Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, Senator Williams, you cannot trust them—do anything, say anything. Nicola Roxon, Macquarie Radio, May 2008:

We continue to support the 30 per cent, 35 per cent and 40 per cent rebate for those Australians who chose to take out private health insurance.

In a speech to the Australian Health Insurance Association Conference in October 2008, Nicola Roxon said:

Private health insurance consumers will still be able to claim the 30 and 40 per cent rebate and the Lifetime Health cover incentives will remain in place.

Again, in the Age on 24 February 2009, she said:

The Government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.

But, as we know with Minister Roxon, it is say one thing and do another.

During Senate estimates it was revealed that, whilst Minister Roxon was busily giving these public assurances, behind closed doors she and other senior members of the Labor government were seeking advice on how to progress changes to the private health insurance rebates. Whilst they were publicly firmly committed to retaining the existing rebates, secretly they were working on plans to reduce and to scrap them. We know that Minister Roxon first obtained advice from her department on 12 January 2009. Advice on how to change the rebate had been sought by the health minister's office as early as December 2008. Treasury provided advice on means testing the rebate on 20 February 2009. At the request of the Treasurer, the Department of Finance and Deregulation provided advice on the same measure on 22 February and the Prime Minister's department did so on 23 February.

So there they were publicly, hand on heart, saying one thing but then busily behind the scenes doing something different. But what does one expect from this government? They have taken from their mentor, Graham Richardson—whatever it takes; whatever it takes. And on this occasion in relation to private health insurance, yes, it was good to go out and say one thing and convince people and then, when you get into government, do the complete opposite.

Let us look at what happened at the last federal election. I want to examine some of my duty seat areas. Let us look at Mr Melham's seat of Banks. Mr Melham has almost 63,000 voters in his electorate with private health insurance. The margin of people that would have made the difference in that seat—it is a 1.5 per cent margin—was 1,438 people. Did he go out and tell those people that this government was on the one hand promising that it was not going to touch private health insurance but that, on the other hand, 'We are secretly going to change this; we are going to break this promise'? No, he did not. If he had, one wonders what may have happened in that seat. No, he does not have a mandate, because the promise that was made before the last federal election was that the rebates would be left in place.

In Mr Murphy's seat of Reid there was the same situation. There are almost 64,000 people, voters, in his electorate who have private health insurance. Did he tell the 2,593 people that represent the margin with which he won the seat that he was going to do something different, that he was going to affect their cost of living, that he was going vote to do the direct opposite of what he and Ms Gillard and others had been promising? No, he did not. He did not go out and tell his constituents the truth. And with Mr McClelland in Barton it was the same thing. In Werriwa, with Mr Ferguson, it was the same thing.

Let me go to my own area in the Illawarra. In the Illawarra, there is Mr Stephen Jones, who seems to be more worried about same-sex marriage than the thousands of jobs that have been lost in the Illawarra as a consequence of the government's carbon tax. But of course that just goes to show where his priorities are. Before the last federal election, I did not hear him telling his almost 47,000 constituents in his seat of Throsby who have private health insurance that he was going to vote against it. Ms Sharon Bird has almost 60,000 people in her electorate of Cunningham who have private health insurance. But, of course, she did not tell them the truth. You can go through any other federal seat and you will find it is the same story all around.

What we see with these bills is another betrayal of the Australian people by the Australian Labor Party. You on that side do not have a mandate to pass this legislation. For many years all of you on that side—whether it be Julia Gillard, Minister Roxon or Kevin Rudd—have been spouting on about private health insurance and how you are going to protect it. Over many, many years, hand on heart, you have been telling everybody that you were not going to change it. This is only a very, very small example of some of the things that you have repeatedly told the Australian public. And what is the common feature of what you have told the Australian public? It has all been a pack of blatant lies. You have repeatedly ruled out any changes—