Shadow Portfolio — 25 March 2026

The Member for Lindsay, Mrs McIntosh, was the coalition's primary voice in the House on 25 March, operating across two distinct fronts: a substantive second-reading contribution on the government's private health transparency bill, and a procedural personal explanation disputing characterisations made by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy.

On the health legislation, Mrs McIntosh signalled conditional non-opposition to the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026, but framed the coalition's position as a holding posture pending Senate scrutiny rather than endorsement. The bill would direct the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to publish practitioner fees and estimated out-of-pocket costs on the Medical Costs Finder by default, and would require ministerial approval before insurers launch new private health insurance products or make specified changes to existing ones — a mechanism the government frames as closing the loophole of product phoenixing.

Mrs McIntosh accepted the transparency rationale and the anti-phoenixing objective, but constructed her argument around the claim that the bill treats symptoms rather than causes. She placed specific data on the record to anchor the affordability critique: bulk-billing rates for specialists have fallen to 28.2 per cent with average out-of-pocket costs of $123.48, and for anaesthetists to 8.7 per cent with average out-of-pocket costs of $244.99 [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s032].

Private health insurance premiums are set to rise by 4.41 per cent — the largest increase in eight years and above the rate of inflation — and approximately 30 per cent of Australians referred to specialists over the prior three years did not attend because of cost [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s032]. The strategic logic of citing these figures is clear: Mrs McIntosh is arguing that publishing prices on a government website does not reduce those prices, and that if the bill accelerates private health attrition, pressure on public hospital wait times and elective surgery waitlists will worsen [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s032].

Her call for a Senate inquiry targets three specific questions: the underlying drivers of rising out-of-pocket costs, concerns from medical specialists and insurers about overreach, and the scope and timeliness of data the bill would publish. The framing positions the coalition as supportive of the bill's direction but sceptical of its adequacy — a posture designed to avoid owning a blocking vote while preserving the ability to amend or condition the legislation in the Senate.

The procedural segment adds a cross-portfolio dimension to the day. Mrs McIntosh invoked a personal explanation to dispute representations by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, who she alleges accused her in question time on both 24 and 25 March of political pointscoring, dishonesty, and misleading the House regarding a New South Wales Premier's statement on demand management procedures [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s078].

Mrs McIntosh sought to table the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Hansard to support her account of the Premier's remarks — that demand management procedures are required and might involve rationing — but leave was not granted. The episode suggests Mrs McIntosh was active in question time the previous day on energy and demand management, a portfolio outside her health shadow brief, and that the exchange carried over into a formal procedural challenge.

The refusal of leave to table the Hansard leaves the evidential dispute unresolved on the record.