Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Hansard source

I am proud to stand here and call out what is happening in aged care, particularly around the algorithms. As shadow assistant minister for health and aged care, I know about it because I get the calls to my office from people who are anxious—who are terrified. Their families, worried about what's happening to them as they age, are waiting and waiting for the government to respond. You can't hide from the fact that this government's waiting lists have got worse and that its ideas for addressing aged care aren't working—because people power proves it. Labor claim to support older Australians, but their budget is riddled with hidden taxes on hardworking and vulnerable Australians, and the truth has been revealed. They don't understand how their own laws will impact people most affected by changes, and they don't even have the capacity to fix it. We've heard it time and time again.

With the coalition, I'm calling on the Albanese government to immediately scrap this damaging policy. It hurts older Australians; they tell us that, time and time again. These are real people who are ageing, scared and wanting better—and they deserve better. Your $11 billion tax on older Australians' private health insurance will actually result in higher costs for people on fixed incomes who have no real choice but to absorb them. What about those couples over 65 with gold cover who will struggle with being slugged up to $1,614 extra from next year? That's a staggering 21 per cent increase. It's the biggest rise in private health costs on record. This is real for these people. These figures aren't made up. And do you know what's worse? The Labor government has conceded it doesn't even know how many of the 3.1 million older Australians will be affected as pensioners, because it never bothered to find out. But research by National Seniors suggests around 55 per cent will be affected. That's not a small number. What does Labor go and do? It punishes those financially exposed older Australians who have worked hard their whole lives and managed their finances carefully to maintain their cover and maintain some sort of dignity in aged care. It's a fact that older Australians are more likely to need health care as they age. I don't think any Australian is different in that respect. It's something they expect. That's why they hold on to certainty. They plan for their futures. They've contributed to our communities, they've been taxpayers in our communities and they expect to be looked after in their old age better than they are right now.

We've seen over the last couple of weeks that the government doesn't even do the modelling to understand how many people are affected by the things it chooses to do to them. We've seen legislation come into this place and then the fixes done after the legislation has gone through. Not just Australians but older Australians trust the Labor government to fix it afterwards. You didn't take your tax changes to them at an election to give them choice, so why should they trust you? Of course they shouldn't. What matters is that older Australians can prepare with their families for their futures, choose what sort of health cover they go on and choose the kind of care that they get as they age—because they deserve it. Labor Premier Chris Minns said:

Little changes at a federal level, made by somebody in a darkened room in Canberra, can have a huge impact on an emergency department in Mount Druitt.

He was talking about older Australians. I couldn't have said it better. You can't make decisions in this place without doing the work. You can't make decisions in this place without consulting properly. You can't make those decisions without doing the modelling. But do you know what? That's what Labor does, time and time again.