Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026
Senator LIDDLE (South Australia—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (13:07): I rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026. The coalition will not stand in the way of this bill passing the Senate. However, we will be moving a series of substantive amendments to address the shortcomings identified through the committee process.
While we support the principles behind this bill, principles alone are not enough. This legislation makes two key changes to Australia's private health system. Firstly, it introduces transparency by default, with amendments allowing the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to publish information on the medical costs finder about the fees charged by practitioners, including specialists and general practitioners, and the likely out-of-pocket expenses patients will face.
It will be welcomed by consumers. Secondly, the bill regulates private health insurance premiums, requiring insurers to seek ministerial approval for new products and for existing products where certain changes are proposed. This change is aimed at addressing the risk of what's known as product phoenixing, where an existing insurance product is closed and a new near-identical new product is opened at a higher premium, deliberately skirting the approval process.
There's no disagreement on greater transparency in healthcare pricing and the need to help consumers make informed choices about their health care. There's no dispute. Australians deserve to know before they walk into a specialist's office roughly what it's going to cost them for that visit.
It's not a radical idea; it's actually common sense. But let me be clear about why this matters so much right now. The Labor Party will tell you that all you need is your Medicare card, but Australians know that that is not true.
Just last week, my out-of-pocket expense, paid for with my credit card, was $60. What about those on fixed incomes? What about those on minimum wages, struggling to make ends meet?
What about them, Labor? It is those people who are affected the most by rising costs, compounded by your reckless spending, which keeps inflation higher for longer. Australia's private health system plays a critical role in supporting our public hospitals, with the two systems working hand in hand to ensure all Australians have access to the health care they need.
When the private hospital systems and aged-care systems are not functioning correctly, our public hospitals become the waiting room for those who can go nowhere else. The private system relieves pressure on our public hospitals, and right now that could not be more critical. At a time when we are seeing record levels of ambulance ramping and increasing wait times at hospitals right across the country, this is why reforms in this space must be considered carefully.
Unintended consequences are very real when you weaken the very system propping up our public hospitals. Nowhere is the failure of the Labor government in this area to manage the delicate balance more evident than in my home state of South Australia. In my home state, the ramping of ambulances is at record levels—one of the worst performances in the country.
So much for the Malinauskas government, which promised it would end ramping. Only last week, it was extraordinary to go to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and see the sea of ambulances just sitting at the front waiting to get in. The Malinauskas government promised to end ramping.
In fact, they said, 'Voters, your life will depend on it.' It's now worse than ever. There's another Labor lie for you. More than 450 older Australians currently remain in hospital despite being medically ready for discharge, leaving our public health system at breaking point.
This is the reality of health care under Labor, a system where patients are stranded and hospital resources are diverted from acute care because the broader health and aged-care ecosystem is failing due to lack of care, lack of preparedness and a Labor government that can't fix it. South Australia is home to the current Minister for Foreign Affairs, as well as Labor's Minister for Health and Ageing and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—and another in the Minister for Trade and Tourism.
There is that sort of representation from South Australia, and a Labor government in South Australia, and it's that much of a right mess. The coalition recognised that high out-of-pocket costs for specialists are a major concern for Australians, who are struggling with the rising unaffordability of health care under this government. The out-of-pocket cost to see a GP has skyrocketed to more than $50 under this government, the highest level on record.
Out-of-pocket costs for specialist appointments are spiralling too. According to the government's own most recent Medicare data, the bulk-billing rate for specialist attendances sits at just 28.2 per cent, with an average out-of-pocket cost of $124. For anaesthetics, the bulk-billing rate is just 8.7 per cent, with an average out-of-pocket cost of $245.
These are not costs the average Australian can easily absorb, let alone older Australians living week to week on fixed incomes who have greater need as they age, or young families with multiple children also caught up in Labor's sick health system. This is forcing Australians to make the impossible decision to avoid seeing a doctor altogether because they simply cannot afford to seek medical attention when they need it.
They're delaying it. Research conducted last year by Redbridge showed around 30 per cent of people referred to a medical specialist over the past three years did not attend due to health concerns. I'm not making it up; it's actually there.
Australian families are now choosing between seeing a doctor and paying the bills. This is a choice no family should ever be forced to make. And then there is this government's attack on the private health insurance rebate for older Australians, which sits at the heart of everything that's wrong with Labor's approach to health care.
The Albanese Labor government is cutting the additional private health insurance rebate that millions of Australians aged over 65 rely on. It's an ugly way to address Labor's spending. Older Australians who did the right thing for decades, scrimping, saving and paying their own way with private health cover, are now being hit with an $11 billion tax under Labor.
National Seniors Australia's own research suggests around 55 per cent of the 3.1 million older Australians set to be hit are pensioners—those who can't just take on another job. Labor is punishing those financially exposed older Australians who have worked hard their whole lives and managed their finances very carefully. I want to put some faces to those numbers because they are not abstract statistics.
These are real South Australians, but they could be Australians anywhere. In the Labor electorate of Boothby, Robert and Debra from Glenelg wrote to me and said: I have had private health insurance ever since I started work at age 16. I am now 75.
This means that I have had 59 years of continuous payments. My wife Debra, age 68, and I are lucky to not have any ongoing health problems but maintain our gold private health insurance for the time when we might need to start claiming. They both receive a part pension and have a fixed Public Service pension, but they're finding it difficult to make ends meet.
Cash flow is a problem. Then there's Fiona from the suburb of Black Forest—again in the Labor held electorate of Boothby—who said: I rang Bupa this morning to discuss the rebate. I told them that after a lifetime of being privately covered, I may have to reconsider and clog up the public health system.
I have worked all my life, as a midwife and a teacher, from 17 years of age to retirement, and now as a working grandma. It's not a made-up story; it's a very real one. Here's a story of another real South Australian.
Disability pensioner Denise's private health insurance helped pay for a hip and two knee replacements, along with other surgeries. Denise called in to ABC radio to tell listeners: It's like a security blanket. To have that taken away from me, I would be shattered, absolutely shattered.
These are just a few of the stories behind the 3.1 million Australians set to be hit by these changes. While the government hasn't done the modelling, once again, industry research suggests that more than 250,000 older Australians will downgrade or drop their cover altogether. They'll be left with no choice, and it matters enormously, because older Australians disproportionately have gold and silver cover, which are the levels that include joint replacements, cataract surgery and other procedures that older Australians genuinely need.
Older Australians pushed off gold cover do not disappear from the health system. Instead, they end up on our already clogged elective surgery waitlists. That's what they do.
Every older Australian forced to drop or downgrade their cover means longer waitlists, more ambulance ramping and worse outcomes for patients right across the board. Add to that Labor's assault on veterans through the $5,000 annual cap on allied health services. This government just sees no boundaries, only opportunities to cut, cut and cut to fill its ever deepening black hole.
The only guarantee for Australians is that Labor is not listening, and, when it runs out of money, it will come after more of yours. These rebate cuts come on top of the largest health insurance premium rebate rise in eight years—a 4.41 per cent average increase in April—impacting 15 million Australians who rely on private health insurance during this enduring cost-of-living crisis.
At the worst possible time, Labor is slugging Australians with high premiums while families are already struggling to keep their heads above water. The Prime Minister waved around his Medicare card and told Australians that it would be free to see a doctor. In reality, Australians are now facing the highest out-of-pocket costs on record, and they are predicted to keep rising.
The coalition is focused on ensuring that all Australians have timely and affordable access to health care. Labor, by contrast, is focused on using Medicare as a political prop—always chasing the headline instead of delivering real outcomes for the Australians who most need them. This is not a new pattern.
The former coalition government was bringing private health insurance premium increases under control, delivering the lowest annual premium changes in two decades, with increases progressively getting smaller year on year. But, under Labor, that trend has completely reversed. It has changed trajectory entirely.
Premiums are now rising at the fastest rate in almost a decade, driven by the same broader economic mismanagement that has seen inflation sit consistently above RBA target bands. Wages fail to keep pace and business operating costs continue to spiral. I want to bring this back to South Australia now.
My home state has the highest proportion of older Australians on the mainland, and they are the ones who will wear the cost of these changes the hardest. State Labor took a promise to fix the ramping crisis to the last election, and, as I said, it has never been worse. The private health rebate exists so that older Australians' increasing healthcare needs do not place additional pressure on a public system already buckling under Labor governments.
Right across South Australia, in towns like Victor Harbor, Mount Gambier, Jamestown and Streaky Bay, there are older South Australians. They're a long way from this Canberra bubble, but they will wear the changes most directly, and it will be worse for those in country towns and centres. If visitation drops because older Australians can no longer afford their private health cover, these small regional hospitals will struggle to remain viable, leaving communities with even fewer local healthcare options and more pressure on already stretched public hospitals.
The coalition supports greater transparency in this bill and a strong private health system more broadly. The coalition will not oppose this bill in the Senate, but our support comes with a clear and unambiguous message to this government. It is time for the Prime Minister to stop waving around his Medicare card for the cameras and actually start addressing the rising affordability crisis facing Australian patients, one that his government's own economic mismanagement has directly caused.
Older Australians built this country. Army, Air Force and Navy veterans fought for this country. They deserve a government that backs them, not one that taxes them, strips their rebates and leaves them with an impossible choice between their health and their household budget.
In conclusion, this bill is in part about transparency and publishing costs for medical practitioners, but it must be said that the real issue here is that this bill doesn't recognise that consumers are paying so much more under this Labor government, and it is because of their economic vandalism.