Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister advise the House how many Australians hold private health insurance, particularly in my electorate of Macquarie? What steps is the government taking to make private health insurance even better? Are there any alternative policies?

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

I do thank the member for Macquarie for his question and I appreciate that he is asking it on behalf of the 57,000 people in his electorate who benefit from the choice and security that private health insurance brings. Let me make it very clear that support for private health insurance is one of the signature policies of the Howard government. Thanks in large measure to the private health insurance rebate, the number of Australians covered by private health insurance has risen from six million to nine million, including more than one million Australians earning less than $20,000 a year. I can inform the House that in the September quarter an additional 82,000 people took out private health insurance. This is the fifth successive quarterly increase in private health insurance numbers, and in the last quarter that included 29,000 people aged under 25. These people can only afford private health insurance because of the Howard government’s private health insurance rebate, because without that rebate the average family’s premiums would increase by a thousand dollars a year.

We still do not know who the next shadow minister for health will be, but we do know that every single one of the frontbenchers opposite hates the private health insurance rebate and wants to rip the guts out of private health insurance.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Oh, yes! Listen to their words, Mr Speaker. We have the member for Jagajaga, the current failed shadow minister for education, who described the private health insurance rebate—

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Danby interjecting

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

The member for Melbourne Ports is warned!

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

as ‘the worst piece of public policy in Australian history’. We have the member for Perth, the current failed workplace relations shadow minister, who called the private health insurance rebate a ‘public policy crime’ and canvassed its abolition. We have the would-be shadow Treasurer, the member for Melbourne, who called it ‘one of the least efficient programs of all time’. And then of course we have the member for Lalor, the person who does not think she is up to being the shadow Treasurer, who invented Medicare Gold to try to destroy the private health insurance system. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: drop the blame game that you have been playing all week and show me your policies. Show me the policies! In particular, say where you stand on the private health insurance rebate which means so much to so many Australian families.