MOTIONS

Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Health and Ageing and Deputy Leader of the House) (10:06): We don't support this motion. It's another political stunt from the opposition, echoing the political stunt we saw in the other place yesterday afternoon which essentially signalled the return of the 'no-alition'— Mr Wallace: Political stunt!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Fisher, it is highly disorderly to interject, even from your own seat, and, as a former speaker, you should know that. Mr BUTLER: It's the return under the new leader of the Greens, Senator Shoebridge, of a determination by the opposition and the Greens party to team up and thwart every sensible measure this government seeks to bring before this parliament at such difficult times.

The Manager of Opposition Business talks about arrogance. There wasn't even a debate in this parliament. There wasn't even a debate in the other place about the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026.

No attempt was made by senators to make the argument that at least the Manager of Opposition Business and the member for Lindsay have made this morning about some very serious issues presented by this proposition: issues of intergenerational equity, cost of living and aged-care services, which the Manager of Opposition Business describes in his motion as 'wasteful spending'.

No argument has been made about the equity issues that are rightly raised by this question. As I said in my introduction to this bill, the Howard government, extraordinarily, had to amend the Age Discrimination Act to protect itself against legal action by Australians under the age of 65 over around what was clearly a discriminatory application of government policy— Mr Wallace: Every consecutive government has supported it!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Fisher, would you like to leave the room? I am asking you to behave and listen to advice. Sorry, Minister.

Member for Fisher, I've asked you so many times to not interject, and you have completely disregarded me. Are you going to continue to do that, or can you sit there and participate in the debate as everybody else? Are you going to continue defy my asking of you to stop interjecting?

Is that your intention? Mr Wallace: It was my intention. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, then, under 94(a) I'll ask you to leave the chamber.

The member for Fisher then left the chamber. Mr BUTLER: No reasoned argument about equity. The member for Lindsay just said, 'Oh, it does apply equitably because it's means tested.' Yes, but a 64-year-old living next door to a 65-year-old receives an entirely different private health insurance subsidy, even if they're on exactly the same income.

Mr Tehan: And the 64-year-old has to turn 65 to get the benefit of it! Mr BUTLER: Well, make the argument! You didn't make that argument, Manager of Opposition Business!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Manager of Opposition Business, you had 10 minutes. Mr BUTLER: The opposition get up and use industry talking points time and time again about the implications of this measure, just as they did 13 years ago, when the industry said that 1.6 million people would leave private health insurance if it was means tested, and 850,000 additional people would present to hospitals if the rebate was means-tested.

None of it happened. None of it happened, just as 880 pharmacies didn't close when we introduced 60-day dispensing. The opposition is addicted to parroting industry talking points instead of using its own brain and analysing measures on their merits.

What we also haven't heard from the opposition is an alternative fiscal management strategy. What I still haven't heard from the opposition is: are you proposing that we not introduce the additional beds and the additional packages, which are described by the Manager of Opposition Business as 'wasteful spending' in his motion? Or is the opposition proposing an alternative funding stream to find another $3 billion, or $11 billion over the medium term?

If so, what is it? Over the months of this debate, the opposition has refused to confirm whether it intends to cut aged-care services back or to find some alternative funding mechanism. Importantly, what this parliament needs to understand is that we should never listen to the opposition about aged care, because we all remember what that government did over nine years to aged-care services.

We remember the cuts to aged care in 2015, 2016 and 2017—cuts that were returned to consolidated revenue and, unsurprisingly, pushed the aged-care sector into crisis. It was a crisis writ large in the Four Corners report that we all remember and then, over months and months of the royal commission, it was titled with one word: neglect. The stories we heard from that royal commission about the implications of that government's inability to manage aged-care services and its cruel cuts to the aged-care budget are I think exactly why the Manager of Opposition Business stands up and moves the motion that describes our additional investment in aged-care services as 'wasteful spending'.

We're not going to take any lectures from the opposition about how to manage an aged-care sector that they drove into crisis through budget cuts and a total inability— Mr Tehan interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Manager of Opposition Business, you have 10 minutes of your own. Just quieten it down.

Mr BUTLER: to come to grips with the very serious reform challenges facing a sector confronted with an unprecedented boom in demand caused by the ageing of the baby boomer population. They did worse than nothing. What we've had to do over the last five years is to clean up their mess, to implement the royal commission recommendations, which they failed to do, and then to find a way to expand aged-care services at an unprecedented rate.

We have tripled the number of Support at Home packages. I've acknowledged publicly, and in this place, that we are still struggling to keep up with demand, at a time when the oldest baby boomers, who were born in 1946, 1947 and 1948, are hitting their 80s and reaching that period of their life where they need more aged-care services. Instead of having a reasoned debate either here or in the Senate about how we can do that and how we find the funds to do that in a responsible, fiscal way, they team up with the Greens again, just like they did in the last term.

They resurrect the no-alition. How they convinced the Greens party to do that after what it meant for the Greens' House of Representatives members at the election in 2025 is still a marvel to me. But congratulations to the Manager of Opposition Business and his equivalents in the Senate for leading the Greens off the plank again to decide to team up and do the political bidding of a coalition that is determined to take an irresponsible approach to aged-care services and to fiscal management.

They stand up here, question time after question time, and pretend to be the guardians of strong fiscal management, a government that delivered its last budget with not a single dollar in savings—not a single dollar in savings in the 2022 budget—by the prodigal son, Josh Frydenberg, who has now admitted he spent too much money, a position echoed by the Leader of the Opposition.

If only he were in a position to do something about it. He was not willing to stand at this dispatch box and take hard decisions and make hard choices in a budget to recognise the need for the expansion of aged-care services. No, instead he was willing to put it all on the credit card.

That was the approach of Josh Frydenberg, and at the time I didn't hear a whisper from the Manager of Opposition Business to say, 'Maybe we should be a little bit more careful about the government's budget.' No, they haven't learned. The Greens party in the other place haven't learned. They're determined to thwart every serious policy measure we bring to this parliament at a time when the country has some serious challenges.

There is no more serious challenge, I don't think, than the challenge of supporting the needs of a growing group of Australians aged over 80. They have built this country. They have worked so hard to build this country, and they deserve aged-care services that are high quality, that are staffed well and that are expanding at a rate that reflects that demographic expansion.

And the opposition has had nothing to say about that, absolutely nothing. They are too focused on the politics. They are not focused on serious policy.

They're paying lip service to sound fiscal management. We see this yet again in the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business.