Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

It should come as no surprise to the House that we will be supporting the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022, and we'll be supporting this bill because it delivers on an election commitment from the former coalition government to increase the limits for the Commonwealth seniors health card. This is good policy, and this is coalition policy, because we understand that every single dollar—especially for those Australians who are no longer working, who are in their retirement—is very important.

On 2 May the coalition announced that, if re-elected, we'd increase the income test threshold for singles from $57,761 to $90,000, to give more seniors access to the concession card, and that we would raise the couples threshold from $92,416 to $144,000.

Labor quickly adopted this coalition policy and are pretty shamelessly trying to rebrand it as their own policy here today. They won't be the first government to have done that, but they are very shamelessly doing that, with one important problem. In the first few weeks of this government, one of the hallmarks has been broken promises, and today, with this bill, we see another broken promise. The media release that Labor released very shortly after we made this announcement, said:

Labor will widen eligibility for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, in line with the Government's announcement today.

The government then being the coalition government. It went on:

We're not interested in playing politics when we see a good idea.

And—this is the great moment of irony:

Unlike the Morrison Government, we can be trusted to deliver on our announcements for older Australians and pensioners.

You have there an unequivocal adoption of the coalition policy by the Labor Party, with one problem for the government. The announcement from the coalition was that this measure would take effect from 1 July this year, from the first day of this financial year. This bill states that the measure will take effect from 20 September this year, which is more than three months later than was promised.

You see a succession of broken promises now from a very, very brief period of time in government. We've seen those opposite not willing to repeat their commitment to reduce power prices by $275—the number 275 cannot be spoken by those opposite. When you add all of that up—and here we have another bill that, in a small but significant way, breaches another pre-election commitment—it is very disappointing. Nevertheless, we will support the bill, because, even though it's later than they promised in the middle of the campaign, our view is: better late than never. And we'll never, obviously, say no to good coalition policy being adopted by the government.

Importantly, these changes, late though they are, will give an extra 50,000 older Australians access to more affordable health care and medications to help ease their cost of living. At the Commonwealth level, all cardholders are eligible for cheaper medicines and health care, and they may also be eligible for state, territory and local government savings that are often used, including for discounted rates, electricity and gas, ambulance, dental, eye care, recreation and public transport.

This coalition commitment is the first change, outside of indexation, to the income threshold of the Commonwealth seniors health card in over 20 years. Currently, more than 436,000 Australians aged over 67 who are not already receiving a pension or benefit, have a seniors health card. As I stated earlier, with the additional 50,000 that will now become available, this will mean that more than 486,000 people will become eligible, or an 11 per cent increase.

In our view, in my view and in the coalition's view, senior Australians, who have worked hard and made our country what it is today, deserve our country to recognise that effort and to recognise that we are standing on their shoulders. This is a small but important way that we can demonstrate that in a tangible way. The coalition, as I stated at the outset, will be supporting this bill, supporting good coalition policy. Good on the Labor Party for taking it on and for adopting coalition policy, but they really need to be held accountable for making sloppy promises in the election that they really have no intention of keeping. They adopted our policy holus-bolus in the campaign, saying that this would commence on 1 July. They wanted to spend a lot of time before they reconvened the parliament, which has led to this now not being available until 20 September. That's another broken promise from this government. But as I said, it's better late than never, and of course we will be supporting good coalition policy.

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