SENATOR THE HON ANNE RUSTON

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TRANSCRIPT

JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH DR MONIQUE RYAN MP AND SENATOR JACQUI LAMBIE

Wednesday, 14 October 2026

Topics: Private health insurance rebates for older Australians; aged care funding; public hospital pressures.

E&OE……………………………………

SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: Thank you very much. Over the last few months, we have been travelling around Australia and listening to literally thousands and thousands of older Australians who have told us about the devastating impact of this Albanese Labor Government's ill-conceived policy to remove the additional rebate for people over the age of 65, which supports them as they age with their private health insurance.

Today, we were pleased to be able to remove this bill from the Senate Notice Paper so it can no longer go forward because, quite frankly, the Coalition, my colleagues on the crossbench and the Greens care about older Australians. We care about the fact that they've paid their private health insurance all their lives, and at a time when they're most likely to need it, it's being ripped away from them by this government.

We care about older Australians, and quite frankly, the Albanese Labor Government has declared war on older Australians. And today we're pleased that we have been able to relegate one of those wars they've declared on them to the dustbin by removing this terrible bill from the Notice Paper.

DR MONIQUE RYAN MP: I've been hearing every day from constituents in Kooyong about their concerns about this bill. Yesterday, an 81-year-old doctor who had her cataracts removed this week. If she hadn't been able to do that through the private health system, she could have been waiting a year or more to have it done in a public hospital.

One of the concerns we've had about this bill is the government's refusal to release the modelling on how this bill would have affected the states and territories, with this shifting of the costs of older people's medical care from the private system into public hospitals. That lack of transparency, I think, is what has brought all of us together. That, and the information I received through my costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office, which showed that half of the savings from this bill would have come out of the pockets of older Australians who are pensioners.

This is not a Labor government that is taking money out of the pockets of pensioners and theoretically hypothecating it to aged care services. It was wrong. It wasn't transparent. It was not fair. And I'm so grateful to Senator Ruston, Senator Lambie and the Greens for coming together to block something which we've all come at from different angles, but we've all decided in the end was unfair, unreasonable and was going to hurt vulnerable older Australians.

SENATOR JACQUI LAMBIE: So, to all those over 65 this evening, please go and have a sherry because you bloody deserve it. That's my first thing. The second thing is this: I don't know whether the Labor Party has been in the public system of late. of late, but they may want to go in and have a look. It doesn't matter what state it is, because our public health system and our hospitals are on their knees, and they're already picking up those extra aged care beds. Enough is enough.

Go find some money. Get some more aged care beds where they should be, in aged care. That's what needs to be done so we've got some more beds in our public health system, because this would have finished them off. This would have finished our public hospitals off.

So, these guys, thank you so much. These guys have done so much work on it. Senator Ruston and Dr Monique Ryan, they have driven the bloody cart like no tomorrow, I can tell you. So, good on them. This is a result, and this is a great result for all our Australians over there. They've already paid taxes their whole bloody life and are over 65.

So, good on you. We've just taken that little bit of pressure off you, because we know there are many of you out there, as pensioners, who are doing it damn tough and, at the same time, trying to pay for a service so you don't have to end up in our public hospital beds, and trying to do the right thing. So, thank you so much.

QUESTION: Senator Ruston, when the government first proposed this cut, they said that 5,000 additional beds in aged care would be funded through this money being taken out. Where do you think that money should come from now, just pre-empting that?

SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: Well, I think it's a pretty sad indictment of a government that they're in a situation where they've mismanaged their budget so badly that they can't actually manage both their health and their aged care portfolio responsibilities at the same time. You know, the idea that a government would have to cut the health system in order to pay for the aged care system, I think, just reflects how much this government has lost control of its budget bottom line.

But the other thing is, you know, the government's also doing a whole heap of other things that are impacting the ability of the aged care sector to build beds. Not the least of which was that their increase in support for residential aged care was 2.55%. We know that's well below inflation, and we've already heard from the sector that that will probably mean at least 4,000 new beds that were lined up to be built will no longer be built.

This is a catalyst that he's just rolling on, with more and more things that his government is doing that are damaging the aged care sector. And the idea that you'd make the health sector pay for it just beggars belief.

QUESTION: What are your thoughts on means testing the rebate? Obviously, the Coalition did come to the table with aged care packages. Is that something that is sensible as our population continues to age?

SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: Well, the rebate is already means tested, so we are talking predominantly about the people who are on the base rebate classification, or the base tier. And as Monique mentioned, of the 3.2 million older Australians who will no longer be impacted, thankfully, by this measure the government was proposing, between 1.2 and 1.5 million of them would have been pensioners.

These are people who are often on, you know, incomes of less than $40,000. They can't go and get a few extra hours. They can't get another job. You know, they are on fixed incomes, with no way to move whatsoever. So, we have always accepted that this needed to be means tested. It currently is means tested.

QUESTION: There's no wiggle room on the main street?

SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: Well, the government needs to go back to the drawing board if it wants to make any changes at all. But right now, we think this is an ill-conceived policy that was going to push older Australians into the public health system. It was going to put an extra burden on those older Australians who held on to their private health insurance because they valued it so much.

We've already got a public health system that is in such a crisis: ramping, people stuck in hospital beds, and emergency and elective surgery waitlists that just continue to get longer. This policy was just so ill-conceived, no matter which way you look at it.

QUESTION: The Greens have just said that if pensioners are removed, are carved out, they'll happily pass the legislation. Would you be comfortable with that legislation going forward?

SENATOR ANNE RUSTON: Well, of course, we would very, very much welcome pensioners continuing to get the rebate. But we believe all older Australians, all people over the age of 65 who fit within the thresholds that are already there, are actually… This is not a net saving to the government. It's actually a saving to the federal government, but a cost shift to the state governments.

We'd like to see the modelling of this, as Monique said. They have not shown us the modelling. They haven't told us how they've reached the figures they've got. And so, until the government is prepared to be transparent so that Australians can see whether this really is a saving, who is going to be impacted and how much they're going to be impacted by, I think the government should do that before they come back and ask Parliament to consider anything further.

ENDS