Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate)

“I want to salute the nurses and doctors and medical staff who work extremely hard in regional communities like mine. They do their very, very best with dedication and with limited resources. They bring expertise, compassion and deep care to patients every single day under the most trying of situations and circumstances. I will not stand by while that happens to people in Monash. I will keep fighting this cut in the parliament, alongside my coalition colleagues, and alongside peak bodies and consumer groups—Private Healthcare Australia and National Seniors Australia among them—who are standing up for older Australians on this issue.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 10 Sept 2026

“(2) calling on the Government to immediately abandon this Bill and scrap this damaging policy in its entirety".”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“The coalition supports choice. The coalition believes that, if people work hard to pay for private health insurance their entire working life, this should be encouraged and not punished. That's why we are going to fight to stop Labor's cuts to the private health insurance rebate. We are going to fight this every step of the way. The government should scrap this proposed cut. They need to scrap it and stop treating older Australians who've done the right thing for decades as its next revenue source.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“The government is stripping back the private health insurance rebate that older Australians have relied on to make sure that they can make decisions and control their own health care. They're taking it away, and the government's own minister admits the change will hit about 3.2 million Australians aged 65 and over. On the government's own numbers, the average hit is at least 250 bucks a year, but for many people it could be substantially higher. The government has a word for all of this. It calls it 'modernising'. It talks about it in the context of the budget and the rubbish narrative that it's pushing out there, which is doing nothing to improve the welfare of the Australian people and in fact is destroying the wealth and wages of the Australian people—particularly young Australians.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“The coalition will fight this measure. We'll fight for choice. We'll fight for a strong and sustainable private health system. We'll fight against further pressure being placed on our public hospitals. Most importantly, we will fight for older Australians who worked, saved, contributed, fought, did the right thing and deserve much better than this from the Albanese Labor government.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“The coalition opposes these measures for all the reasons I've just described. They're an attack on aspiration. They're an attack on older Australians. They're sneaky; they were never taken to an election. And the long-term consequences of this decision will flow through the entire health system. You don't have to take my word for it. On our side of the House, we have been inundated by people who've been impacted and also by other jurisdictions.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“We've had many cases—and I will go through a few—in the sense that a lot of these senior Australians who have paid for their private health insurance over many years or many decades now won't be able to afford it at a time in their life they're going to need it. There's another ramification of this. The federal government has looked at this as a zero-sum game. When the Minister for Health and Ageing was asked to justify this, he said, 'Well, we have difficult decisions to make here, so we've taken it from people's private health rebate, and we're putting it into aged care—zero sum, all square.' It's not all square. We've had every state Labor premier, every state premier, say this is bad policy. We all understand this. I know you understand this, Deputy Speaker Buchholz. When these senior Australians can no longer afford their private health insurance, they are going to be completely dependent on the public health system.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee is examining this legislation, and its report is due on 7 October. There is still time to get this right. There's still time to look properly at the evidence. And there is still time to consider what this means for pensioners, for self-funded retirees, for regional Australians and for the broader health system. There is still time for the Albanese government to reconsider this measure, because behind all of these numbers are people—pensioners who have paid for private health insurance for decades, couples who have gone without elsewhere so they could maintain their cover, the retiree who wants peace of mind knowing that they have another option if they need surgery and regional Australians who already have to travel to access health care. These Australians have worked hard. They've paid their way. They've contributed to this country. And many have spent a lifetime making responsible decisions about their health and their finances. They deserve to have those decisions respected. This is really quite simple: if Australians have worked hard and maintained private health insurance throughout their working lives, we should not punish them for having done so when they retire. They paid their premiums, they made their choice, they did their part, and now the government needs to do its part and reconsider this cut.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“It's actually not going to have the savings or effect we hope for. It's just going to shift costs from the feds to the states, and I'll tell you why. Let me read two emails I've had from my electorate. The first reads:”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 10 Sept 2026

“This is something the government should be ashamed of. This bill should not be supported, because of the effect that it's going to have on older Australians in my electorate and across the country.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“I return to that stat that I mentioned at the start: 45 per cent of them over the age of 65 are actually on the pension. These aren't Australians who are minted. These aren't Australians who are millionaires. They are Australians who want to do the right thing and expect only that their government will back them in that. I don't think that's unreasonable. In fact, that's the sort of compact that I would expect any decent Australian government would have with its older citizens. That is why this decision to strip back the private health insurance rebate for over 65s is a disgrace, and that is why we will oppose it tooth and nail.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“The government's impact analysis acknowledges the risk but does not bother modelling what it means for patients or the hospital system. If you're over 65 and you downgrade, will the removal of cataracts still be covered? What about joint replacements? Mental health care? The work hasn't been done. The scrapping of the private health insurance rebate for Australians aged 65 and over is built on zero consultation, untested assumptions, incomplete modelling and an impact analysis that overlooks the policy's most significant consequences. That's why the coalition are opposing the bill before us today.”

The Nationals • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“The changes in this bill really are a blatant attack on my community on the Gold Coast because stripping back this rebate means that people who have private health insurance have to find that extra money every year that the government is now pocketing because it is not paying that rebate. Now, that is tantamount in my mind to theft from over-65s, who have an understanding of what the health operations are—what the settings are in health. The government has moved the goalposts on their plans for retirement, and what it means to those over-65s is they have to cut down their spending on other essentials. That means they have to go without because the government has stolen that money that they have banked on since their retirement. They have to downgrade their cover or drop it all together.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“We talk about the younger generation and this intergenerational warfare that this government is stoking. The reality is that these changes won't save someone who's 35 or 40 any money, but it will hurt them, and it'll hurt all Australians. If you were thinking that you would not be impacted by these changes, you would be wrong. What this government are doing is something that they like to do so often, and it's called cost-shifting. They are moving the health cost from the federal government, through providing the rebate, to the public system, which is conveniently paid for by state governments. That's what is going to happen. There's lots of modelling out there. Lots of people are saying that they're going to drop their private health insurance, and they will have to rely on the public system, which will put more pressure on the public system than it can afford.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“That's the Australia and that's the parliament that we should have in this country. That's the parliament the Australian people deserve—members of parliament that, in that moment that a government is prepared to do the wrong thing, are prepared to stand up against it and to be counted against it. I doubt that it'll happen with the other 84 or 83 that haven't had the courage to come in here. I challenge them. They're probably watching. Come out of your office if you so believe in this. If you so believe that you want to take that little bit off that generation, well, come in here and put your voice to it. But the fact that only 13 out of 94 have been prepared to do it speaks volumes about a government that's out of touch and its members that have lost touch. I oppose the bill in every sense and form.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“This matters enormously to my electorate of Fisher, where more than 22 per cent of the population is aged over 65. We're proud to be one of the places in Australia to live, work and retire. But regional communities already face challenges accessing timely health care. The coalition's position is clear we oppose these cuts, and we will fight them in this parliament and in the Senate. Australians who have spent decades maintaining private health insurance should be supported to keep it.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 10 Sept 2026

“Finally, maybe the Prime Minister should listen to his state government counterparts, the majority of whom are lined up against this measure. Even South Australia's Labor government in health minister Butler's own state has joined the Labor governments of New South Wales and Victoria and the coalition governments of Queensland and Tasmania in opposing this change. When the very state governments that actually run our public hospitals are all telling the Commonwealth that this policy shifts costs and they don't listen, the federal government has run out of people to blame. There has been a recurring pattern of the Albanese government not doing their homework, and every single time it is older and more vulnerable Australians who are left to pay for the government's mistakes. So, while I stand here stating irrefutable facts that defy logic, I close by re-emphasising my defence of the seniors of O'Connor, on whom there will rain all manner of pain should this ill conceived private health insurance amendment pass this House. I vehemently oppose this bill.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“A brief trigger warning for the member for Barton and those opposite: I am again going to acknowledge the struggles public hospitals face. Somehow, when I talked about this on 18 August, the member for Barton thought that this was an attack on public health workers by me. Quite the opposite. It was a bizarre attack she made about my statements, as though somehow a member on this side of the House talking about public health was implicitly an attack. My point is very clear and I will say it again slowly: cutting private health rebates will put more pressure on public hospitals. This is not difficult. Labor are not helping public health with this bill. They are doing the opposite. I support our healthcare workers, regardless of where they work, and I will not wear unhinged rants from those opposite merely because we're speaking the truth about ramping and bed block in public hospitals.”

The Nationals • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“After a lifetime of doing the right thing, older Australians should not receive a bill from Canberra for the privilege. The government needs to scrap this cut. It needs to keep the over 65-year-old cohort in private health insurance. Respect their hard work. Respect their sacrifice and their deferral of other costs, other choices and other opportunities to maintain their health insurance and lessen their dependence on the public system at a time when their health needs start to grow. Respect older Australians. Respect my electorate.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“I want to salute the nurses and doctors and medical staff who work extremely hard in regional communities like mine. They do their very, very best with dedication and with limited resources. They bring expertise, compassion and deep care to patients every single day under the most trying of situations and circumstances. I will not stand by while that happens to people in Monash. I will keep fighting this cut in the parliament, alongside my coalition colleagues, and alongside peak bodies and consumer groups—Private Healthcare Australia and National Seniors Australia among them—who are standing up for older Australians on this issue.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 10 Sept 2026

“In conclusion, regional Australians do not ask for special treatment. They ask the government to understand the conditions in which services are actually being delivered, and this bill makes private insurance less affordable for older Australians at the stage of life when they are most likely to need hospital care. This change risks shifting patients into public hospitals that are already under significant pressure, weakening regional private services and therefore creating flow-on costs for aged care and younger families. The coalition will oppose this bill, and it should be abandoned. It's poor policy to try and achieve budget savings by taking health choices from older Australians and hospital capacity from regional Australians.”

The Nationals • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“Silence. And yet this is modernising private health insurance. The great modern Labor Party—1.5 million pensioners. They're unbelievable! The funny thing about this was that they didn't even know what their policy had changed or what their modernising of Australia was going to do. Not only is this bad public policy, but no-one did the work. No-one actually thought about what this was going to do. The sad thing for the 1.5 million pensioners of Australia is that, not only are they going to be hit with this extra cost to their private health insurance; sadly, if they have to give their private health insurance up—which some of them will be forced to do, and the modelling says that—guess where they have to go, then, to get the treatment they need? They have to go to the public hospital system. And guess what every leader in the state and territory has said is going to happen? That's going to be stretched even further, and those poor pensioners won't be able to get the treatment that they need when they need it.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“For many people in my electorate, the choice between private health insurance and no private health insurance is the choice between life and death. You might say, 'The member for Barker is catastrophising,' but I'm not, because, unlike many, when individuals in my electorate are forced to travel to metropolitan settings for health treatment, they need to meet their own costs associated with these things, and, too many times, whether it comes to radiation therapy or other forms of treatment, they decide, in effect, that they're not going to have that treatment. That's why people who are diagnosed with cancer in my electorate die much sooner than those metropolitan people, sadly. It's a shocking statistic in a First World country like ours, but it is real.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“It is not too late. The government can still change course if it wants to. It can listen to older Australians and scrap this cut. It can recognise that private health insurance is not the enemy of Medicare. It is one of the things that helps make the whole system work. This rebate reduction is fundamentally wrong, and it's wrong on so many levels. It is wrong to make health care harder to afford for older Australians. It is wrong to put more pressure on the public health system. The public health system is already overstretched. And it is wrong to treat the people who carry almost half of this saving as simply another line in the budget.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“Let me be very clear about where the coalition stands. We believe in a strong private health system working alongside a strong public one. We support genuine reform. We support real transparency so patients know what they will pay before they walk through the door. But this is not reform; this is a cut dressed up in the language of reform. Calling it 'modernising' does not change one dollar of what it does to an older Australian's premium. This bill is part of a pattern. This is a government that keeps deciding which Australians are worth helping, and older Australians keep finding themselves at the back of the line, told to pay more for their private cover, left waiting for their aged care and at every turn left behind. The coalition will not stand for it. We are opposing this bill in this place, we are fighting it through the Senate inquiry, which reports in October, and we are calling on this government to do the right thing and scrap this damaging policy altogether. We stand with older Australians who have worked and saved and done the right thing and who are now being asked to pay more for less.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 10 Sept 2026

“Older Australians have spent their lives contributing to this country, building businesses, working on farms and in mines, teaching children, caring for patients, raising families and volunteering in their communities. The government should scrap this proposed cut and recognise what Central Queenslanders understand instinctively: shifting a patient from a private hospital to a public hospital does not make the illness disappear or the operation unnecessary. It simply moves the demand and the cost into a regional system already working hard across enormous distances. Labor should abandon this cut before older Australians and our public hospitals are left paying the price.”

The Nationals • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“The next question is: 'How are we going to sell it to the pensioners? How will we do that? How will we sell such an awful piece of legislation to our pensioners when it is going to reduce their private healthcare rebates?' The Treasurer says: 'Well, there's the brilliance in the plan. We don't tell them before the election. We don't tell them. Yes! We'll get elected and then we'll tell them. We won't tell them before the election—just the same as we did with the capital gains taxes. We didn't tell them that. It's a brilliant plan! We've got it all worked out. Then, we'll bundle all this up and we'll put it into the group of policies that we deny we ever developed. We'll talk about how he never fell off the stage, that his word is his bond and for the fiftieth time he's not going to repeat it. We'll simply say nothing, and then we'll use our numbers in the House of Representatives to ram it through.'”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“Now, just when they are most likely to need procedures such as cataract surgeries, hip replacements or knee replacements, Labor's asking them to pay more and receive less. For many, the alternative will be joining already lengthy public waiting lists. This bill uses smoke and mirrors to improve the Commonwealth's bottom line, but it does so at the expense of older Australians and at the risk of placing ever-greater pressure on our public health system. This is why I cannot support this legislation, and I urge the House to reject it.”

The Nationals • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“The coalition will fight these cuts. We're going to fight them very hard. They should be abandoned because Adrian and his wife have spent their lives working, paying taxes, saving and taking responsibility for themselves—as have Grant and Margaret and so many more Australian seniors and pensioners across our great country who've made their contribution over a lifetime and are now going to be hit by this change. They've held up their end of the bargain, and it's about time this Albanese Labor government did the same.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026 and state my absolute opposition to the changes from the outset. These changes will have very real consequences for senior Australians, particularly for those living on fixed incomes. At the centre of this is a debate about choice, and it is a debate about fairness for 1.5 million Australians. The issue is whether Australians who have worked hard throughout their lives, paid their taxes, planned for retirement, done what they were told to do and taken out private health insurance should be punished now for doing so. It is also a test of whether the government understands the pressure that senior regional Western Australians are already facing with the rising cost of living.”

Liberal Party of Australia • MP • 15 Sept 2026

“Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026, which I cannot support in good faith. From 1 April 2027 this bill would abolish the additional age based private health insurance rebate for Australians aged 65 and over. Instead, the rebate would be determined by income alone.”

Independent • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026 is a shocker, and I for one will not be supporting it. We've already heard from honourable members a range of reasons why it's unsupportable—including most recently from the member for Nicholls, who I think laid out the case against very effectively. Let me dwell on a few of the points that have already been well ventilated.”

Independent • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“This bill is a dreadful bill. It's actually bad policy as well as bad politics. I would urge the government to reconsider.”

Centre Alliance • MP • 14 Sept 2026

“I'll support the amendment moved by the member for Kooyong to carve pensioners out of this change. If the government will not model the consequences, the least this parliament can do is protect the people least able to absorb them. If that amendment fails, I cannot support this bill in its current form. I do not disagree with the principle behind it; I disagree with being asked to take its consequences on trust. The people of Curtin, including a great many who've written to my office about this change, expect their representative to read the evidence before voting and to say so plainly when the evidence is not there.”

Independent • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“I urge the government not to proceed with this bill because it risks doing more harm than good. The minister has stated multiple times in this House that this is a hard choice to make, but a hard choice made in Canberra might have unbearable consequences for pensioners in communities like mine. My closing message to everyone who designs and delivers policy in this country is: see the whole of Australia, not just the average. Check the assumptions, check the bias and build policy for the diversity that lives here. The people of Fowler deserve to be seen.”

Independent • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“This policy is short-sighted. It is unfair to our seniors. It's bad for regional health care. It's bad for Australian health care. And this policy needs to be binned immediately. So I'd say to those opposite: you must be getting these letters, emails and phone calls from your constituents. They must be writing in. Heed their words, heed their pain and anger, and reverse course on this ill thought out policy, this cruel policy. And bin it immediately.”

Independent • MP • 16 Sept 2026

“I don't think anyone disagrees that we need to invest more in aged care, but the government should not be going cap in hand to pensioners to fund it. And, while I welcome the intention to direct resources towards ensuring Australians have access to safe and dignified care through the aged-care system, in this case, I simply cannot support this bill.”

Independent • MP • 14 Sept 2026