Tanya Plibersek

There are a number of clear arguments the Government could rely on for means testing the Private Health Insurance Rebate. Health Minister Tanya Plibersek made some of them in Question Time yesterday afternoon.

“The total cost of this private health insurance rebate is about $5 billion a year, and if we do not make these modest changes, that leave around 20 million Australians unaffected, we will see the cost of this private health insurance rebate blow out by $100 billion over the next 40 years,” Plibersek told the House of Reps. That’s a good one.

Others include: Treasury estimates 99.7 per cent of people currently holding health insurance will keep it even if the 30 per cent rebate is means tested, a family would have to be on more than $250,000 a year before the rebate was fully withdrawn, and without this budget measure, worth $2.4 billion, hopes of a surplus are shot.

The Opposition questions the Treasury’s optimism about the impact of the measures, arguing more people will rely on the public system. All these points have been made, but they’ve been drowned out in the escalating class war being waged by both sides over a measure many reasonable voters would look at as a sound financial decision if they were given half the chance.

Continue reading "Rebate debate has descended into a shoddy class war" »

The antics of the Minister for Women, Tanya Plibersek, this week are the latest in a long line of Labor tactics that continue to diminish and devalue the vital parliamentary arena of question time.

The point she made so loudly and proudly about the Opposition not allocating many questions to Coalition women is hollow and disingenuous.

Governments use Question Time to crow about themselves, using backbenchers, often in marginal seats, to ask pre-arranged questions.  Political reality necessitates that the leadership team in Opposition use question time to hold the government to account.

Continue reading "The hypocrisy of the Labor sisterhood" »