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

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (11:20): It's a privilege to follow the passionate contribution from the member for Lyne on this matter. The member for Lyne is totally correct about the Albanese government's agenda in relation to targeting some of the most vulnerable people in our society who've put away a lot of their savings and income in their lives to pay for their own health insurance to ensure that that burden is taken off the public and the public system and to prioritise their health care.

Why would a Labor government put forward a bill like this—the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026—to cut a rebate which saves the public health system much more than it costs? That's the whole point of a rebate and an incentive for private health rebates. The savings that governments, state and federal, make from this rebate is incalculable compared to the cost of the rebate, yet the Albanese government is pursuing an ideological attack on elderly people.

Some people in Australia might say, 'This is about rich people or people that can afford it.' Well, I want to commend the member for Kooyong for getting the Parliamentary Budget Office to do the analysis on this. It shows, in detailed analysis, that this is about 1.2 million age pensioners who have access to these private health rebates. It's people on the pension—the pension, if Labor members aren't listening!

I asked my electorate to tell me the impact of what would happen when the Albanese Labor government cuts this rebate through this bill in this House today. What would happen to their choice to have private health insurance, and how would it impact them? I can tell you that the evidence is stunning—absolutely stunning—from everybody in all of the age cohorts as they get older in their lives.

Remember, let's not play the intergenerational card here; this is when you are most vulnerable. As you age, you need health care the most. This is when access is critical.

You've paid your whole life. You're young and healthy. Then you get to this stage of your life.

This is when you need no mess and no fuss. All of us will get there. None of us can stand here and pretend that we won't be old one day, that we won't need health care and that it won't cost a fortune.

We need assistance at this stage of our life when we're most vulnerable. Think of your parents. Think of your grandparents.

All of us will be there. For the Minister for Health and Ageing to stand at the dispatch box every day and say, 'We have savings'—and we have the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors sitting at the dispatch box for his portfolio. Did the minister for aged care request that we cut private health rebates to make savings for aged care?

What a Hobson's choice! This government is saying that we have to cut private health rebates to pay for some more aged care, but, actually, what this will do is put immense pressure on the public health system, ratchet up the costs, not save any money and not pay for the aged-care portfolio. It's a complete debacle.

Let's hear the words of the people, and I think Labor members should hear this very clearly. We say 1.2 million pensioners. The Parliamentary Budget Office says up to 1.4 million—1.4 million pensioners affected by this cut to their rebate.

I want to start with a few words from actual pensioners in my electorate—actual examples of what will happen. Julie from North Kellyville says: 'As we are both full pensioners, we are struggling now to pay for our health cover. This additional payment will force us to use the public system, which can't cope with more seniors ending up in the public system.

After all the years we've worked for our country—we've paid taxes, I've been working from the age of 14, and we've raised our family without any handouts from the government—I feel that they owe us this rebate at this stage of our life. I feel I've been paying into a health fund since I was 14 years old,' Minister for Aged Care. 'We deserve to have this rebate, and the government should start looking after the seniors who are the backbone of this country.' Why would you take off this rebate at the age of 70-something, when you have a person who contributed their whole life, worked their whole life, who's now on the age pension?

We can go to other areas. Margaret from North Kellyville says, 'I'm only on a pension. The changes would make private health insurance, which I've had since I left school'—here's another 78-year-old with private health insurance since she left school; she's taken the burden off society, taken the burden off the public system—'unaffordable for me.' That's what Margaret from North Kellyville says.

Judy from Baulkham Hills says, 'I've been covering myself in my family since I was 16. Are we getting a sense of this generation? This is one of our greatest generations.

They worked their whole life, never took anything from the government and contributed by not being a burden to the public health system. Now the only thing they've got in their life—as we all understand and people here have forgotten, certainly this government has—was the age pension. That was the compact with this generation.

They didn't have superannuation. They didn't have compulsory superannuation. The compact with this generation was the age pension.

These people are so good that, with their remaining income, they paid for private health insurance, so they're not a burden on the state. Now, this Labor government says to them, 'You've done this your whole life, and you get to this point, and we're going to take it off you.' It's: 'I've been covering myself and my family since I was 16. I'm paying $400 a month as it is.

My husband and I are on the age pension. It's going to put a real strain on our budget. We still have a small mortgage.' This is the real world.

This is ordinary people. They're not well off. They've still got a mortgage on their own family home.

That's quite normal in Australia. People don't have a lot of wealth. The 1.4 million pensioners we're talking about are not well-off people.

That's what the Minister for Health and Ageing will not address in this House. This isn't taking from the rich to give to other people. This is taking from the poor.

This is taking from the working poor that have worked their whole life and are on the age pension. 'When we started working, there was no super. Now, with the cost of electricity'—does that sound familiar, minister at the table—'water rates, the cost of food, things are getting out of control. Something will have to give.

Unfortunately, it will have to be our health, and the government doesn't realise they're going to put more pressure on the hospital system because we won't be in charge of our health.' There are hundreds and thousands of these examples of pensioners in my electorate. Some of them are going to be forced to cancel their private health insurance. We know from the Albanese government that they have not consulted with the states on this measure, and the premiers are speaking about it now.

We know from the parliamentary budget modelling that the one weakness of the member for Kooyong's modelling is that it did not model the increase in cost and burden on the public health system—an overloaded and overburdened system. So all of these elderly people who are quite sick and who have legitimate and substantial healthcare needs are unable to charge their private health insurer and are reducing their cover.

I have dozens of examples of people here who are going to have to change their cover from gold to silver, who are going to go from silver to bronze. It is heartbreaking to read; I've got to say. I defy anyone here to not think about their parent or their grandparent.

Surely people in this House, members of the Labor government, have parents who are struggling, who are on the pension, who aren't well-off people. Surely, from a Labor Party background, from a working-class background—if there's any working class left in the Labor Party members of parliament there—they would understand that this is not about some kind of luxury rebate or some kind of luxury concession to people.

These are very marginal people doing the absolute best in life, doing the right thing by society, working hard, putting aside and contributing to private health. So, then, what is really behind this? Even the government's modelling says 1.2 million pensioners will have financial pressure.

I have an excellent point made by another pensioner in my electorate, who points out, 'They increased the pension $25 and then they've taken away $600 in the same breath.' It's incredible, right? The government has the temerity to stand in this House and say, 'Hey, we've increased the pension again because of natural indexation.' But they didn't mention in the same breath, 'Oh, by the way, we're taking away $600 from your rebate on average and more for some people.' Let's get back to the point.

The premiers and the states have not been consulted. The public health system is not prepared in any way for the impact of this. People are not prepared.

How is it good for the federal government to remove the incentive to keep people at higher levels of health cover that mean that private funds pay for them instead of the public system? Make it make sense. Make it make sense, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors.

I ask the minister at the table: did you ask the Minister for Health and Ageing to find money for your portfolio to fund aged care by removing the private health rebate for 1.4 million people? There are standing orders that the minister can take to answer my question right now. The minister for health has said that the reason they are cutting the private health insurance rebate from 1.4 million pensioners is to fund his portfolio.

Did the minister for aged care request it? Did he ask his senior minister, 'I need $1 billion'? From the Parliamentary Budget Office, it's $1,023.5 billion by 2030.

In the out years, this will save the government $11 billion, allegedly, by 2037. But, without the modelling on the public health system, I would argue this would cost maybe five times as much, just from listening to some private health insurers and hospital people. Did the minister ask his senior minister for that, or is this just a fabricated defence of an ideological move by a Labor government with too large a majority?

I'm going to tell the public this, and I say it to everybody in my electorate. I thank the thousands of people who've sent me these—thousands of elderly and vulnerable people. I have to be honest with you and say I'm saddened to read all of your responses.

I'm terrified that a government is so stupid as to target the elderly and the vulnerable in our society at a critical point in their health care and their life and say to them, 'We'll give you an indexed pension increase, but we'll take away $700, even though you're already struggling to pay your bills and you're not well off.' The real reason that the Labor government are doing this, with their 40-seat majority that the Australian public gave them—they had a supermajority.

It's time to move into the ideology of Labor—that is, if you work hard and you save and you put aside money, you're the enemy of the state. The Labor government of 2026 wants dependency on the state. It's true.

It's their modus operandi. The minister for health is part of the left-wing faction of the Labor Party, which absolutely hates private health. Why?

Because he doesn't like anything private. Everything should be government in society. Everything should be government.

That's his world view. So when he gets the power, when he's given the majority, he's prepared to go after 1.4 million pensioners. It's part of his ideological quest.

That's what a Labor government with too much power, too large a majority, will do. They won't listen to any of the thousands of age pensioners in my electorate who are talking about aged care. Have a listen to Malcolm from Baulkham Hills.

I'd say, Labor, maybe you should prick up your ears. 'I've voted Labor for 50 years. You've been my representative for 19 years, but I've never voted for you. But Labor has definitely lost my vote, and I'm voting for you for the first time ever.' There will be many more of those.

The reason I raised that political point is that that's the only thing the Labor Party actually listens to. Perhaps they should listen to the premiers, who are saying: 'Just hang on a minute. If you guys massively reduce the rate of private health insurance amongst the elderly and the vulnerable, who put the most cost on the system, and more of them downgrade their cover, more of them will end up in the public system more often—all the time with more cost and more burden on the system.

But you haven't spoken to us about it. We haven't prepared for it. We haven't budgeted for it.

We haven't got the doctors and nurses and other things in the public system, and the private system will be sending more bills to us all the time.' No wonder the premiers are angry with the Prime Minister. No wonder the premiers are actually in a revolutionary mind against the Prime Minister. That cost is going to be much more than the Parliamentary Budget Office says are savings and much more on the government.

And who pays the government bills? Again, the Labor Party doesn't seem to understand this. We the people pay the government's bills, so that means the cost of scrapping the rebate is going to be paid through more and more taxes and charges for the public.

So there are no savings, because the cost to the public system will go through the roof. No wonder the government doesn't want to model this or talk about it in the parliament. It's a terrible measure.

It's bad policy. Because I know the government doesn't listen to arguments about bad policy, I'm going to give you a lecture on this: it's bad politics as well. I can tell you that there are 1.4 million pensioners out there who will not forgive you for cutting a rebate they get because they made their own individual choice to put money aside so they're not a burden on the state and so they can have peace of mind about their health care.

Why do this to them at this age and this stage of their life? On behalf of every parent and grandparent of every person in this country, it's the wrong thing to do, Minister. It's the wrong thing for the Albanese government to do.

This is a government drunk on power, drunk on its own majority, thinking it can pursue ideological folly. I would like to hear from every Labor member about this. But guess what?

There are no speakers on this bill. We know why they're hiding in their offices from this measure. They're hiding in their offices because of this measure.

Every older Australian, every age pensioner—1.4 million—who's having their rebate slashed will be speaking to them in coming months, just like Malcolm from Baulkham Hills and just like the tens of thousands in my electorate. I can assure you, it is not going to be what Labor wants to hear.