Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The Private Health Insurance Bill 2006 and related bills are all about making a good system even better. I say it is a good system and today we have had further evidence of its public appeal. A further 170,000 Australians have become covered by private health insurance over the last quarter. This takes the percentage of the population with private health cover to 43.4 per cent and it is the sixth consecutive quarterly increase in the number of people covered.

Essentially, these bills are about making private health insurance a better product by allowing the funds to cover treatments and programs from their main tables that might prevent or substitute for hospital cover. In addition, it will put in place for the first time a quality and safety regime for privately insured services and it should make it easier for people to work out which product is best for them. So they are good bills.

I welcome the contributions from both sides of this House which have accepted that there is much that is to be welcomed in this bill. I note that these bills are being considered by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, which is due to report on 26 February. I will carefully consider any recommendations which the committee makes. As well, the government has already indicated that it will be moving amendments in the Senate based on further consultations with the sector. There are some amendments which the opposition wish to move here. I have to say that I think they are unnecessary. If I could address one amendment now—namely, that which seeks to restore the current requirement that the Private Health Insurance Administration Council has as one of its objectives to minimise the level of private health insurance premiums—I think this is essentially redundant, given that the proposed bills retain the public interest test. Nevertheless, in order to provide a belts and braces approach, if you like, I will happily look at putting that back in after having received the recommendations of the Senate committee.

Let me just say, on the subject of premium increases, no-one ever likes premium increases. I like them as little as members opposite, but I do point out that since 1996 premium increases have been significantly less than they were in the previous 13 years. While I certainly am in no position to predict now what the next round of premium increases might be, I do think that they ought to be significantly lower than in recent years given the very large profits or surpluses which the funds have recently made. I commend these bills to the House.

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