I acknowledge the Western Australian shadow minister for agriculture in the gallery. My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator McAllister. Terry and Pam Thompson of Saratoga, New South Wales, are aged 85 and 80. They made a submission to the Senate inquiry into your government's plan to cut the additional private health insurance rebate for older Australians. They are both age pensioners with no other income. To keep their private health cover, they have given up holidays, meals out and entertainment. They told the inquiry that, once there is nothing further to sacrifice, they'll be forced onto the public system. In their words, your government's plan 'lacks compassion'. Minister, the Parliamentary Budget Office has now confirmed that $1.6 billion of the $3 billion this policy claims to save comes directly from the pockets of pensioners like the Thompsons. Do you think it's compassionate to expect pensioners to give up holidays, meals out and entertainment to pay for your lazy tax grab?

As the Senate knows, the government's priority is making sure that our tax dollars deliver the greatest benefit possible for older Australians, and that means directing more funding into the care that people rely on every day. These aren't straightforward choices from the government's perspective. To help fund that investment in aged care, the government will return the private health insurance rebate for older Australians to the same rate that is available to all other Australians. We do understand that this is a difficult decision. It will not be a welcome decision for many older Australians, but we think it is the right decision. The additional rebate is simply not the best way to spend precious taxpayers' dollars on behalf of older Australians when there is so much heavy lifting to do in aged care.

And there's a reason that there is now so much to do in aged care. Senator Ruston, in her question, referenced 'lazy'. I'll tell you what is lazy. It would be going to an election without a single costed aged-care policy. Unbelievably, that is what Senator Ruston did. There are 214 commitments in the coalition's election costing report, and not a single one of them is about aged-care places, because, when it came down to it, the coalition had no answers whatsoever to the neglect that they had overseen in the aged-care system—not a single answer. They couldn't tell Australians how many packages they would fund. They could not tell Australians what it would cost. They couldn't tell Australians how they would invest in the workforce to deliver care, and that is what is lazy.

Senator Ruston, first supplementary?

Minister, four months before this policy was announced, the Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing wrote to the Deafness Forum Australia and pointed elderly Australians towards this very rebate as the way to fund cochlear implant replacements. Was the minister aware the rebate was going to be cut when he gave that advice to older Australians needing deaf support, and, if so, why weren't those pensioners told at the time?

Cochlear implants are currently funded for implantation through state and territory public hospital systems. The government acknowledges that access to ongoing replacement or upgraded sound processes isn't consistently subsidised across jurisdictions. Eligible Australians may access cochlear implant processor upgrades—

Your minister told them to use their private health insurance.

through the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Over-65s will still receive significant government subsidised discounts—

Do you know about this letter? Would you like me to table it?

Senator Ruston.

of up to 24 per cent on the premiums private health insurance charges them—the same as the rest of the population. Under the—

Senator Ruston?

A point of order on relevance—I was actually talking about a letter that the minister had written. I'm happy to table that letter for this chamber if you'd like me to.

Senator Ruston, you have been constantly interjecting. I called you on that point and asked you to come to order. There is not a point of order. I will continue to listen closely to the minister.

Under the proposed changes, all Australians will now receive the same private health support based on their income, not their age.

Senator Ruston, second supplementary?

When pressed at the Senate inquiry into this bill, health department officials didn't call this good policy; they called it the least worst option. Is that really the standard this government is prepared to apply to a decision that takes money out of the pockets of pensioners like Terry and Pam Thompson?

This government takes its responsibilities to fund the services that Australians rely on very seriously indeed. As I've already indicated in my answer to the primary question, we recognise that this will not be a welcome decision for many Australians, but it is a necessary one. It is necessary because there is so much work to do to repair the damage that was done over a decade by those opposite to the aged-care system. We have a growing population of older people.

Senator Ruston, stop the running commentary.

Investment is required to increase the number of aged-care beds and to increase the number of packages, and the $3 billion that has been delivered in the last budget to exactly these priorities reflects the fact that our government takes these issues seriously. It is a great deal more than was offered by Senator Ruston at the last election, when she couldn't even be bothered to cost a single aged-care policy and take it there.