Senator CARR(4.03 p.m.) —Minister, I explained that the cost of these proposals to the government is $15 million. You still will secure well in excess of $800 million out of these measures.

Senator Bolkus —Ninety-four per cent.

Senator CARR —Senator Bolkus draws to my attention that it is 94 per cent. I might have to explain why the opposition will be opposing these measures. This is a measure that does appear to be superficially attractive because it does present all the aura of compromise. But the truth of the matter is that, when you look at it a bit more carefully, you will notice that there are other aspects to this proposal.

The key point is that the Medicare thresholds are linked to total family income rather than the taxable income of the person with the HECS liability. What we are in fact looking at here is the income of two persons, not necessarily just the income of one.

If we take the case of the so-called `battling family'—of which this government is very fond—with children and an income in the low to mid-$20,000, it is hard to envisage many cases where the spouse is not earning at least several thousand dollars in additional income to make ends meet. This would have to be added to the income of the primary earner, generally putting them over the Medicare threshold. They would then be subject to the full impact of the government's greater tightening of the repayment schedule with the whole threshold structure moved down.

Because of the above factors, the additional cost of Senator Harradine's proposals compared to the government's proposal is in fact quite modest. I would assert, Minister, and would ask you to refute this, that the cost of this proposal is $15 million in a full year, which, of course, would still allow the government to achieve the bulk of its savings from this general threshold measure. That is in excess of some $800 million over the three-year period. There would be huge numbers of losers and a high percentage of them would be battlers. A further factor constraining the cost of Senator Harradine's proposal is that most people repaying HECS have zero or one child. Is that not a fact?