Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Minister, I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer to the question from the Leader of the Opposition and to the fact that the only reason the government has given for deferring the Medibank Private sale until after the next election is: ‘Telstra is a major government priority and we would not want to make any decisions that affect T3.’ Minister, isn’t the Minister for Human Services right when he says:

... the stock market is deep enough and liquid enough to cope with Medibank Private, Telstra and a range of other listings this year ...

Minister, isn’t the real reason the government has deferred the sale of Medibank private that Australians are opposed to it?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In calling the Minister for Health and Ageing, I inform him that he is not required to comment on remarks made by another minister. Nonetheless, I call the Minister for Health and Ageing

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the government were scared by today’s opinion poll result, we would have entirely abandoned the sale of Medibank Private. We have not. We support the sale of Medibank Private. We think it will be good for policyholders, it will be good for taxpayers and it will be good for the health sector. We will proceed with the sale of Medibank Private, as announced, in 2008 and we will introduce legislation into this parliament to make this possible in two weeks time.