Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026
Mr CALDWELL (Fadden—Opposition Chief Whip) (16:45): I'm in continuation for the next 6½ minutes, so I'll continue from where I left off just before question time, relaying some of the stories of concern that have been sent to me from people in my electorate. Greg, a local at the northern end of the Gold Coast, said: There is every chance that this will backfire on the Labor government, as it may force older Australians, especially pensioners causing them to drop their Health cover and then rely on the Public Health System.
Greg summed it up in seven words: Labor is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Liz from Hope Island contacted me with a very direct request. She said: Please confirm you and the liberal party will fight the government on the proposed reduction in health care rebates.
Liz, we as a coalition will stand here and fight for you and every older Australian who is being attacked by this Labor government with this decision. She explained what her concern was, saying: We have had health insurance all our lives. And she warned: Premiums continue to rise and the changes to the rebates will force many seniors to reduce their cover or get rid of it all together thereby putting more strain on the public system.
They're not members of parliament. They're not the Treasurer. They're not the health minister.
They're everyday Australians who can see very clearly what's going to happen here. Even on the government's own modest modelling, they know that people will leave the private health system and will then go into the public health system. This is going to be a cumulative problem for the government in years to come.
As we've seen, this is repeated conduct by this government. They don't tell us something before the election and then they stab every Australian after the election with some sort of change that's ripping your hard-earned dollars out of your pocket. They went to the election and they said they weren't going to change capital gains tax.
They said they weren't going to change negative gearing. They said: 'I didn't fall off a stage. Blah blah blah.
It's just a change in position.' Well, here's another one: Labor didn't tell us anything about this change for older Australians before the election. In fact, just before the election, the government formally confirmed the age based rebates for the 2025-26 year. On 26 February 2025, only a few months before the election, the health department published the rebate rates commencing 1 April 2025—for under-65s it was 24.288 per cent, for people 65 to 69 it was 28.337 per cent and for over-70s it was 32.385 per cent.
There was no indication given to the Australian people that, if you voted Labor, you were going to get this rebate ripped out from underneath you. What's worse is the health minister, who popped in a few moments ago, was actively selling Labor's support for the rebate immediately before the election. In his pre-election material on private health insurance, he said, 'The Albanese Government will provide $7.6 billion this year to Australian policyholders through the private health insurance rebate.' He went on, in one of his favourite pastimes, to attack the then leader Peter Dutton.
Of course, they were campaigning on having restored indexation and protecting affordability of private health insurance through this rebate, rather than announcing what their real intention was—and that was to cut the thing. In February 2025, the health minister's election period comments were specifically about keeping private health insurance costs down. On 27 February, he said he had repeatedly sent insurers back to reduce their proposed premium increases and framed the issue in terms of cost-of-living relief.
Where has that process gone in his mind? It has disappeared completely, because, all of a sudden, we've got pensioners and older Australians who are getting absolutely screwed with higher premiums without notice. They have been doing the right thing year after year after year.
They did exactly what the government of Australia had asked of them for many, many years. Both Labor and Liberal governments had given the assurance that this was the thing to do. But Labor are the ones that come in here, occupy that side of the House and then rip the rug out from underneath them.
It's disgraceful. The Australians who deserve the most amount of support are those that have done the right thing through their whole lives and don't deserve to be treated like this. Who does Labor claim to stick up for?
Those who really need help. Well, do you know who the people are who need help? Older Australians, veterans—but these are actually the victims of this Labor government's methods, trying to tax-grab money at every available opportunity to support their spending habit.
Almost a year after the election, on 22 April, this new idea of the health minister, to stick it to older Australians, came to fruition as he announced it at the National Press Club. Not even a year after the election, he forecast what the Treasurer was going to do to every older Australian. It's a shame on this government.