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

Mr HASTIE (Canning) (10:40): Australians expect a basic bargain from their country: work hard, pay your taxes, save what you can and take responsibility for yourself and for your family, and, if you do those things, the government shouldn't punish you for it. But that's exactly what the Albanese Labor government is doing to older Australians. People in my community are telling me life is getting harder.

Power bills are up. Insurance costs keep climbing. The weekly shop costs more.

The family budget doesn't go as far as it did a year ago. For older Australians living on fixed incomes, there isn't much room left for them. I've seen seniors working through their groceries in their local Coles and Woolies trying to work out whether they can afford half a dozen eggs, and it's a sad scene to watch.

Now Labor wants them to pay more for their health insurance as well. Adrian and his wife live in Dudley Park, in my electorate. They're both in their 80s.

They've worked hard. They've paid their taxes, and they've paid for private health insurance for decades. Now they're worried that Labor's changes to the private health insurance rebate could push their premiums up by more than $30 a week.

That's more than $1,500 a year. That's a lot of money for seniors on a fixed income. Adrian is 82.

After a serious fall, he needed to see a neurologist. He tried the public system and was told he could be waiting for years. At 82, he doesn't have years to wait.

That's why his private health insurance matters. Adrian and his wife aren't wealthy, but they planned ahead. They paid their own way.

They kept their private cover because they knew there might come a day when they needed it. And that day came. Now, in their 80s, Labor is making that cover harder to afford.

I'm hearing the same thing from older Australians across Canning. Grant is 77. He and his wife are sitting around the kitchen table working out what level of cover they can still afford.

Margaret is 78. She has paid for private health insurance for 56 years. That's 56 years.

Scott is 65 and lives on a disability support pension. He told me that, if his premiums rise any further, he simply won't be able to keep his cover. These Australians have done exactly what governments have asked people to do for decades.

They've taken responsibility for themselves. They've paid into the private system. In doing so, they've taken pressure off our public hospitals.

Labor should be thanking them. Instead, they're taxing them. And here's what makes it worse.

The Albanese government announced an $11 billion cut to private health insurance rebates without even knowing how many pensioners would be caught by the change. It was only after pressure from the coalition and stakeholders that the Department of Health produced an estimate—around 1.2 million pensioners, many of them full-rate pensioners. I see that we've got young Australians up there in the gallery.

They might be your grandparents who are affected by this change. The government didn't count them before it made the decision. It still doesn't have a reliable, up-to-date number.

They made the decision first and worked out who would pay later. Now the states are warning them. The Labor governments of New South Wales and South Australia oppose the change.

Premier Minns of New South Wales and Premier Malinauskas of South Australia are pretty smart people. They know what's at stake here. So do the coalition governments of Queensland and Tasmania.

They know what happens next. If older Australians drop their private health insurance, they don't stop getting sick; they just go into the public system. In Western Australia, that system is already struggling.

Waiting lists are long, emergency departments are under enormous pressure and people like Adrian are already being told that they could wait years to see a specialist. Labor's answer is to push more people into an already overloaded and broken system. The insurers are warning about it too.

Medibank says the number of people dropping their cover could be more than double the government's estimate. Medibank, HCF and Bupa say poorer retirees and older Australians in regional communities will be among the hardest group of people hit. The Australian Medical Association has questioned whether this will even save money once the extra pressure on hospitals is accounted for.

So, what is the point of this policy? It's a good question, and people in the galleries are asking: 'Why the change? What's going on here?' It makes private health insurance more expensive for older Australians.

It risks pushing people out of private cover. It puts more pressure on public hospitals, which we need to be operating far more effectively for Australian citizens. Labor didn't even know how many pensioners would be affected when they announced it.

People like Adrian are already being squeezed by the cost of living. They pay more for electricity, more for groceries, more for insurance, and our seniors are particularly struggling with loneliness. If they can't go out and socialise because they don't have the discretionary spending in their budgets, that means they're isolated from their community, and it means that they're kept at home and they struggle with loneliness.

I think that's a tragedy. It's a tragedy, and there is a consequence, a very human consequence and impact, of the way governments change policy. This change right now is having a big impact on our seniors.

They're watching every dollar because in retirement there isn't another pay rise coming next year. They made their plans based on what they had worked and saved for. Now, Labor is changing the deal on them.

They're pulling the rug from underneath them. There's something deeply wrong with that. A country should reward people who work, save and take responsibility.

It should encourage people to provide for themselves when they can, because that's good for them, good for their families and good for the country. But, instead, Labor looks at these people and sees another place for raising revenue. The coalition will fight these cuts.

We're going to fight them very hard. They should be abandoned because Adrian and his wife have spent their lives working, paying taxes, saving and taking responsibility for themselves—as have Grant and Margaret and so many more Australian seniors and pensioners across our great country who've made their contribution over a lifetime and are now going to be hit by this change.

They've held up their end of the bargain, and it's about time this Albanese Labor government did the same.