Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

In answer to that suggestion, I think this goes to the central point of this legislation: is it going to damage universalism of the public health insurance system? It seems to me important to put that into terms of reference. If that aspect is not there, we will have a review which may be from the perspective of the private health insurance industry, and it may be that they will say: ‘This is fantastic. It’s the government’s objective to increase the scope of private health insurance in this country. We’re achieving that, and everything is wonderful,’ and not look at this central question: does this do damage to a public health insurance system which I think this country can be very proud of? It is there because, for us, this is central to the whole debate. This is what we worry about with this bill.

The risks associated with this bill have got to be written into the terms of reference. Yes, that may sound negative, but I feel quite negative about this bill. I am deeply worried, as are the rest of the Democrats. That part of the amendment was put there rather deliberately because we would not want to see that aspect of it overlooked. We could tweak the terms of reference; I am sure we could expand on them. If the minister is at all inclined to conduct a review, I am sure we could sit down and negotiate what those words ought to be, although it is getting rather late in the debate. If there were agreement to do that, I would be happy to remove the specifics so that we could reach agreement in some other way at some later stage. But if the minister is ready to indicate whether a review is on the government’s horizon or whether they are at all inclined to support this amendment then that might be useful.