Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator required that the bill be considered in the Committee of the Whole.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like the bill to be referred the Committee of the Whole.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is it the wish of the wish of the committee that the bill be taken as a whole? There being no objection, it is so ordered. The question is that the bill stand as printed.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the minister a question that the shadow assistant Treasurer, Dr Leigh, could not get an answer to in the Lower House, and that was: why are some movements in this bill in line with changes in the consumer price index while others not?

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did go through a list of reasons for movements in some thresholds but not others, including the changes that were not taking place for senior and pensioner couples. Was there a specific threshold that you were concerned about?

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am interested in why some thresholds are indexed and others are not. It is a fairly simple question. If you do not know the answer, just tell me; that is okay. But there has to be some reason, Parliamentary Secretary, as to why there is different indexation in this bill. It is your bill.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, I went through reason by reason in my second reading speech, and I am happy to read them out again. In the past, these have not always been indexed; it has been a choice of government. I have covered why senior and pensioner couples were not increased. I have outlined why the thresholds have changed: because of the changes with respect to the carbon tax. So I think I have answered your questions.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the worst answer that I have heard in a committee for a long time. If, Parliamentary Secretary, you are unaware as to why these indexation changes are different, you should just say so. If you have to go through your second reading speech so that we do understand what the reason is, that is fine; go through it. I am still not clear as to why these indexed changes are different. You put up arguments in what was supposed to be a non-controversial bill before the Senate. This has turned into some ideological rant from Senator Ryan, because of his past linkages to the Institute of Public Affairs. This support for the private sector over any collective position in this country to provide decent health care just beggars belief.

If you are in there running the argument that the private sector is what is so great, then why do people in this country, when they have real health problems, end up in the public health system? Because that is what happens regardless of whether or not you have private health funding. The public health system is the system that makes this country great. It is not the private health system, because, if you are in trouble, you end up in a public hospital. That is why we are so concerned to ensure that the private health system is part of the system, but not at the expense of having a public health system that the public can go to regardless of whether or not they have the money.

I have to say that if people now look at the cost of the private health care that they pay for and what the outcome of that is, under this government, there will be many questioning the value that they get for the hundreds of dollars that they pay every month for private health care. You have turned this into a debate on private health care versus public health care. That is a debate that I am quite happy to have, because as one of many families in this country who are lucky enough to be able to afford private health care and public health care, I know what happens when my grandkids are really sick. I know what has happened when someone in my family is really sick. They do not go to the private health system to get help; they go straight to the emergency department of the public health system, and that is where they get the support that they need. So the public health system is so important.

I am always amused to hear the extremists on the other side who want to destroy the public health system trying to use this false argument that we are not the American health system and that we are not the British health system; we have this special system. Well, this special system is a system where, if you have money, you can get some help quicker in some areas. But if you are not capable of paying over $100 a week for private health cover then you have to rely on the public health system. That is the public health system that Labor has built over the years. It is the public health system that is so important to the health of disadvantaged people in this community—people that cannot afford $100 a week.

If you want to turn any debate into a debate on health and the importance of the public health system, let us have that debate, because we are up for that debate any time. The public health system is so important. You try and turn non-controversial legislation into an ideological debate based on your views from the IPA; that is fine. Let us have the debate, and let us have the judgement of the Australian public as to how important our public health system is in this country.

When it comes to the changes that you made in your first budget—that cruel budget, and that budget that the Australian public absolutely dismissed as having no relevance to fairness in this country—the public know what you were trying to do. You were trying to disenfranchise some of the poorest people in this country from getting access even to a doctor, by putting on your $7 fee to go and see a doctor. That fee was dismissed on the other side as the price of a cup of coffee. What the other side do not seem to know is that a lot of people cannot afford $7 every time they go to see a doctor. For a lot of families with young kids it is not just the kids that get sick; it is the mum and dad as well. So you add that up, you add the cost of prescriptions and then you see what that does to a working class family's standard of living. These are the issues that are just dismissed by some ideological claptrap from Senator Ryan and the extremists of the coalition. They do not want a public system. When you hear Senator Ryan talk about a balanced system, the balance that he wants is that if you have money then you can get good health care, and if you do not have money then you will get a second-class system. That is the real situation from this mob.

You only have to look at their budgets to understand what they are doing in health. They have cut health funding in this country. They have cut education and they have cut health funding, with $80 billion ripped out of public support for families in this country. They do this on the basis of their ideology and nothing else

They did not do it because it would have kept a decent and efficient health service; they did not do it because it would build a better education system; they did it because of their crazy ideology.

And you have the National Party, whose constituents are predominantly low-paid workers, with many people on welfare—many people on government support. And what do they do? They say nothing. They absolutely say nothing.

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—

Yes, Senator O'Sullivan, I will lecture you about your incapacity to stand up and represent your constituency in the bush, because you are nothing more than the doormats of the Liberal Party. You do exactly what the Liberal Party want you to do, regardless of whether it results in lower health outcomes for people in the bush and regardless of whether it means that people in the bush suffer financially, or through poorer health outcomes or poorer educational outcomes or higher costs to drive. That is what this mob, the sheep of the National Party, are in there simply capitulating on, day in, day out, to the Liberal Party. It is an absolute disgrace. And I cannot understand why anyone would be voting for the National Party when they have got a complete disregard for their constituency and all they want to do is suck up to the Liberal Party and be the doormats of the Liberal Party. What a pathetic mob they are! The Liberal Party have got complete control over this National Party. They will not stand up for their constituency. And the ideologues, such as Senator Ryan, in the National Party are in there, day in, day out, trying to cut away at the support systems for working people in this country. They want to attack their wages and conditions. They want to reduce Medicare. They want to make sure that the education system is based on what you can pay, so that, if you are the son or daughter of a rich family on the North Shore, you will get a good education, but if you are the son or daughter of a cleaner in the western suburbs of Sydney, you can please yourself. That is the position this mob adopt. We should never forget it. We have only got to look at the budgets that they put in place—budgets that absolutely screwed working people and working families into the ground. That is why they have gone from being, at one minute, a party of austerity—a party that was going to balance the budget; a party that was all about fiscal responsibility—to, when the Australian public said, 'We are not accepting this,' becoming Keynesians: they want to put money in to stimulate the economy! Nobody knows what this mob are about. But what we do know is: we do know that they are—

Honourable senators interjecting—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Order! Senator Cameron, please resume your seat. The volume of interjections from a very small participant chamber is far too high. Can we please keep it down.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I appreciate Senator Cameron's being wound up and having to have his fun, but can we at least mention the words 'health' or 'Medicare' at least every few minutes?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been handed up Minister Frydenberg's speech in the House, and what he says is that the bill:

… amends the Medicare Levy Act 1986 to increase the Medicare levy low-income thresholds for singles, families, single seniors and pensioners in line with increases in the consumer price index.

He then goes on to say that it is not proposed that the threshold for seniors and pensioners in couples will be increased 'at this time'. There is no explanation—absolutely no explanation—there, and nothing that you said, Senator Ryan, in your speech, went to that issue and explained that issue. You were too busy going through your ideological spin and your ideological issue of the day. So maybe you could come back and actually tell us why it is not proposed that the threshold for coupled and senior pensioners will be increased at this time. Why can you not explain the issue that we are concerned about?

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I actually said this before: the reason, Senator Cameron, is that this threshold as it is will remain sufficient to ensure that those eligible will not be liable for the Medicare levy when they are not otherwise liable to pay income tax. I am happy to be corrected by the Hansard, but I think they are the words I read out previously. So you could have listened the first time.

I am not going to take the Senate's time by responding to Senator Cameron in great detail, other than to urge people who had the misfortune to listen to it or who will have the misfortune to read it to refer to the previous speech where I actually talked about the strength of the Australian public health system and the support for that from the private sector, and the blended provision and funding. I am not sure what speech Senator Cameron heard, because I am a strong supporter of the public health system. The examples he mentioned, everyone can relate to. We have all taken a child or a family member to a public hospital. I might also add, though, that, in our larger cities at least, you can turn up to private hospitals—and I know people do; I have done it myself—and you can actually pay a substantial amount out of your pocket to get treated. I do not want to vilify those people who do, because those people are not in the queue at the Royal Children's Hospital or at the Royal Melbourne, and if that facility was not open then that is where they would be. So I do not attack those people. Those who have the ability to do so should, by all means, be allowed to. We should be protecting our public hospitals and ensuring that they can actually service the needs of as many people as possible.

Senator Cameron, I must have hit a raw nerve there—I seem to do this occasionally when I bring up the NHS—and I cannot help but think that certain people on that side have a dream of one day turning Medicare into the NHS. I say now that the Medicare system this country has—which delivers some of the best health outcomes in the world and which I am a strong supporter of, including of the Medicare system—depends on something, and that thing is partly its linchpin: that there is both public and private provision and public and private funding. That is actually what makes it so effective—as well as, I might add, reforms that were contentious ones, like case-mix funding, which, I would note, the previous Labor government adopted on a national basis. But I was actually working for the Kennett government when they were introduced, and they were not supported by the other side of politics then. I am glad that, a dozen years later, the Labor Party saw the wisdom of those changes, and I hasten to add that the IPA—which does not stand for India Pale Ale—the Institute of Public Affairs, of which I am a member, will once again be happy for your free ad, Senator Cameron.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendments; report adopted.