Tasmanian Labor moved to water down our motion calling on the Albanese Government to reverse its proposed changes to private health insurance rebates for older Tasmanians.
Their amendments changed “will” to “may”, removed acknowledgement of the existing pressure on our hospitals, and deleted the call for Canberra to reverse the changes. Shameful!
I argued against it.
Tasmanian MPs should stand up for Tasmania – even when that means standing up to their own party in Canberra.
Michael Ferguson MP
Liberal Member for Bass
Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Well, I and the government members on this side of the House do not, repeat, do not support Labor’s apologetic, Canberra-oriented amendment before the House. That should cause no surprise to the Labor opposition that we won’t be playing their game to try to excuse the federal Labor Albanese government for what they are trying to do to Tasmanian seniors who are currently using their hard?earned, often low and fixed incomes to pay for private health insurance. If this law proposed by Canberra were to pass ? yes, it’s subject to an inquiry ? it will be a direct increase in the cost of living for those Tasmanians, I repeat, most of whom are on low and fixed incomes, and it will let Canberra off the hook.
Because, as people are forced, through the increased cost of their private health insurance, to make the very difficult decision to let go of their private health insurance ? which they don’t have to pay for, they don’t have to buy it, they’ve chosen to – in a mixed-use health system in Australia, they’ve chosen this path – and by the way, for the last best part of 30 years, at least 25, those people have accepted at face value Canberra’s promise that if they choose to invest in their private health care, it will be with them through their life. They’ve assumed wrongly that Canberra will honour that commitment as they age. As they leave their private health insurance, they’re going to become public hospital patients in an already-stretched system nationwide.
Why would the House agree to an amendment from the Labor Party, a state Labor Party which doesn’t have enough self-respect for itself, as representatives of the Tasmanian people, to stand up for Tasmanians? It’s our job ? and I’ll let the member opposite know, Ms Haddad, the honourable member for Clark, that when the previous Liberal government made decisions we didn’t agree with, we said so.
Mr Pearce – We did.
Mr FERGUSON – Mr Pearce knows well because he was the federal member for Braddon, and he was in the meeting that I called about the freight equalisation scheme. He was in the meeting, so he well knows my conduct, my public and my private advocacy for the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme (TFES).
Ms Haddad – But you’ve forgotten how to pick up the phone to Canberra now?
Mr FERGUSON – This is what happens. They get exposed, so their trigger reaction is to interject, though they were listened to in silence.
Ms Haddad – You worked us out, what a burn.
The SPEAKER – Order.
Mr FERGUSON – When the federal Liberal government tried to drop the Mersey Hospital on the state without an adjustment payment, I said no. The Hodgman government said no. We said, publicly and privately, no, you’re not going to be doing that. When there was a proposal for a co-payment at an emergency department at public hospitals, as Health minister, I said no, we’re not going to be supporting that. So don’t give us this tripe that somehow we’ve been cute and cuddly with our Canberra party colleagues on matters where we knew we had to stand up for our state, for the people of Tasmania. We’re actually not like you.
Speaker, through you, I say to the opposition: we are actually not like you on the other side. We do have some self?respect as politicians representing Tasmanians, and we’ve stood up time and again. No doubt there are plenty of other examples where we have done so.
Let’s have a look at this amendment.
Ms Haddad – Look at the amendment. It’s factual. There is a Senate inquiry going on.
The SPEAKER – Order. Honourable member for Clark, Ms Haddad, you can sum up soon.
Mr FERGUSON – Every single substantive change that Ms Haddad has moved, they all go in the same direction. Soften the criticism. By the way, have a look at motion No. 149. Gee, it’s actually pretty soft in respect of the idea of criticism. I mean it is almost a love letter of respect. It is so polite. There is no free political advice in there. There’s no brutal language that would offend a thin?skinned Labor politician. It’s the model of respectability. Congratulations, Ms Howlett. I’ll tell the House, by the way, Ms Howlett advised me that she wanted to put forward a motion that the Labor Party could support and that others wouldn’t feel the need to amend. How interesting.
Every move here in the amendments water down the language. They remove the call for action and they protect the Australian Labor party in Canberra. The original motion says that the Commonwealth’s changes will put additional pressure on Tasmania’s public health system. Labor want to change ‘will’ to ‘may’. That’s a gift for the Albanese Labor government.
The motion already recognises that older Tasmanians are already being affected by a lack of aged care beds. Labor wants to delete that already. Can’t imagine why. Instead, they want to insert ‘some’ before the words ‘older Tasmanians’. Give me a break.
The motion says that the Commonwealth changes will only exacerbate this issue further and Labor wants to delete that statement entirely. Most tellingly, and this is really what gives me the irrits more than any of the other amendments ? the final one, in the original motion, calls on the Australian Government to reverse the changes. Labor wants to delete that entirely.
Ms Haddad – How can you reverse changes that haven’t been made yet?
Mr FERGUSON – Oh. Thank you for that interjection. Well, then you shouldn’t worry about it then. You see, the issue here is that this is the policy ?
Ms Haddad – Then why move the motion?
The SPEAKER – Order. Honourable member for Clark, Ms Haddad, you can sum up in a few minutes.
Mr FERGUSON – This is the policy position of the Australian Labor government in Canberra. It’s gone to a Senate inquiry. I had a quick look at that website ? there are five members of that inquiry: two Labor, two Liberal and one Green. So, the government with the Green friends have a majority of that committee. I look forward to their findings, I really do, and then we’ll all know what the Greens’ position is. I suspect many will be able to guess what it is, Canberra?wise, but regardless of what the Senate inquiry finds, they’re not going to make findings of fact that we can’t make tonight. It’s self?evident that as you push older people who are already on a fixed? and low?income basis to a more expensive private health insurance, which I’ve read is around $1000 for a couple, they’re going to drop their insurance in some numbers. Maybe that number is uncertain. It’s certainly not going to increase uptake of private health insurance, and I don’t believe for a moment that the use of the word ‘may’ is acceptable at all.
Why protect Canberra in these circumstances? The motion doesn’t have a red-hot go at the Labor Party; I don’t even think it gets mentioned. It talks about the federal government. It’s a very reasonable motion. We’ve seen it in this House time and again. I think it was only last November I moved a private members’ motion in this place around Bell Bay Aluminium. In fact, specifically it was calling on the federal government to honour its commitment around the green aluminium production credits, and do you know what, Speaker? That motion passed that evening with the support of the crossbench, because Labor and the Greens opposed it. On that night, Labor and the Greens couldn’t even vote for a motion to hold Canberra to its original promise on supporting aluminium smelting at Bell Bay. Their own words, not mine. Their words ? and guess what? You helped Labor, federally, get rid of that scheme. You helped Labor, federally, walk away from that promise. Then you come in here demanding that the Tasmanian taxpayer carry all of the heavy lifting to support that important smelting business at Bell Bay. You spent two weeks prosecuting the Tasmanian Government, this level of government, to do all the heavy lifting, because you felt it was more important to support your mates in Canberra. Not good enough. Not good at all. You gave up.
What about Rushy Lagoon? We know that some of your members on the other side have privately been telling people in the community they don’t support the Rushy Lagoon ? what, $7 million?subsidised advantage for one bidder for that property. Yet, what must we suffer? Not only do federal Labor back it in, we got state Labor, we got video after infernal video, telling everybody how rubbish the ground is at Rushy Lagoon, backing in that decision, because it’s more important to the state opposition to be seen to supporting their Australian Labor Party colleagues in Canberra than the people that they’ve been voted to represent. So, no, we don’t support the amendments and, if we go down losing on the amendments, we’ll go down honourably on that. Then we’ll keep going because we’ve taken a position, which is a responsible one, because we do care about the impact that this adverse decision will have on our community and we equally care about the impact that it will have ? not may – will have on our Tasmanian public hospitals.
