Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (18:42): The coalition will be supporting the amendments that have been put forward by the government on sheet ES128, but I want to put on the record that these amendments are a result of what we've seen as an incredible pattern of behaviour by this government, and that is its persistent lack of preparedness to consult about bills before it brings them into this place, and then we have to fix them later.

At least, in this instance, we're actually having the bill fixed on the floor before we're being asked to vote on it, as opposed to the many times we have to wait until the flaws that were highlighted before the bill was brought into this place actually come to reality in the real world before the government comes back here to fix them. As I said, at least these amendments to this bill recognise some of the fundamental omissions, faults and flaws in the original bill.

But maybe we should prevent the other problems that we're likely to see, because there are other parts of this bill that we think would have been equally well served by actually having some proper consultation with the sector. To that end, we've moved a series of amendments that we believe will avoid the necessity to come back into this place and fix the problems that would never have occurred in the formation of this bill if the government had just bothered to consult with the stakeholders before they brought it in.

Sadly, I believe, the government will continue with its pig-headed, non-consultative, arrogant approach to this bill, as it has to other pieces of legislation. But, because we believe that the amendments that have been put forward by the government on this occasion do at least go some way to fixing up some of the flaws that have been identified—albeit not all of those flaws, by any stretch of the imagination—the coalition will be supporting these amendments.

The CHAIR: The question is that government amendments (1) to (8) on sheet ES128 be agreed to. Question agreed to.