Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026, the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2025-26 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2025-2026. Collectively, these appropriation bills provide legislative authority for additional funding to the consolidated revenue fund for the government. Obviously, they are part of implementing the decisions of both the budget and MYEFO, and there's a significant amount of money attached to these bills. They seek approval of $12.5 billion in appropriations, including for ordinary and non-ordinary services and for parliamentary departments.

Let's be clear, offering our support for these bills is the normal practice of the opposition when it comes to appropriation and supply bills. It doesn't mean to say that we agree with everything that is contained in these bills or the policies that have driven the need of these appropriations. As Senator Bragg has just quite articulately put on the record, we are at a stage in this country where the spending of government is completely out of control and is driving our economy to a place that is going to be a place where our children and their children are going to wear the consequences of the recklessness of this current government's attitude to taxation and to the economy.

Since coming into government, this government has added $100 billion to the national debt, which is now heading towards $1 trillion. That's $1 trillion that's on the credit card. That's $1 trillion that is going to have to have the interest repaid on it. That is $1 trillion that future generations are going to have to wear the consequences of. As we sit here at the moment, with the instability that we're seeing in our domestic economy courtesy of the actions of this current government and with the added implications of a volatile international situation, we are in a very precarious position. Most other times when we've headed into times of uncertainty and times of crisis, there has been a buffer in the bank. There is no buffer in the bank because government has already spent it, and so we head into uncertain times—rising interest rates, global uncertainty, a fuel crisis that is still being denied by those opposite that is, quite frankly, impossible to deny when you drive around and want to fill your car up or when you speak to a farmer who is trying to fill the tractor up or get a fuel delivery onto their farm. It is not a crisis that is to be ignored.

The point of these bills today is to provide additional funding to the government, and the point that we and the opposition will continue to make is that the fiscal management of this country is what should be the No. 1 objective policy priority of every government after keeping its citizens safe. That is the other job a government has to do—manage the economy in the best interests and for the best welfare outcomes for Australians. Spending growth at the moment is actually running at four times the growth of the economy. Anybody who has got any idea about economics knows that that is going to be a problem when it comes to stimulating inflation in the economy. This is the highest spending rate outside of a pandemic in over 40 years, so, quite frankly, right now, inflation in this country is too high, and there is only one place to lay the blame for that inflation being too high, and that is the high levels of government spending. Responsibility sits with the government.

The ABS has confirmed, in the last 12 months to January 2026, inflation was at 3.8 per cent—and it's rising—with trimmed mean inflation at 3.4 per cent. Both these figures are well outside the band that is stated as an appropriate target by the Reserve Bank. The result of this is everyday Australians are seeing everything they rely on and everything that they have to pay for going up, such as the increasing cost of housing and the fact that we are now seeing a generation of Australians fearing they will never own their own home.

Previous generations—my generation and generations before—have always almost taken for granted that, if you work hard, you will always be able to afford to buy your own home. That is not something that the younger generations feel anymore. There's an everyday immediacy when it comes to the cost of food going up, the cost of health care going up, the cost of insurance going up and quite frankly the incredible increase we've seen in the amount people are paying for their houses—those of us who are lucky enough to have been able to buy one. This is hurting everyday Australians, because the cost-of-living pressures are singularly the most impactful thing that is happening in the lives of everyday Australians right now.

The government is refusing to accept, in everything it's saying, the fact that its actions are reducing the living standards of everyday Australians. It's really quite terrifying when you hear authoritative figures say that the next generation will be the first generation of Australians whose living standards will be worse than the previous generation since the Second World War. So every generation since the Second World War has been the beneficiary of productivity and growth from the responsibility of successive governments in managing the economy, but this next generation will be the first to inherit a worse living standard than the last.

The other thing, too, is that we have seen an absolute propensity of the spending of this government to be very much focused on things that exist in terms of increasing the size of the government. We on this side of the chamber don't believe in bigger government; we believe in better government. We believe in a government that supports Australians getting ahead. We believe that Australians should not be bearing the burden of government policy. We believe Australians should be the beneficiary of government policy by having them be able to get ahead by working hard and being rewarded for what they do. This is not the policy of this government.

One area I want to focus on in a little bit more detail is the absolute explosion of not just the costs in the healthcare sector but the accessibility and the implications of the policies of this government in terms of the outcomes of the health of Australians. There is absolutely no doubt when you speak to Australians that they are concerned about the cost and access to health care. We have seen, over recent years, an increasing level of concern about the accessibility and affordability of health care, and the result of that is that people are not seeking to engage with the healthcare system. They are saying they simply cannot afford to do so.

There is absolutely no doubt that, during the last election campaign, the Prime Minister tried to avoid his responsibility for the burden that he has placed on our healthcare system from successive policies by running around and telling Australians that the only thing they would need when they went to the doctor would be their Medicare card. Well, the lived experience of Australians is very, very different to that, because right now Australians who have out-of-pocket costs when they go to see their doctor are paying in excess of $50 every time. So it's never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor than it is right now.

As I said, out-of-pocket costs are in excess of $50. That is higher than it has ever been before. This is forcing Australians to make the really hard decision as to whether they're going to see the doctor or put food on the table. They're choosing to put food on the table, which is a quite reasonable response, but as a result of that they are finding themselves getting sicker and sicker, and the result of that is they are entering into a health system at a much more acute stage of illness, which is where it is more expensive and why we are seeing such a burden being placed on our hospital system.

When it comes to the increased incentives that have been put in place, we absolutely welcome anything that is able to get Australians more affordable and easier access to health care. But the reality is that we are not seeing a change on the ground. Then, when you have a look at the impact of the more acute stages at which people are entering into our healthcare system, we are also seeing our hospital system completely and utterly overburdened. We're seeing ramping around the country at the worst it has ever been. In my home state in South Australia last year, we saw the worst level of ramping that we have ever seen, double what it had previously been. Elective surgery waiting lists—we probably shouldn't use the term 'elective surgery'. These are surgeries that are essential; they're just not life saving. It could be somebody who has been living with chronic pain for many, many years. The wait time for elective surgeries in this country has completely and utterly blown out. That's before we even start talking about the aged-care system, where we see over 3,500 older Australians stuck in hospital beds because of the failure of this government in relation to preparing appropriately for aged care.

We've seen private health premiums go up again. Next week, we will see an over four per cent increase in health premiums across the board for those Australians, those 15 million Australians, who choose to insure their health in the private system. That is going to be the biggest increase in over a decade. The most disturbing thing about that is what the likely implication is going to be for Australians in terms of their ability to maintain their private health insurance. It's their private health insurance and their access to the private health sector that take the pressure off our public health sector. We saw just recently the government having to chuck another $25 billion—$25 billion extra dollars—to the states and territories for their hospital systems because they are overburdened because of the policies of this federal government. We've seen spending on the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, at some of its lowest, lowest levels. We're seeing the government use cost-containment mechanisms at the moment by rationing care and access to health care to try and help their budget bottom line.

This is an absolute indictment on this government, because, if you listen to what they say, everything is okay. I would say to Australians: don't listen to what the government says; actually look at what they are doing. What they are doing is sending you backwards. As I said, in the aged-care sector, we have seen some terrible, terrible changes. We've seen wait lists blow out from just on 28,000 people waiting for a homecare package to over 130,000 people as we sit here now, and that's not accounting for the over 100,000 people that are waiting to even be assessed for a package. We're seeing older Australians stuck in hospital beds because they can't get residential care or they can't get the homecare packages that would enable them to go home. We have seen wait times blow out. They got down to around three months, but we're now seeing 10, 11 and 12 months of waiting for aged-care packages. When they do get their aged-care packages from this government, eventually, they're receiving them at 60 per cent of the value that they had been assessed as needing. That means, for older Australians who have been assessed as needing a level of care, this government is giving them 60 per cent of the care that they have been assessed as needing. This is just another broken promise by this government—a broken promise to older Australians, who are having their care rationed by this government because the budget bottom line seems to be more important than the health and wellbeing of older Australians.

To add insult to injury, we now find out that the government has introduced an algorithm to assess what kind of care older Australians are going to get, an algorithm that is proving to be throwing out some of the most unkind, unfair and terrible results for older Australians. We've seen people who have had a massive deterioration in their health and have sought to have their aged-care packages reassessed for greater support have their packages decreased and, in some instances, removed altogether, at the whim of a robot. So, right now, we have got a government who is more focused on headlines and spin and not on delivering. We see a government that's more worried about their budget bottom line than about Australians who have got health challenges, particularly older Australians, who are assessed as needing care and have been denied it because of the rationing of care by this government. In health and aged care, this is a national crisis of the government's own making. It is their responsibility, and they will be held to account by the Australian public. To use older Australians and the access to care of older Australians as a budgetary tool, I think, has got to be one of the cruellest actions I've ever seen of any government ever. These bills here today highlight the scale of government spending and the consequences of poor fiscal discipline. Whilst I said we will be supporting these bills, as is practice, it goes no way towards suggesting that we support the actions of this government.