Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to support the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026, brought forward by the Minister for Health and Ageing, and I commend him for doing so. I'm so proud to be part of the Albanese Labor government as we remain resolute in our commitment to make quality health care accessible for every Australian.

It means making health care more affordable by strengthening Medicare and putting more medicines on the PBS. It means putting an end to life insurance practices that discourage people from getting life-saving genetic testing, as we are doing with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill. I had the pleasure of contributing to debate on that bill earlier this week. It means making sure that information about healthcare costs is readily accessible to Australians so they can make informed choices about their own health care. It means stamping out insurance provider practices that circumvent regulation and increase costs to Australians without proper oversight. This bill does exactly that. It's another important piece in the Albanese Labor government's work to make sure that, when it comes to health care, everyday Australians come first.

We know that there are Australians who are not taking up referrals to specialists because of the cost. In 2024-25, 8.6 per cent of people delayed or missed specialist care because of cost. That's 800,000 people across our communities who have not received the health care they need because of the high cost of specialist appointments. That's really concerning. It's not right, and it's why we need greater transparency in the medical sector, as well as better regulation.

Since 2022, specialists and insurers have been invited to publish their fees on the Medical Costs Finder. The Medical Costs Finder allows Australians to search and compare out-of-pocket costs for common treatments and procedures. It has the aim of promoting transparency in the sector, giving Australians better visibility of the potential cost of treatments and the ability to compare costs so they can choose the most cost-effective option for them. Unfortunately, the Medical Costs Finder has been limited in its efficacy. That's because there have been low levels of participation from medical specialists, who have to opt in to this service.

In December 2025, only one to two per cent of specialists and 10 per cent of insurers were participating in this website. This means it hasn't been delivering the transparency Australians deserve. That's not good enough. People should be able to access this information so they can find out easily what the potential cost will be for a specialist or treatment they've been referred to and can make their own informed decisions about the next steps of their medical journey. This amendment will allow for the publication of the relevant data on the Medical Costs Finder, without the need for input from medical practitioners. It will be drawn directly from Medicare, hospital and insurer billing data collected by the government, and it will make a real difference.

This bill is about improving the transparency of the costs of specialist services, promoting the efficient access to these services and helping people make informed decisions about their health, because empowering Australians to make informed choices about their health is what accessible health care looks like.

The second part of this bill is about stamping out a problematic practice used by private health insurers to charge more for existing products. At the moment, the PHI Act requires private health insurance providers to apply to the minister for approval to change the premiums they charge. This has meant that the minister can make sure that private health insurers are complying with government-set limits on increases to health insurance premiums, and it has also meant that insurers have not been able to change the cost of these products without a green light from the minister. This protects Australians from excessive annual increases to health premiums and also prevents health insurers from changing the cost of these premiums without government oversight. However—and there is a however—private health insurance providers have instead been circumventing regulation through product phoenixing.

The existing regulation has meant that private health insurers are not allowed to change the cost of existing products, but they are allowed to close products and open new products without government oversight. Private health insurance providers have been using this loophole to close products and open similar or identical ones at a higher premium, avoiding the requirement for premium change approval. Because of this, insurance providers have been able to effectively increase the price of existing products without oversight, leaving customers with few options but to pay the new expensive premium or move to a lower level of care. The Commonwealth Ombudsman reported that, in 2024, private health insurers' newly released products were about 14 per cent more expensive than the policy that was replaced. This practice cannot be tolerated. For consumers, it reduces visibility into the value for money they're getting with their insurance and obscures the real reason for price increases. This makes it difficult for them to make informed choices and often results in them being charged more for the same product.

The bottom line is that this practice does not put Australians first, and it has to stop. With this bill, we're requiring private health insurers to apply to the minister for approval of premiums charged for new products. When it comes to stamping out this practice, we're leaving no stone unturned, making sure we can continue regulating premiums effectively and giving Australians the transparency they need to make informed choices about their private health cover.

This bill is about making sure we're regulating the medical sector effectively, but also it's fundamentally about the value of specialist medical treatment. There's no doubt that medical specialists are incredibly important in our community. Receiving care from a medical specialist saves and changes lives every day. The importance of this kind of care being readily available can't be understated. We're lucky to have some of these specialists now serving their communities in this very chamber. I acknowledge the work of the incredible member for Macarthur, Dr Mike Freelander, and his long-term career as a paediatrician and now as a federal parliamentarian and chair of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, of which I am a proud member. I know the member for Macarthur, like me, is very passionate about the availability of specialists across Australia.

I was holding a mobile office in Deer Park a few weeks ago and had a long chat to one of my constituents, Brett. We chatted about the problem he's been facing—accessing specialist medical treatment. For Brett, seeing a specialist would improve his quality of life immensely. But, due to a lack of available specialists in the electorate, he's only been able to get into a clinic in Sunshine—and, even then, there's a long waitlist, so it'll still be at least another nine months before he can see the specialist. Brett's story demonstrates an important issue my community is facing around the availability of specialists. It demonstrates the importance of specialists and the consequences of those services not being available.

We know there's more to do in this space, and this bill is an important first step towards making specialists more accessible. It's about empowering Australians with the knowledge of what they can expect to pay to see a specialist or for treatment in the private health sector. Ultimately it's about giving them power to make informed choices about their own care. This is all part of our government's push to ensure health care remains affordable and accessible to all Australians. Our government has a laser-sharp focus on this because we know that, to communities across Australia, accessible health care matters. It matters to communities like mine in Melbourne's western suburbs, where young families are moving in and building their homes and their futures—young families who are facing mounting pressure on mortgages, at the supermarket and, yes, when taking care of their health. An electorate like mine—young, diverse and aspirational—has many needs that have yet to be met.

One area that has struggled to keep up is access to health services. Gorton residents experience significant disadvantage in accessing health services. Even within Melbourne's north-west, the burden of disease disproportionately impacts my constituents. In the city of Brimbank, a staggering 28 per cent of residents between 18 and older have been diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases—conditions that need to be managed throughout their lives. For locals who are navigating chronic conditions, for those who need to see specialists regularly and throughout their lives, these changes are making this easier.

Ensuring cost transparency when seeing a specialist or receiving treatment in the private sector is one piece of the puzzle of improving access to health care for Australians, including those in Melbourne's north-west. But it is by no means all the Albanese Labor government is doing for affordable and accessible health care. With record investments in bulk-billing, we are strengthening Medicare by increasing bulk-billing incentives. Thanks to these record investments in Medicare, there are now 23 Medicare bulk-billing clinics in my electorate of Gorton in Melbourne's western suburbs; that's 72 per cent of the GP clinics in our local area that you can get an appointment at for free. The national bulk-billing rate is now sitting at over 80 per cent, and 96 per cent of Aussies live within a 20-minute drive of a fully bulk-billed practice. We're also growing Australia's health workforce with the largest GP training program in Australian history.

This is real cost-of-living relief, and it makes a difference to those families whose credit cards are taking the hit when at the supermarket checkout, buying petrol or paying the bills. Hardworking Aussies like those in my community deserve free health care, and that's what we're doing for Australians. With this bill here, we're also ensuring costs to see specialists are transparent so that Australians can be empowered to make informed choices about their care. We've also introduced Medicare urgent care clinics around the country so that Australians can access free walk-in care to take the pressure off our hospital systems.

Last year I was lucky enough to open the 90th urgent care clinic, in Melbourne's west, with the Prime Minister and my friend the member for Fraser. That urgent care clinic was one of two urgent care clinics near my community, both recently opened, in Sunshine and Melton. This is great. We know that it's making real change, and it's working.

I recently had a conversation with a local pharmacist, Chris Luu from Deer Park Compounding Pharmacy. Chris grew up in Deer Park, and he's been working at the Deer Park Compounding Pharmacy for 30 years. Chris is so incredibly passionate about his community. He wants his customers—some of whom he's seen grow up and have kids themselves—to thrive. He showed us a mural of Deer Park's history made with students at a local school, which he moved and reassembled outside his building, making sure it was preserved for future generations. We are very lucky to have him in our community. Chris and I chatted about the cost of medicines on the PBS. Chris told me that he wished more people knew the original prices of medicines so they could see how much they were saving every time they got a script filled on the PBS. He knows the changes that our government is making because he sees them every day, like capping the cost of medicines listed on the PBS to just $25. Last year the maximum cost for a PBS medicine was $31.60, and, from January this year, it was reduced to just $25. This is more than a 20 per cent cut in the maximum cost of PBS medicines, and it's saving Australians over $200 million a year. That's giving my community and Chris's customers real access to the medicines they need and tangible relief on the cost of health care.

Someone who has a lot to say about the cost of health care is the current shadow treasurer. Over the years, the shadow Treasurer has told us, many times, that he'd like to privatise Medicare. He told us in 2011 when he said that he'd like to see the health burden shifted from government to individuals. He told us again in 2021 when he said, 'When you push the cost of health care away, the obligations and the sense of responsibility people have to it diminishes.' When someone shows you who they are, believe them. Just like they were in 2011, the opposition is still more interested in making sure Australians know how much they cost to look after, rather than making sure they are actually looked after. On this side of the House, we're about real change that looks after Australians, puts food on the table, reduces household bills and makes a doctor's visit affordable—no Australian held back and no Australian left behind.

And that's why we brought this bill here—a bill that gives back to Australians by providing transparency and strengthening the regulation of our healthcare system. And, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

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