Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

Well, what another ridiculous scare campaign from those opposite. And it's not all that surprising. I mean, they're badly down in the polls; just when we thought they couldn't drop any further, they have. They're in absolute chaos. They're in coalition with not only the Nationals but also One Nation. They are in a desperate attempt to distract from the chaos, from the division, from the divisiveness that we're seeing from the Liberal Party and the National Party and One Nation working together. They're in an attempt to get the Australian people to miss the fact that they've voted against our tax cuts for working Australians in this place and that they've stood in the way of every attempt we have tried to make to build more homes and get more young people into their first home, and that they have stood in the way of every attempt that we have made to help with the cost of living.

They are sinking to new lows with this desperate scare campaign, using older Australians in their political quest for relevance. It is absolutely shameful, it is irresponsible and it is wrong. In the other place, we saw the shadow treasurer claim the government had scrapped rebates for private health insurance for people aged over 65. This is wrong. It is simply not true. It is not what our government is proposing. He went even further and suggested it was because the government does not want to provide health care to older Australians.

What a ridiculous proposition to say about this Labor government, which has done more to deliver health care for Australians than any other government since the establishment of Medicare—and certainly more than those opposite. It's a particularly 'egregious' claim—to use Senator Hume's words—about our tax cuts by those opposite, who were found by the royal commission to have overseen an aged-care system of neglect of older Australians. For them to come into this place, and the other place, and accuse us of not being on the side of older Australians is a desperate scare campaign. It's a desperate political tactic to hide from the Australian people the truth about what they stand for, what they don't stand for and what they stand in the way of. They stand in the way of our attempts to deliver tax cuts. They stand in the way of our attempts to build more homes. They stand in the way of our attempts to deliver cost-of-living relief, time and time again.

The bill to which Senator Ruston refers to, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026, ensures more funding for aged care by removing the additional private health insurance subsidy provided to Australians aged 65 and over. We announced these reforms in the budget, and, really, what they mean is that all Australians will receive the same private health support, based on their income rather than their age. Under the current private health insurance arrangements, the government provides a higher subsidy to Australians aged over 65. This bill simplifies the rebate tiers and removes this inequity.

On the other matters that Senator Ruston has raised in her motion—the widow tax, come on! Again, it's another scare tactic and an attempt by them to muddy the truth. On the jointly held assets question about how these matters are dealt with under the existing arrangements prior to our tax reforms being passed through the Senate, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have said that those matters will be reviewed and considered as we continue to work through these important reforms in a staged way, which is entirely consistent with how these matters are delivered at home. On the question of AI and its use in aged-care assessments, we've been really clear that there is always human oversight over these decisions, as there should be.

But we know the facts don't matter to those opposite. The truth doesn't matter to those opposite, because the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation are committed to working together to stand in the way of the things Australians want to see our government taking action on. But we won't allow them to do it.