Senator CHRIS EVANS (6:19 PM) —I understand what Senator Lees has said, but I am saying that it goes beyond that. The question of the surcharge and the use of these products was something we considered when debating the previous incentives scheme legislation.

Senator Lees —They have mushroomed since.

Senator CHRIS EVANS —They have mushroomed since, that is right, because there was already an incentive and then there was a double incentive. I now say to you that this provides a further incentive because people get this nominal age of 30 as a result of the product. We all want to be 30 again; for someone of my era, it is the biggest selling point the government has had with private health insurance for a long time. Senator Quirke and I are both thinking of signing up as a result.

It seems to me that we want to put off the full construction of the scheme all the time, Senator Lees. We are providing public money to support the incentive schemes, we have the surcharge as the stick to go with that carrot, we now have another piece of Commonwealth legislation providing encouragement for private health insurance, but we do not want to specify that rorting ought to be stopped—because that is really what it is. It is all right to say, `Well, they're offering a product that people want.' But I think we have to look beyond that and ask `Why do they want the product; what does it offer?'

As you would know, in the last figures for the ACT brought to my attention, 38 per cent of the population held private health insurance but only eight per cent of hospital admissions were by privately insured people. This is a great thing for private health insurance: it is curing the sick. According to those statistics, people with private health insurance in Canberra do not get sick. That is one interpretation. The other interpretation is that people are purchasing private health insurance products and then not admitting to their membership of private health insurance when being admitted to hospital.

Our major concern—and you have expressed a similar concern, Senator Lees—is for the impact on public hospitals. We are continuing to allow a system to exist where these products are offered which allow people to take advantage of the incentive, they allow people to take advantage of the discount that arises from this scheme, but again we will be leaving unaddressed the question of making that system work properly, making it accountable and making proper public policy in a regulation the minister may draft in response to some private agreement. If we think it ought to happen, shouldn't we make it happen now?