Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

There is absolutely no reason why the government, in 2014, should still own and operate a private health insurance business. Private health insurance in Australia is a highly-competitive and very effective market. We have 34 health funds competing for business in order to provide services to people who want, essentially, to take out health insurance in order to facilitate access to affordable private health care. The Labor Party always jumps up and down and plays politics with this, but they actually are secretly in favour of privatisation. They are in favour of selling Medibank. Why otherwise did Labour not once move to repeal the Medibank Private Sale Act 2006 in their six years in government?

It was none other than the Labor Party that turned Medibank Private into a for-profit business. That was all part of an orderly progression toward privatisation. (Time expired)