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

I stand up today to condemn the Commonwealth government, the Albanese Labor government, for a decision to punish older Australians with a higher tax—that is, by removing the additional support they get to maintain their private health insurance over the age of 65. These are older Australians who have paid their private health insurance all of their lives, and this is the time when they need it most. Many of these people are pensioners, and the only thing they are spending any discretionary income on is the maintenance of their private health insurance, because that allows them to sleep at night and allows them to know, if something happens to them—we know that the older you get the more likely you are going to be dependent on the healthcare system to look after you. At this very time, this government, through its own budget failures, is seeking to use the money and peace of mind of older Australians to fix up its budget mess. This government should be absolutely ashamed.

What is even worse is that this is a complete and utter con. The government will tell you tonight they're supposedly going to save $3 billion for taxpayers over the four years of the forward estimates, but we know that's not true. This has got to be the mother of all cost shifts that I have ever seen. By taking people out of the private system, where they're paying for their own health care, and putting them into public system, you are just shifting the budget bottom line from the federal budget to the states and territories.

What makes it even worse is that the independent Finity report that the government received said this measure would actually be a net cost to taxpayers. It is going to cost taxpayers more to shift Australians out of the private system and into the public system than what the government is currently spending on the little bit of support it gives to older Australians to encourage them to keep their private health insurance. It is a complete and utter con, and Mark Butler, the Minister for Health and Ageing, knows this, because on Friday a week ago he told ABC radio that, for every dollar an older Australian invests in their health care over the age of 65, they get a $3 return on the private health that they receive in return. That means, for every older Australian who drops their private health insurance and the $1 they are investing, the $3 that's currently paid by the private health insurer will be picked up by the taxpayer.

The other piece of rubbish that this government is going on with is this idea that somehow this is redefining intergenerational equity. It's pitting one generation of Australians against another, but the worst of it is it is completely false. You're pushing older Australians who are currently paying for their own private health insurance into the public system, and the people who pay for the public system are working-age taxpayers. They are, by their very definition, younger Australians.

This government knows that this measure is false on both accounts. It will not save taxpayers money; it will cost taxpayers money. It is not some sort of intergenerational-equity smoothing; it is actually forcing younger Australians to pick up the healthcare costs of older Australians who will no longer be able to afford to pay for their health care. They will basically be taxed more by this government's decision that will be in its budget tonight and was announced by Minister Butler at the Press Club a couple of weeks ago. This is blatantly the federal government using older Australians to somehow take the blame and fix the mess of its budget failures. It has to be the worst piece of policy I have ever seen. It's the biggest public policy con that we have seen in this country for a very long time.

To make it worse—but pretty typical of these guys—there was no consultation whatsoever with anybody at all. Nobody knew this was coming until Mark Butler stood up and made the announcement. This is what this government has an incredible track record of—making great big headline announcements with no substance underneath them, no definition about how they will deliver them, and no consultation with anybody who will be impacted by them. In this instance, the peace of mind of older Australians and the security of their health care as they get older is the price the government is willing to have them pay for its budget failure.