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

Mr THOMPSON (Herbert) (16:52): I move: That all words after "reading" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "while also: (1) noting that: (a) the Government developed this $11 billion tax on older Australians without adequate consultation with industry, stakeholders, or state and territory governments; (b) the Government did not determine how many of the 3.1 million older Australians affected are pensioners, until forced to do so by stakeholders, and now concedes the figure is well in excess of 1 million; (c) these pensioners, and older Australians on fixed incomes more broadly, must absorb higher costs or go without care, with couples aged over 65 with gold cover to be slugged up to $1,614 a year extra from April 2027; (d) independent modelling by Finity Consulting, provided to the Government, finds that for every $1 saved by cutting the rebate, the public hospital system will be charged $1.20 in extra hospital admissions and pressure; (e) the Government's own modelling concedes at least 44,000 older Australians will drop their cover, while industry research suggests more than 250,000 older Australians will drop or downgrade their cover, pushing more Australians onto public elective surgery waitlists and increasing ambulance ramping; (f) evidence to the Senate inquiry into the bill found this measure places private maternity services at risk of closure and will increase the cost of having a baby; (g) health ministers in New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have all warned this measure will push more patients onto public hospital waiting lists, worsen elective surgery delays and leave older patients stranded in hospital; and (h) this policy is a false economy that will cost the health system, and taxpayers of all ages, more than it saves; and (2) calling on the Government to immediately abandon this Bill and scrap this damaging policy in its entirety".

I often ask myself this, and I'm sure the government members have too: When do you think people need more help with their health care? At what age? Is it younger Australians, or is it our retirees?

I would have thought that everyone would have been on the same page here and said, 'It's our retirees.' They need more support. They need more health care. They need the government to be in their corner.

But, as we've heard with speaker after speaker, this is not the case. This government is punishing older Australians. The health minister during question time, day after day, stands up at the despatch box and says: 'Yes, I've had to make tough choices.

I had to make tough choices, and'—paraphrasing—'the tough choice is going to be at the expense of those that need support and help the most.' That is older Australians, the people that built this nation, the people that have done everything that the government has always asked of them, that have worked, that have provided, that have paid taxes, that have done everything.

They know that health care matters, so they've got private health insurance, because they know that, if something were to happen, they could get the support that they needed. As we've seen, that's now not the case. I don't like the language that the health minister continues to use, which is: 'We'll have to make cuts to spend somewhere else.

We have to make sure that we're making tough choices, because we need the savings.' Well, I think the priorities of this government are all wrong. They're cutting services to older Australians. They're cutting services to veterans by placing a $5,000 cap on allied health.

That is two groups of people about which I would have thought that any government in the federal parliament would have said, 'These people are off limits.' Those that built the nation and those that served the nation—those two groups of people are in their corner 100 per cent, all day, every day. This shameful government has decided to attack both of them. This shameful government has decided to hurt both of them.

When they're sitting around the cabinet table and they're discussing where the savings need to come from, and they've got a Treasurer with an arts degree, not an economics degree, arguing that he needs to find money somewhere else—I find that to be a part of the problem. I'm sure, if the member for Parramatta, who's got a PhD in economics, was around that table that he wouldn't be going after older Australians, he wouldn't be going after our veterans.

I'm so privileged to represent the people in my electorate—and I'm sure every member in this place says that about their electorate—and you'd be hard-pressed to find more heartbreaking stories where our older Australians have said: 'Why? Why are we hurting? Why are we the stopgap for this bad government?

Why are we being treated so poorly?' We're not talking about the top end of town. We're not talking about some special group of wealthy Australians. We're talking about our retirees, our pensioners living on their fixed incomes.

We're talking about our older Australians who plan carefully so that they can maintain their independence. We heard yesterday from the member for Bowman. He was talking at the dispatch box about a person who was down on their luck, was homeless, but still had private health insurance because that person knew how important it was.

I don't think placing additional pressure on the public health system is the way to go. We've got beds being taken up in Townsville and around the country, beds that are needed for those who come to ED or have surgery. We're going to choke the system here.

This legislation wasn't negotiated or spoken about with stakeholder groups or the state and territory governments. This was placed upon people. They were told, 'This is now what's occurring.' That's what a bad government does.

Our job is to listen, work and deliver. The key word there is listen, then work with the experts and deliver on the needs of Australians. There is no expert who sits here.

Politicians aren't experts on anything. No good ideas come from Canberra; they come from real people. They come from those who work in their industry their whole life.

They come from those who the policies are going to affect. Our job, as parliamentarians, is to be out there with them listening, working with them and then delivering for them. It's clear that this was not part of any consultation.

It's clear that this government was not thinking of older Australians first or our retirees first. This was about a budget. I don't think that our older Australians who built this nation or our veterans who served this nation should be an inconvenient dollar figure on this Labor government's budget bottom line.

But, sadly, that's what has happened. My office has received, as I'm sure everyone here has received, concerned emails and phone calls from constituents. One constituent told me that, after more than 30 years with private health cover while on the age pension, she had recently undergone a hip replacement operation.

Thanks to her private health insurance her costs were covered, apart from a modest annual excess. She fears that, if these changes proceed, many older Australians will no longer be able to afford private cover and will be forced into the public system. Her concern is simple and entirely reasonable: if older Australians leave private health insurance because they can no longer afford it, where exactly are they supposed to go?

What happens next? I don't like when a government says, 'Trust me, we're the government,' or, 'We're the government; we're here to help,' because I don't trust what has been going on with this Labor government. I don't trust when the Prime Minister says something because his word is not his bond; his word has been proven, time and time again, to be false.

Whether it's a minor thing like 'I didn't fall off a stage' when you watched him drop a couple of metres to the ground, whether it's 'we won't go after housing policy, negative gearing or the GST'—he said it 50 times. He got angry and yelled at a journalist, and then did it. How can you put your faith and trust in a prime minister or a government that can't tell the truth, that can't talk about their failures?

Government should find it easy, a prime minister should find it easy, to admit when they've done something wrong. They should find it easy to stand up and say: 'I'm sorry. I thought this was the way to go.

We are now going to change that. I'm sorry. I got it wrong.' But this Prime Minister time and time again will double down.

I know it sounds quite simple, but the Prime Minister fell off a stage backwards and then said, 'I took a step down,' and then doubled down, tripled down and continued with it. If you can't just go, 'You know what? I did fall.

I had a little misstep'—it's about trust in a government. When you don't trust a government, then you get upset. I like the member for Parramatta sitting across from me, because he wouldn't have placed this burden on our retirees.

He wouldn't have done it, because he's got a PhD in economics. He's a smart guy, but you've got a Treasurer with an arts degree who just wants to rip out costings from aged care, retirees and our veterans—those that have built the nation and those that have served the nation. But it's OK.

The minister across from me can get upset as much as he wants, but at the end of the day retirees around Australia have got their number. They can see what they're doing. They can see that they're being used as that inconvenient dollar figure on a very miserable budget bottom line from this Labor government.

Another constituent told me that both her and her 84-year-old mother are facing annual premium increases from between $800 and $900 if this proposal proceeds. Her family has maintained private health insurance continually since the 1960s. She herself has held cover since starting full-time work in 1979.

These are not people looking for handouts. These are Australians who have done exactly what the government has asked them to do for decades, yet now they have been told they should pay more. Independent analysis indicates that around three million older Australians could face higher out-of-pocket costs under these new changes, with some facing premium increases approaching 12 per cent or more than $400 a year on top of all the premium increases that they already face.

For older couples, the total impact could exceed $1,600. We're talking about retirees. We're talking about people that have budgeted their whole life and just want the cover and support that they need to get the treatment if something happens, but you've got a government that is obsessed with changing the goalpost without taking things to an election.

You've got a government that is not trustworthy. You've got a prime minister that's not trustworthy. Every time they change something and they give you minimal detail and stand out and say, 'Trust us.

We're the government,' don't. I wouldn't. Older Australians built this country, and this is how they're being repaid.

For someone on their fixed income, an extra $1,600 a year is not a minor inconvenience. People are paying higher power bills, higher grocery bills, filling their prescriptions and trying to maintain private health cover and insurance that is going through the roof. If you're in regional Australia, everything is compounded and is worse.

In the cities you might have little bits of choice when it comes to the other expenses, but in places like Townsville and other regions it's all compounded. It's all worse. Everything costs more.

To be lumped with extra costs on top of this is just ridiculous. The government says this is about intergenerational fairness, and it's not. It is absolutely not.

You're creating an 'us and them' right now. There's nothing fair about targeting pensioners and retirees who have paid into the system their entire lives. There's nothing fair about increasing costs for people whose healthcare needs are increasing, not decreasing.

You need more help as you get older, not less. So doing this is punishing those that need the support more. It's ridiculous.

The argument is so flawed that it's—well, there are not even government members talking on this part of the bill. If you don't believe in it, how are the Australian people supposed to buy this rubbish? If you can't stand up and talk for it today for 15 minutes, then how can you go to your constituency and say this is good for them?

I don't think you can. If you can't back it, surely they're not going to. The warning signs are already there in an ageing population that are doing it tough.

In Townsville and across North Queensland we already understand the pressures that are facing our health system. We've got longer waitlists, higher demand, workforce shortages, pressure on beds and pressure on services. The last thing we should be doing is implementing a policy that risks making those challenges even worse.

If you have to, let that sink in. Why would you place an extra burden on people? The Minister for Health and Ageing, when he stands up at the dispatch box, says: 'We've had to make tough decisions because we're looking for savings.

We're making decisions on those that need more health care and those that need the support. And we're making the same tough decisions'—apparently this Labor government is—'on cutting veteran services to allied health care.' This Labor government is punishing those that built this nation and punishing those that serve this nation, and that is shameful. The coalition does not agree with the government, and that's why all of our members have come into this chamber over the last two days to talk about why we don't support it.

The stark difference is that the government members don't. The stark difference is that you haven't got government members defending their own bill, because their backbench knows that it's bad. Their backbench knows that they've been led off a cliff by a treasurer with an arts degree, not an economic one.

Their backbench knows that in their electorates they're going to have to answer to this. I just wish that all governments put two groups of people before themselves: older Australians who built this country and veterans who served this country. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Boyce ): Is the amendment seconded?