PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (17:26): I move: That this House: (1) condemns the Government's $3 billion cut to the private health insurance rebate, with almost $1.6 billion of that cost falling directly on age pensioners; (2) notes over 1 million pensioners with private health insurance will be affected by the age-based rebate cuts from April 2027; (3) calls out the Government for failing to properly assess who would bear the cost of the policy and for keeping its modelling from the Australian public; (4) expresses serious concern that at least 44,000 Australians are expected to drop their private health cover and several hundred thousand more are expected to downgrade their cover, placing further pressure on already stretched public hospitals and taxpayers; and (5) calls on the Government to scrap the rebate cuts and protect older Australians, pensioners and the public hospital system from the consequences of this policy.

Mr WALLACE: I want to talk about the Albanese Labor government's cruel $3 billion private health insurance rebate cuts. Almost $1.6 billion of those cuts will fall directly on age pensioners. More than one million pensioners will be affected from April next year.

These are Australians who've worked hard, paid their taxes and contributed to this country for decades. They've done the right thing for decades. I remember, when I was a young fella in my 20s, the Howard government stood up and said: 'We need to get more people on private health insurance.

If you go on private health insurance and you make those payments, you'll get a rebate when you turn 65. We'll look after you when you need it most. If you don't, for every year that you don't get into private health insurance, you'll pay a premium when you're over the age of 30.' So lots of people piled into private health insurance.

I was one of them. I couldn't afford it at the time, but, like many other people, my family and I prioritised private health insurance. We paid our premiums, like many other people, for the last 30 or 40 years.

That commitment was satisfied; it was met by governments, both blue and red, for decades. Now, the Albanese government comes in and, in a cruel twist, seeks to rip those rebates away from people over the age of 65. As to what impact this will have on Australians, anybody over the age of 65 and on gold cover for a couple will have to put their hands in their pockets for the sum of $1,614.

This is another kick in the guts of Australians, particularly senior Australians, who are having to find more money. This is after they are having to pay more money for their rates, their insurance, their electricity, their rent or their mortgages. This is another blow to people who are suffering under the Albanese government's cost-of-living crisis.

It is simply unacceptable that this government wants to effectively charge $3 billion to people over the age of 65 just so they can get the health care under the commitment that was offered years and years and years ago. Today's Australian newspaper has exposed just how misleading the government's claims have been. For months the Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, has told Australians that 44,000 older people would be expected to leave private health insurance because of these cuts.

What we now know is that that figure is somewhere around 78,000 by 2029-30. The impact of these cuts will mean that more seniors will go onto the public health system and will clog up the already jammed public health system. The health ministers of South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales have all said that this is a retrograde step.

This is cost shifting from the Commonwealth onto the state health budgets. It is unfair to pensioners and it's unfair to the health systems of the states. It's also unfair to the millions of Australians who are on the public health system and couldn't possibly afford to go onto the private health system.