Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Today is an incredibly important day. It is budget day. We're all hanging out, waiting to hear what the Treasurer is going to bring to us. I've compiled a playlist especially for tonight using some of the Prime Minister's top songs. I'm not going to sing them. It's okay! Songs include 'nobody held back', 'nobody left behind', 'no-one worse off in aged care' and don't forget the old faithful 'my word is my bond'. Well, they have been clearly broken. They have been broken, every single one of them, especially in regional Australia.

I want to start with the private health rebate. This government has run out of its own money to spend and therefore is coming for, in this instance, our older folk, our over-65s. It is raiding the private health fund to, apparently, pay for aged care a little bit later. The fact is that these people have been paying their taxes all their lives. They now get to 65, when they just might require more medical intervention, and, as pensioners, they are now going to be having to pay potentially up to $1,000 extra. There will be so many who exit the private health fund for their own needs. They've been responsible all their lives, and now guess what? They're going to have to rely on the public health system. I don't think that's a good move. I just don't think that's a good move, and I don't think anyone in that situation is going to think that's a good move. Minister Butler is going to be ripping $3 million from private health consumers for aged care. What for? It's for beds, for home-care packages. I heard what Minister Rae had to say during question time—that there are over 230,000 people waiting for Support at Home, waiting for their Commonwealth home-care package.

In the regions, there is no-one to deliver those services. We have aged-care providers who are saying to potential elderly clients 'sorry, our books are full; our books are closed; we'll get back in touch with you when we've got a space'. What are they doing? Are they actually waiting for people to die—is that the plan?—because there's not enough money in the Commonwealth Home Support Program? Two hundred and thirty thousand people waiting is just not good enough. And I can assure you that in my electorate of Mallee they have been coming to tell me so.

We have assessments being done with AI, for crying out loud! Whoever thought that was a good idea ought to lose their job. The fact is that I have a deaf man who is 80 years old and who had his assessment for functionality done on the phone. Who thought that was a good idea? They've done the assessment, and now he's on a waitlist. This goes on and on under this Labor government. It cannot manage its portfolios, and it is the people in the regions who are particularly suffering.

The Commonwealth Home Support Program—I could go on about this all afternoon. The reality is that even gardeners and the people who would clean your home are not around; there is no-one out in the regions who is able to do this. So we have elderly people who don't want visitors coming to their homes because their grass is up to their doorhandle and because their homes are filthy. They can't clean them. Where is the minister on this? Why does it matter so little, while the government is expending and building debt like there's no tomorrow? A trillion dollars of debt is what Australians are going to be paying for into the future.

If I hear a spiel from the Treasurer tonight about intergenerational equity and fairness, I tell you what: I will go spare. I will have to control myself because I'm in the House, but I am so done with this argument. It is our young people who are going to be paying off this debt into decades to come. The way this Labor government has treated the people of Australia on an ongoing basis is a disgrace, and for the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to gaslight Australians is unbelievably poor. (Time expired)

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