Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Medibank Private has a return on equity of 26 per cent. That's about double the return of even the big banks. At the same time, private health premiums are at record highs. Why is this government giving big private health insurers a big tax cut instead of supporting Labor's plan to cap private health premium increases to two per cent?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition knows full well that many of the people he used to represent as a trade union official are members of smaller employee based health insurance companies, and he knows that APRA pays the closest attention to the solvency and the prudential management of all those health insurance companies but, naturally, particularly the smaller ones. When he came out with his thought bubble to unilaterally cap the premiums of health insurance companies, he saw the reaction from the industry, which was that this would put the solvency of so many of these insurance funds, particularly the smaller ones, at risk—put them at risk of bankruptcy. What does he then say to one of his former members who is a member of one of those funds? I think we'd find many members opposite are members of them. What does he say to them then when they get sick and they're off in hospital with big private hospital bills, and the insurance company has gone broke? What does he say then? He says: 'Oh, well, I had my thought bubble. I thought I'd just cap the premiums without any regard to what APRA said and without any regard to the viability of the industry.'

The reality is this: the Leader of the Opposition hates business and he's seeking to declare war on business, but he hates private health insurance even more. He went to the Press Club and he wasn't prepared to stand up for the private health insurance rebate. He wasn't prepared to do that. He was crab-walking back to a favourite Labor field, to undermine private health insurance and undermine choice. The consequence of that would be nothing less than more and more pressure put on the public health system, and in particular the public hospital system.

The Leader of the Opposition will not fool us or the Australian people. His target is business, it's private health, it's private hospitals and it's choice. He is determined now—the most left-wing Leader of the Labor Party we've seen in generations—to move his antibusiness, anti-investment, anti-jobs agenda. Well, Australians won't be fooled by that. They know that 403,000 jobs last year is the growth you see with strong economic leadership, and they won't be putting that at risk for his left-wing populism.