Senator GIBBS(8.34 p.m.) —The Hearing Services Administration Bill proposes significant changes to the way in which hearing services are delivered in the future. It will ensure that those people who need and who can afford hearing aids will be fine, but those who are on low incomes will end up on long waiting lists and others, like students, will miss out altogether. We now know that the government has reviewed their position, but it is important to put on the record what this legislation would have meant.

How many students can afford $3,000 to $5,000 to pay for two hearing aids and then pay $100 to $150 per year for batteries as well as hundreds of dollars whenever repairs are needed? I do not know too many students or young people who can afford those sorts of costs.

The Deafness Forum of Australia has received a great deal of reaction to the prospect of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds having to bear these costs themselves. The Deafness Forum has said that the community is very worried about this aspect of the legislation in particular. According to the 1996 budget, the saving on making 18- to 21-year-olds ineligible for government hearing services is just half a million dollars. This very small saving for the government is surely not worth the angst it will cause in the community and the difficulties for dependent students who already have to overcome their hearing disability to complete their high school or tertiary studies.

Tertiary students already have HECS fees which will have to be paid in the future because most students cannot afford to pay the fees up front. Now they will have an extra fee which they will not be able to defer, even though they may not be able to afford it. According to the Deafness Forum—the government should be aware of this as these figures were part of a submission to the hearing services bills inquiry by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee—there are currently around 2,500 to 3,000 clients of the government's hearing services program who are in the age group of 18 to 21. About 800 of these are provided with services in any one year. The cost of servicing these 800 clients is about $250,000 per year or less. Not everyone needs full cost services each year, and many merely need maintenance.

What this government is doing is putting at risk the ability of these students to complete their education—an education, if the government can create enough jobs, which will lead to jobs for these students that will make them self-sufficient members of society. We have here a group of people with disabilities who have an excellent chance of leading productive lives, and this government plans to put impediments in their way. Where is the logic in this? It seems as if no government minister thought to ask Treasury that question when this ridiculous slash was made in the budget process.

Would the government prefer to see these people forced to give up their education and become reliant on the government for assistance? How many of these 18- to 21-year-old students are still completing their secondary education because their disability has hampered the progress of their education? Because of this factor, these students deserve extra consideration.

One of the first witnesses at the Senate inquiry on the Hearing Services Administration Bill 1997 and the Hearing Services and AGHS Reform Bill 1997 was a 22-year-old woman who was completely reliant on her hearing aid or her lip reading abilities. Her name was Amanda Moir. With the assistance of her hearing aid, she has been able to complete her HSC, is in her third year of an associate diploma of child care and works in a centre for hearing impaired children from three to five years of age. She has done extremely well and is obviously making a very positive contribution to the community in general and to those with a disability like hers. She does, however, have very serious reservations about the threat to cut assistance to 18- to 21-year-olds with a hearing disability.

Since the age of four, her mother has brought Amanda and her brother up on her own. As Amanda pointed out, it would have been extremely difficult for her to afford a hearing aid and also complete her education. The very short times that her hearing aid was in for repairs were almost impossible for her. She felt isolated socially and struggled with communication and her studies.

Thanks to the service that was in place and supported by the previous Labor government, this young woman has been able to educate herself and has found positive employment. Most importantly, she has a very positive self-concept and had enough confidence to appear in front of a Senate inquiry. This government's alternative is to shatter the aspirations of young people like Amanda, make them reliant on government benefits and leave them with a much lower feeling of self-worth.

The holders of Commonwealth seniors health cards have already lost the Commonwealth dental health program. Now they will also have to find the $3,000 to $5,000 cost for new hearing aids. To qualify for these seniors health cards, a person must have an income of less than $20,841.60. The cost of two new hearing aids would come close to a quarter of that income. Indeed, 16.4 per cent of people between 65 and 69 years of age have a hearing impairment, and 22.6 per cent of 70- to 74-year-olds and 31.8 per cent of those over 75 also have hearing impairments. These figures show that there will be many people in the community affected by these changes in eligibility. This government does not have any compassion or mercy for these people. `Let the old and the young who have a low income suffer,' seems to be the message the government is strongly sending out.

It must be obvious to everybody in the community that this government has no concept of social justice. People who are retired have contributed to this country in many ways and have paid their taxes for many years. They are now going to have to pay the full amount for hearing aids. They are going to be punished by this government because their hearing has failed them. Effectively, this government is making them pay doubly for their disability.

On the government's figures, it expects to save about $1.5 million over four years through these cuts to the under 21 year olds and does not expect to save on the cuts to the Commonwealth seniors health card holders. But the figures do not add up.

The report of the hearing services review noted that Australian Hearing Services was able to supply hearing aids to consumers for a much lower price than private sector suppliers, mainly because it purchased enormous quantities under a long-term contract. In fact, the report stated that the AHS purchasing arrangements appeared to save the government at least $8 million per year over a five-year period.

The AHS will lose business under the proposed voucher system. Therefore, their ability to secure lower prices will be lost and so will their $8 million savings. I do not believe that the private sector, which will not have the tax exemptions which the AHS have and will not have the monopoly of the AHS, will be able to provide the hearing aids for a lower cost.

So how is the government going to save the money they claim? Clearly, there are two alternatives if the government is determined to keep to their budget slashing targets. One alternative is that the voucher system will only give people vouchers which will pay for part of a hearing aid. As time goes by, the voucher will pay for a steadily declining percentage of a hearing aid. In reality, vouchers will merely give people a discount on hearing aids. Everyone will have to top up their voucher to a greater extent every year. This top up factor for the voucher system is already being openly discussed by potential recipients out in the community.

The only other obvious alternative will be to create waiting lists. If the budget for vouchers runs out, people will simply have to wait goodness knows how long to obtain a hearing aid. This is not just my fear. People out there in the community are also quite fearful of this prospect.

This of course is a perfect way for the government to divert attention away from hospital waiting lists. The answer is to create waiting lists in other areas so Australians will become accustomed to waiting for all manner of services. The cost of such budget cuts and waiting lists will be borne by the innocent who already have to cope with a disability.

1   The consequences of people being without hearing aids for weeks, months or longer will be enormous. Many will lose the ability to communicate, others will lose self-confidence and their quality of life and others may even lose their jobs or their place in an educational institution. This is a disgraceful and shameful action being perpetrated by this government. It is a disgraceful and shameful action for abolishing the Commonwealth's dental health scheme, for the increased charges for home and community care, for introducing entry fees for nursing homes and forcing many elderly to sell the family home, for increasing the cost of pharmaceuticals, for not increasing the pension to take into account all of those cost increases and for denying many the assistance of acquiring hearing aids. Is this not the government who, in the run-up to the last election, assured Australians that it was working for all of us? What rubbish!

The other half of this legislation is even more puzzling. The Australian Government Health Service is going to be corporatised. Why? According to the government, it is being corporatised so that it can provide mainly health assessment services for Commonwealth clients. But the AGHS is already doing this quite efficiently. The AGHS carries out medical assessments on people who apply for positions in the Commonwealth Public Service, migrant applications and others who are required to be assessed by the Commonwealth. Why does the AGHS need to be corporatised to compete with the private sector if this is the service it so adequately provides? Quite obviously, it is being prepared for privatisation.

This government has already made it easy for companies like Woolworths to sell petrol, even if it will send many small retail petrol outlets to the wall. It is also going to make it easy for supermarket chains like Woolworths and others to sell pharmaceutical products. Surely it is not going to suggest that a company like Woolworths will be allowed to do medical assessments for the Commonwealth. Maybe that is a little far-fetched, even for this government.

However, if this is opened up to private medical practices, the applicant who is applying for a Commonwealth job or a migration application and who is, after all, paying the doctor for the service, will be able to shop around for the most lenient doctor who will give the most glowing medical report. Most doctors, of course, would be too professional to be influenced. However, there are always those who could be easily persuaded. This is another example of a government making ill-thought-out decisions based on political philosophy rather than commonsense. We will lose the expertise of a government body that is good at speedily assessing Commonwealth clients because this government is hell-bent on privatising large sections of the Public Service.