QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:31): I'm asked about older Australians and their health care and the decision in the Senate by a 'noalition' of the Liberals, the Nationals, One Nation and the Greens political party to oppose this sensible reform, which importantly would just mean one thing—the same private health rebate for someone, whether they're 64 or 65—and would put every single dollar of that savings from that measure that came in by the Howard government during the mining boom, where they had to actually make changes to the Age Discrimination Act in order to bring it in, because they had rivers of gold flowing in.

What we have done is to work through aged-care reforms that are a direct result of the royal commission finding, which found in its interim report it was summed up with one word—neglect. We have an ageing of the population. We will need more resources to go into aged care, and we have a view that you have to find some of that money through sensible reform, which is what this is—sensible reform.

If the basis for the Leader of the Opposition voting against this is that older Australians need more health care, yes, that is right. That is why there are pressures on the budget. Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE: That is why they will not pay a different rebate from when they're 64 to when they hit their 65th birthday—no difference whatsoever.

Those opposite at the last election, under their then shadow treasurer, promised higher deficits and higher debt. They've already racked up $110 billion in unfunded promises, and then they want to add this to it. Well, we know last time round they ripped the guts out of the public hospital system and didn't invest in aged care.

What we are doing is we've put $25 billion additional into the public hospital system through the states and territories. We're funding urgent care clinics. We've tripled the bulk-billing incentive.

And what we have also done here is a sensible reform so that there is additional funding available for aged care.