, with them staring down the barrel of an $807 increase. To have this sort of a hit to your household bottom line when interest rates are high and going higher, when the cost of living is still biting because of the Albanese government's home-grown inflation crisis and when this government continues to spend uncontrollably is going to affect these older Australians and their families in a very negative way.

Somehow, some on the other side have sought to claim that this fixes in some way generational inequity. Well, that's a con job, because all this does is push people from the private health system into the public health system, which in my great state of Western Australia, as I've already said, is crumbling before our very eyes. It's a further attack on aspiration in Australia.

What sort of message does it send to young Australians that, even if you do the right thing for decades, even if you're an Australian of relatively modest means and you're one of the 45 per cent of seniors who are on the age pension in your retirement, even then you won't be safe from a Labor government that has run out of money? If you follow the rules, work hard your whole life and do the right thing, do you know what you get from this Labor government?

You get a government that's going to whack you with more taxes right at the time when you're seeking a little extra support after your many years, your decades of contribution to this country. And so it is that we find ourselves with a majority of states and territories lining up against this measure, unafraid to call out the federal Labor government for its attack on private health insurance.

Victoria and South Australia, which are, of course, home to Labor governments at the state level, have joined with New South Wales and the coalition governments of Queensland and Tasmania to oppose this change. When Labor and coalition state governments alike—the governments that are actually running our public hospitals—are telling the Commonwealth that this policy shifts cost, not care, and that this policy puts pressure on health systems that can ill afford to take it, you need to stop and listen.

What do we get from the government? They're going to steamroll ahead like they try to do with everything else—perhaps for some dirty deal with the Greens in the Senate. Who knows what the price of that will be?

But I tell you what: these older Australians can turn to us in the coalition to stand up for them, because we will fight this tax, this hit, this tax grab tooth and nail. So it's time for Albo to call in the clean-up crew yet again on aisle 9 and fix another poor decision from his out-of-control Treasurer. It's time for the Prime Minister to stand up, take accountability and say: 'I did not before the last election tell you that I was coming after you.

I did not undertake to push ahead with this sort of tax grab, and therefore I admit I was wrong. This government of mine will actually stop.' That's what we want. In my electorate of Forrest, I've been inundated with calls and emails from deeply angry people concerned with how this will impact them.

Terry was one of the first out of the gates to email me, and he said, as a pensioner, he didn't want to become a burden on our public health system. Terry is one of those Australians who has sought to do the right thing. He just wants to be able to afford to live and to keep his private health insurance, as he has for decades, despite being an average Australian of limited means.

He's asked me to present his concerns to the government, and so I do tonight in the vain hope that this prime minister and this Labor government will desist from their tax grab and stand by the private health insurance of older Australians. Another couple, who I won't name at their request, emailed me with similar concerns, and, describing as 'inconceivable' the pressure that this would put on the public health system, they also had a message for this government, which I'm very happy to quote tonight: To target the elderly in such a manner on such an important issue as health can only be described as a "dog act" by an uncaring and incompetent government.

That's the Albanese Labor government, a government that has run out of money and so it is coming after people like this. I couldn't have said it better myself. But these are the feelings of people who are contacting me in my own electorate.

These are the people that are calling and talking to my staff wondering how on earth we have found ourselves in these circumstances. It's not good enough, and this government needs to repeal this decision. At the end of the day, modelling is not the government's strong suit.

We know that from, of course, the ill-fated RepuTex modelling which led the Prime Minister, the then opposition leader, to look down the barrel of cameras and declare 97 times that he would cut Australians' power prices by $275. When challenged at that policy announcement, he said: … I don't think, I know. I know because we have done the modelling.

Well, here we go again, because the government now has modelled the fact that 44,000 people across the country would drop their cover. Medibank, who happen to know a thing or two, I would contend, about private health insurance because they are a private health insurer, contend that the number will be double that, at 91,000 Australians. Imagine that—almost a capacity crowd at the MCG suddenly forced into the public health systems that are not coping across our country.

Medibank, HCF and Bupa have jointly warned that this change will actually fall hardest on poorer retirees and Australians who happen to live in the regions—people who live in regional communities like mine—and that a shrinking pool of Australians in the private health system will push premiums higher for those who remain. Not only will they face a tax grab from a government that is addicted to spending but they will also face the double whammy of having to pay yet higher premiums because fewer people are carrying private health insurance.

For my community, these warnings are deeply concerning. The government are yet again steamrolling in the implementation of a policy that will disproportionately hurt regional Aussies, like my people, in a new chapter in their story of the sick postcode lottery with which they govern. We've seen it with the NDIS reform.

We're now seeing it again with private health insurance. They're putting pressure on poorer Australians and driving up premiums for those who are left. It doesn't sound like a 'future made in Australia' to me—well, certainly not one that I want to be part of, and that's why I'm joining with my coalition colleagues to fight this terrible change.

It is, at the end of the day, not tax reform; it is blatant tax grabbing. On its own admission, the department doesn't actually have an up-to-date number, but the health minister did announce in April that this would yield $11 billion for the budget. This is not about delivering higher standards of health, despite the fact that Labor want to talk about what they do with Medicare and talk about what they want to do with health.

This is an $11 billion tax grab targeted at older Australians at a point in their life where they are losing the ability to earn extra income. The groundwork hasn't been done. There's been no meaningful consultation process on this.

So the bill doesn't even pass what's expected for good legislation, let alone the pub test, when it comes to a mean and nasty government that has run out of money and is now targeting Australians over the age of 65. We won't stand for it, because we have long supported those Australians who do the right thing; who deserve reward for effort; and who, in wanting to get ahead and do the right thing by their country, have maintained their private health insurance for decades.

I return to that stat that I mentioned at the start: 45 per cent of them over the age of 65 are actually on the pension. These aren't Australians who are minted. These aren't Australians who are millionaires.

They are Australians who want to do the right thing and expect only that their government will back them in that. I don't think that's unreasonable. In fact, that's the sort of compact that I would expect any decent Australian government would have with its older citizens.

That is why this decision to strip back the private health insurance rebate for over 65s is a disgrace, and that is why we will oppose it tooth and nail.