Senator, O'Neill, perhaps you were late for question time because the first question time today was from Senator Gatenby, the new senator from Tasmania, on the private health insurance rebate. You either weren't here or you weren't paying attention. Really! This is why my grand prediction is that the next battleground that will force the Labor Party into a significant policy retreat is its plans to slug 1.3 million pensioners by abandoning the private health insurance rebate that they're currently entitled to. That is a plan that will hurt pensioners and add older people to state hospital waiting lists.

It is unfair. It is unmodeled. It's another demonstration how the Labor Party does not care for people in our community. On every occasion in this Senate people like Senator O'Neill, Senator Polley, Senator Stewart—they all voted to retain Labor's hurtful, harmful $5,000 cap on allied health support services for veterans and their families. How outrageous. There just 324 days until the next election. With the brief minutes available to me, let me just remind people what Bill Kelty had to say about Labor at the moment. He said that it is ridiculous that the Treasurer carries on the way he does with his economic policies. (Time expired)