Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann is indeed right. There are nearly 10 million Australians with private health insurance. Those who keep it will pay more. Some will pay a lot more because they will lose the rebate. Some will play a bit more because the cost pressures will see premiums rise. But the other 10-plus million Australians out there will also suffer longer hospital waiting lists and more crowded wards. They will pay the price of this measure as well.

No Australian will be left unaffected by this change. No Australian with an interest in health care—which, of course is each and every one of us—will be left unaffected by this change. No-one will benefit from it. Everyone will be harmed by it. This is the reality that people need to face up to, and hopefully this Senate chamber will recognise that and will ultimately choose to reject this measure.

I have cited a couple of commitments made by the government, but they were not the only ones. The then shadow minister also made it quite clear on 26 September 2007:

Federal Labor rejects the Liberal scare campaign around the Private Health Insurance rebates … The Liberals continue to try to scare people into thinking Labor will take away the rebates. This is absolutely untrue. The Howard Government will do anything and say anything to get elected.

Excuse me, Mr Acting Deputy President, if I need to roll around in the corridor here and have a bit of a belly laugh at present, because the Labor Party say that the Howard government will do anything and say anything to get elected! We have just canvassed the bald-faced untruths that have been told by the Rudd government to get themselves elected.