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Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Page: 1392

Private Health Insurance

Ms SMYTH (La Trobe) (14:03): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government's private health insurance rebate changes will help build a stronger and fairer health system for all Australians?

Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:04): I thank the member for La Trobe for her question. Earlier today the House of Representatives passed the government's changes to the private health insurance rebate and there is every reason to believe that these changes will pass through the Senate. These changes were first brought to the parliament in 2009. We sought to secure these changes then and took this plan to the 2010 election and said, as the government, that we wanted to work to change the private health insurance rebate in the interest of fairness and in the interest of sustainability. Today the House of Representatives has given a tick to fairness and a tick to sustainability. It is clearly unfair to ask low-income Australians who cannot afford private health insurance themselves to subsidise the private health insurance of people who are many times better off than they are—clearly unfair.

Mr Christensen interjecting—

The SPEAKER: The honourable member for Dawson will remain silent for the balance of the Prime Minister's answer.

Ms GILLARD: It is the proposition of the opposition that Australians who own so little that they cannot afford private health insurance for themselves should be subsidising the private health insurance of millionaires or billionaires. There is no surprise in that because the opposition have never seen a tax dollar they did not want to give to a billionaire if they possibly could.

This is also about sustainability. We all know that health costs are growing. We are investing more and more in health and that is appropriate because Australians want to see more doctors, more nurses and more investment in public hospitals. They want to see better cancer treatment. They understand that with innovation and with the ageing—

The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will return to the question under consideration.

Ms GILLARD: Thank you very much. I am talking about sustainability in the private health insurance rebate. They understand that with those health demands we have to wisely invest every health dollar, which is why engaging in this means-testing of the private health insurance rebate is appropriate and without these changes it is estimated that it will cost $100 billion over the next 40 years.

I note today that the Leader of the Opposition has committed himself to reversing these changes, adding to his $70 billion black hole—$70 billion now and counting. Well it is not right by sustainability and it is not right by fairness. The one thing we know is that the Leader of the Opposition cannot possibly make that budget add up.