STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (13:52): Tasmania has the oldest, poorest and sickest population in the country. As the Tasmanian Department of Health's own statistics report, we consistently rank among the lowest for health outcomes and recently had the lowest ranked emergency department in the country. When you have high rates of disability, greater socioeconomic disadvantage, and risk factors like physical inactivity, smoking and poor diet, you absolutely cannot have a public system that is not up to task.
Tasmania's public hospitals are overrun and underresourced. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. It was recently reported that there are around 97,000 entries across Tasmania's public health waiting lists.
In a state of around 600,000 people, that means one in six are stuck waiting for care. You know what the department's solution was? They revised down their performance targets so that one in three elective surgery patients can wait longer than clinically recommended.
What a solution! That's the best our bloody Liberal state parliamentarians have got down there. Yes, an older population puts more pressure on our hospitals.
The federal government also admitted there are not enough aged-care beds. Older Tasmanians who are ready to leave hospital are stuck waiting for an aged-care place, occupying beds that other patients seriously need. The federal government's plan to modernise the private health rebate is only going to make matters worse.
Its bill will mean that more than three million older Australians pay significantly more for their private health insurance. These are people already struggling with higher interest rates, fuel costs and grocery bills. You know what will be one of the first things to go?
Their private health insurance. Tasmania's public hospital system is already not coping. Push even more patients into it and it will be absolutely stuffed.
It's finished. This is why I and Senator Ruston will be moving to disallow these changes. Otherwise, they will put even more pressure on the public hospitals in Tasmania and across the country.
Our public health system is already buckling under the pressure of an ageing population. We cannot under any circumstances afford to make it any worse.