Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to rise and speak on this private member's motion. It's about leopards and spots, and the coalition is the leopard that doesn't change its spots. I've seen it through my entire medical career. The Fraser government tried to destroy Medibank, our first national comprehensive insurance scheme. The Howard government allowed de-mutualisation of the health funds and so introduced a profit motive into private health insurance. Then we saw Dutton, as health minister in the Abbott government, try to introduce a co-payment to destroy Medicare. It really shows the coalition, as far as health care is concerned, doesn't change its spots. They're not interested in equity. They're not interested in comprehensive care. All they want to do is bring it down. They haven't had a health policy in 10 years that's worked. They worked very hard during the Abbott, Morrison and Turnbull governments to bring down Medicare. Unfortunately, they're still showing with this bill that they don't understand health care.

All the Albanese government are doing is bringing the rebates down to show that it is equitable to make older Australians pay the same level of private health insurance as younger Australians. That's very, very fair. The number of people with private insurance is, in fact, increasing. We know that from the last data available from 2024. We know that private health insurance has to be value for money. And we've seen that the Albanese government, in its first term and now, is doing everything it can to reduce health costs for people, to make sure that our health system works appropriately. Our bulk-billing rates in general practice are now going up. We've recently also started an inquiry into specialist access, including the gap fees that people have to pay, making it more equitable for people to see specialists. We have announced and introduced legislation to make transparency about medical fees be available to all Australians. We are doing whatever we can to make sure our health system is the most effective and most equitable in the world.

In fact, in Australia we pay around 10 to 10.5 per cent of GDP every year for health care. This compares to around 12 to 14 per cent for other OECD countries and up to 17 per cent for the United States. So we are making our healthcare system efficient and keeping it efficient and still providing very high levels of equitable care to all Australians. We make hard decisions about health care. We make no apologies for that. This reduction of the health rebate for the over-65s, bringing them in line with under-65s, is part of that. Hard decisions have to be made. We are encouraging people into private health insurance. We know that we need to get younger people into health insurance. As a general rule, younger people tend to pay more in fees than they receive in health care, whereas the opposite is true for older people. They get more health care than the amount they pay in private insurance or in Medicare surcharges. We are doing what we can to make our healthcare system equitable, and this is part of the solution.

The Albanese government is doing a huge amount in health care, including in women's health and in our urgent care centres, so that all Australians can access the most equitable care that they can. Modern health care is expensive. We know that the medications for some of the new genetically caused diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, cost huge amounts of money—sometimes up to $300,000 a year per patient for every year they're alive. The costs are huge. But the Albanese government is making sure that our health costs are amongst the lowest in the developed world, and, as a percentage of GDP, they are much lower than many of our OECD or equivalent countries are paying and certainly much lower than what is occurring in America. The Albanese government is doing a marvellous job in health care.

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