Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question because it enables me to explain something he clearly has missed. There are elections in Australia generally once every three years. We had one in 2007 and we had one in 2010. I am surprised the member does not have any recollection of the 2010 election; it is the one where he was scrambling for a new seat. In that election we took to the Australian people a policy on private health insurance, and the legislation that is in this parliament reflects that policy which we took to the Australian people. Let us not have any of this absurdity from the opposition. We, in 2010, took to the Australian people a very simple proposition about fairness. We said with the growth in health costs and with the need to keep finding more money to meet the needs of health care in our nation as our population ages and as health treatments get more sophisticated—which is a great thing, but they also get more expensive—that we would need to make sure—

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