Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion that has been moved by my fellow Gold Coast colleague the member for McPherson. I do so because, ultimately, what we are seeing from this Labor government is a cruel, short-sighted and really unnecessary attack on older Australians.

For many Australians who have reached the retirement age, the later years in life, this isn't just a line in a budget paper. This is this Labor government, this Treasurer and this Prime Minister reaching into retirees hip pockets to take more of their hard earned money. These are older Australians who have done the right thing for years and years and years. The Labor government rolls into town with this new slogan of 'intergenerational equity', but we know what it really is. It's another hit to the hip pocket. It's another tax grab from this Labor government, which, when it runs out of money, will come after yours. And it fits the pattern, because Labor says one thing, in this case about fairness, but what it's doing is actually something entirely different.

We heard the member for Boothby use the word 'fair'. There is nothing about this that is fair. This wasn't taken to the last election, not that that would stop them. You see, this government now has a track record of saying one thing and doing something completely different. People are genuinely starting to wonder whether this Prime Minister can be trusted. The impact of this particular decision will remove the higher private health insurance rebate for older Australians from 1 April 2027. This aligns older Australians with younger age groups, rather than recognising the reality that older people need health care more often. Labor's private health tax on pensioners will probably cost couples over the age of 65 an extra $1,600 from April 2027—a 21.3 per cent increase.

My friend over here, who is the doctor in the house and has bit of credibility in this area, says it might not be that much. Well, for some people it will be that much. In fact, I'll give the good doctor a working example from my electorate just to prove that some people are impacted to the max. Robert and Miranda, from my electorate, have contacted me. They are absolutely staggered at this proposal. They already pay about $1,000 a quarter after the discount. They estimate they'll pay another $680 each per year, or 17 per cent. A quick bit of maths takes that to about $1,300 or $1,400 per year for this couple. These people are genuinely concerned they're going to be forced out of the private health system and into the public system. They deserve better than that. They're very worried, and I'd be worried too if I was them, because the impact that no-one's talking about is that push into the public health system, which is what the private system was entirely designed to try and mitigate—the demand on the public health system.

We've seen reports that there could be around 44,000 people drop their private health cover. Now, none of this is good news, because we already know that our really wonderful and hardworking health sector employees are working harder than they've ever had to before to try and keep up with the service standards that they want to deliver. But older Australians are going to land in these hospitals and it's going to put more and more pressure on our doctors, on our nurses, on our allied health professionals.

So going into the last election, when the Prime Minister waved around his Medicare card and said, 'This is all you will need,' well, ultimately that's not going to be enough because sometimes you need to go to a hospital, and oftentimes private health insurance is the way that you can get there quicker. But now there'll be more pressure, and older Australians deserve a lot better than this

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