Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (12:43): I indicate that the government won't be supporting the amendments on sheet 3945. The amendment is unnecessary. It proposes guidelines for the exercise of the power by the secretary and chief executive of Medicare, which will already be covered by the rules established for each incentive program.

This relates to section 54. It provides a power for the secretary or chief executive to approve participation in an incentive payment program without the participant having to put in an application. This is to cater for circumstances where the government already knows who is eligible for incentive payments based on information that's already held—for example, like Medicare benefits claiming data.

As an example, eligibility for the Workforce Incentive Program Doctor Stream incentivises practice in regional, rural and remote locations. That perhaps may be determined without application if it is clear from the Medicare data that doctors are billing for the eligible services in eligible locations. Approving incentive payments in this way avoids unnecessary administrative burden on providers when the government already knows that they're eligible.

It ensures that eligible providers don't miss out just because they weren't aware that they were eligible. This type of action can only occur when the eligible provider meets all the eligibility criteria or any other requirement outlined in the rules for that incentive payment program. Given that those rules already govern how this power is to be exercised, developing additional legislative instruments, as is proposed in the amendments presently before the Senate, in the form of guidelines is duplicative and unnecessary.

It's on that basis that the government won't be supporting the amendments moved by Senator Ruston.