Mrs DRAPER —My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, are you aware of concern within the community about opposition to the government's proposed private health rebate? What is the government's response to constituents in my electorate of Makin who have told me that the rebate would mean the difference between taking out private health insurance or not taking out private health insurance? How can you allay these concerns that the people in my electorate of Makin have?

Dr WOOLDRIDGE (Health and Aged Care) —I thank the honourable member for her question. Her constituents are typical of the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who want the best for their families, want to have some control over their life, want to have choice and want to take out private health insurance. The opposition has shown no interest in them. In fact, all the opposition has done is talk a lot about the so-called rich. These are people, in the opposition's view, of a family earning more than $70,000 a year as a combined family income.

I had someone call my office yesterday and it was typical of that. They were a family from Queensland. They had a 10-year-old daughter. This daughter had had 30 operations throughout her life. The family were marginally over the cut-off limit. They were finding that they were having serious difficulty in coping with the health insurance expenses in conjunction with all the other medical expenses for the long-term treatment of their daughter. They wanted to have private health insurance because they wanted some choice and some control, and they felt they got much better rehabilitation—which is probably correct because rehabilitation is an area that has not been traditionally handled well in the state system. That sort of family, the opposition would say, should get no assistance whatsoever.

It is also typified by a letter that was sent to me which I would like to read to my colleagues. The letter is from a lady in Victoria and states:

Dear Sir,

I have never written a letter to a politician before, but I am doing so today because I feel so strongly about this issue. Having been a public patient in a city public hospital last year and seeing the overworked, overstressed staff, a lot of patients being left unsure of their situation, I feel the government's 30 per cent tax rebate for private health insurance must be passed through both houses of parliament so that people like us can choose to pay private health insurance at a somewhat affordable price, thus taking the load off the public hospital system.

I could not have put it better myself.