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

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (18:58): The government won't be supporting these amendments. These amendments would limit oversight and would reduce the government's ability to apply appropriate public interest scrutiny and protect consumer rights. It would also undermine the intent of the bill by applying inconsistent oversight across private health insurances.

Our reforms do, we would assert, apply consistent oversight across private health insurance products, regardless of whether they cover hospital or general treatment services. This helps to ensure that significant product changes remain subject to appropriate public interest scrutiny, and they support strong consumer protections. The policy settings also guard against insurers margin shifting from scrutinised hospital products to unscrutinised general treatment products.

The amendments also potentially present risks to government being able to adequately scrutinise premiums. The annual premium round process typically takes more than 30 days. A 30-day limit, as proposed in the amendment, would constrain the minister's ability to protect value for consumers and support an appropriate balance of market powers and equitable funding arrangements across the private healthcare industry.

Question negatived.