Monique Ryan
Kooyong · Independent · Australia
“I second this motion and commend the member for Curtin's motion to refer the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 to the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs. This should not be a controversial request.”
“What about the clinicians, the researchers, the public health experts and the community organisations who have spent years documenting the devastating impact of gambling addiction? Some of them have been given days to review this complex legislation and provide feedback on it to a very limited extent.”
“After this sort of delay, the government has no excuses for not getting this legislation right. But it's rushing to introduce legislation that has been denied input from the public.”
“They're special relationships, the glue that holds us together. For Emily, Matt and Lucy, Noah and Maia, Millie and Rory—I know you share those special relationships and I know that they'll continue. I know that Rich knew that too. Parkrun is something we all do together. It's really symbolic of Rich.”
“We were fortunate to have people in our lives who gave us a sense of what was possible—doctors, engineers, teachers and scientists. We learnt the importance and the wonder of learning and science. There was always plenty of sport. We participated in everything, but particularly footy.”
“The government has not responded to that recommendation appropriately. Its proposals fall well short of that. There are ongoing and serious questions about the extent to which this legislation will provide any support or any protections for children and for vulnerable Australians.”
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“This will inevitably change supplier behaviour. The outcome at the bowser might paradoxically be even higher prices. We have received no assurances from the government that this intervention, which is meant to protect consumers against supply shortages, won't end up working against them on price. The government also says that these measures are temporary, but they can create dependency amongst suppliers, within regions and amongst consumers, which could render their future withdrawal politically difficult. Regions that come to expect stable, supported supply will likely push back hard if that supply is wound back during what could prove to be a long, protracted and difficult war. We've seen that before with the withdrawal of household energy rebates during an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.”
“That is a significant expansion of its scope at very short notice and with minimal opportunity for this House to scrutinise the legislation. The government is claiming that this legislation is about derisking the acquisition and delivery of fuel from international markets—in particular, for regional communities—and avoiding the need for more disruptive emergency interventions down the track. But the mechanism for ensuring this additional supply, which was introduced via this legislation just this morning, raises real concerns. Price support arrangements and government backed supply interventions can distort the very prices that they are designed to stabilise. If the EFA is buying, stockpiling or underwriting fuel supply, it signals to the market that the Commonwealth is willing to absorb risk.”
“It's only through a genuine commitment to the renewable transition that we will become less vulnerable to the next crisis—knowing that there will inevitably be another crisis. As to this legislation, Export Finance Australia is an agency of government which has a clear mandate. The agency's powers are currently limited to financing eligible export transactions, overseas infrastructure development and supporting the Future Made in Australia agenda by delivering finance under its national economy and net zero functions. This legislation will give the EFA the additional powers to provide loans, guarantees, equity, insurance, derivatives and price support arrangements. Beyond that, it will have powers to buy, sell and stockpile fuels and other goods and to hedge the exposures that follow.”
“While we're all glad that the government has finally realised that we are—as we were in the pandemic—in a race to secure sovereign access to fuel and other substances, we have to ask why it's taken the government so long to act and why it is acting in such a piecemeal fashion. We know how that ended in COVID. The Australian people can't afford for our government to lose the race again. We need to know that the government is going to hold a hose and not just line up for a photo at a bowser in a service station. What the Australian people need is not another emergency measure rushed through in a day. They need assurances that we have a long-term plan to ensure Australia's energy sovereignty.”
“This morning, the government introduced this emergency legislation aimed at ensuring Australia's continued fuel supply during the ongoing war in the Middle East. I support emergency measures around fuel supply, especially where Australia's reserves sit well below the International Energy Agency's 90-day mandate and are, in fact, amongst the lowest in the OECD. But reactive emergency legislation can only go so far. This is the second piece of legislation in just the last week that we've seen for the first time on the day that it has been brought forward for debate. The war in Iran is more than a month old.”
“My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, you've directed the ACCC to crack down on fuel price gouging, but price gouging is not illegal in Australia. Prices are set by retailers, and drivers are still angry about getting ripped off at the bowser. You're cutting excises, but how can drivers be sure that retailers will cut prices?”
“We can't allow the legacy of robodebt to be one of grief, silence and impunity. The victims of that scheme deserve recognition, accountability and redress. Any institution that claims to protect public integrity can never lose sight of the individuals that it exists to serve. That is why I'm calling on the government to institute new leadership of our integrity watchdog and to review very carefully the legislative settings around the NACC, to increase the extent to which it's outward facing and to increase its transparency. We have to restore faith in this critical body, and we can do that only by demonstrating real commitment to its transparency and its effectiveness. Sunlight is still the very best medicine, and we need the NACC to provide sunlight on the dealings of our government and of our Public Service.”
“The NACC's failure to hold those responsible to account leaves those Australians without justice and leaves the broader public with a troubling message that those in our seats of power are afforded more procedural fairness than everyday Australians. Those concerns are now being compounded and escalated by the government's increasing use of automated assessment tools in aged care and disability care. We're seeing it again. The government seems to have learnt nothing from this very recent lesson, and it seems inevitable that without change we are doomed to repeat those errors of the past. We need to legislate guardrails for how our Public Service uses automated decision-making tools before we cause the same sort of harm to Australians in the disability and aged-care sectors that we've already inflicted on them with robodebt.”
“Those findings of the NACC are beyond disappointing. Of the robodebt six, two were found to have engaged in misconduct. But the others, despite being intimately involved in the design and implementation of robodebt, were effectively exonerated. Commentators have suggested that they demonstrate a failure of the NACC to apply rigorous standards. Corruption—as we saw in public office, as we saw in the case of the illegal robodebt scheme—is not a victimless crime. Robodebt was not victimless; there were many victims. The real cost of the NACC's inability to investigate effectively is being borne by those Australians whose lives were destroyed by robodebt: families who were wrongfully pursued, individuals who were left financially and emotionally traumatised, and citizens whose trust in government was shattered.”
“It sent a message that that commission is not so different from the other government institutions that they very justifiably mistrust. The NACC has to become more outward facing. Its website, its referral processes and its public communications should be designed for the public, not for lawyers. And it has to have a greater interface with and acceptance of referrals from whistleblowers. The failures of the NACC leadership have diverted time and attention away from the matters that it was established to investigate. For almost three years, 56 pages of the robodebt royal commission's final report were kept secret as the NACC stalled on the need for further investigation and possible referrals. Now the final NACC report has found insufficient evidence to prove unlawful behaviour beyond reasonable doubt.”
“We have to have a legislative presumption in favour of public hearings, with private proceedings reserved for specific and genuine exceptions. There are legitimate reasons which we've discussed in this place many times—national security, witness protection, active law enforcement operations—for some proceedings needing to be held in private. But they should be the exception, not the default. The power of sunlight is not just symbolic. Research consistently shows that transparency in public integrity bodies increases deterrence. When the highest profile, most publicly anticipated matter before the commission was heard behind closed doors—despite the victims, the advocates and journalists calling for transparency—that sent a message to those affected by robodebt.”
“Section 250 of the NACC Act 2022 provides for the termination of a NACC commissioner for misbehaviour or incapacity. I call on the government to consider this. I also call on the government to consider reforming section 250 of the NACC Act to ensure automatic removal of a NACC commissioner in the event that he or she is found to have engaged in corrupt conduct. And I call on the government to legislate so that future such investigations of the NACC are, by default, undertaken with open hearings. The act currently allows the commissioner to determine whether hearings are held in public or in private based on a broad public interest test. This discretion has been overwhelmingly exercised in favour of privacy. That has to change. The first and most important reform is structural.”
“Public confidence has been eroded, and its credibility has been weakened. This is not the National Anti-Corruption Commission that Australia envisaged when, in 2022, I and other Independents who had called for it and advocated for it were elected. My constituents still believe that the NACC can be an institution for public good, that it can be the strong and independent watchdog that Australians were promised. But that's not going to happen if we don't restore confidence in its leadership and if we don't significantly change how it interfaces with the Australian public. Mr Brereton was appointed as a commissioner for a five-year term. That should not be a shield from accountability. When public trust has been so clearly damaged, this parliament should not just wait for time to pass and hope that that confidence will return.”
“In the wake of a royal commission which effectively and with transparency exposed dishonest, secret and unlawful conduct, the NACC's decision sent a woeful, incredibly disappointing message to the victims of the robodebt scheme. Worse still, the NACC inspector later found that the commissioner, despite his prior declaration of a conflict of interest, had been involved in this decision. In doing so, the supposed custodian of public trust had himself engaged in officer misconduct. Unfortunately, the commission's leadership continues to be marred by controversy. Just last month, it was announced that the office of the inspector would undertake a second investigation into complaints of officer misconduct in relation to Mr Brereton's involvement with the Australian Defence Force. The NACC is not delivering on its promise.”
“At the time, the commissioner, Major General Paul Brereton AM, declared a conflict of interest. Recognising that he should not be involved in decision-making, he delegated his powers to his deputy commissioners and appeared to recuse himself from the inquiry. Nearly a year later, the NACC made the extraordinary decision not to investigate the 'Robodebt Six', suggesting that the conduct of the individuals involved had been fully ventilated by the royal commission. That decision prompted more than 1,200 public complaints, including many from the electorate that I represent, many highlighting the lack of accountability and the breach of public trust that this finding represented.”
“Robodebt was the largest failure of public administration in Australia's history. Two weeks ago, on 11 March 2026, the National Anti-Corruption Commission released its investigation into Robodebt. Unfortunately, the clearest takeaway from this investigation is that our federal integrity commission has been a profound disappointment and that steps have to be taken as a matter of urgency to restore public trust in our most public facing anticorruption agency. The origins of the NACC's investigation into Robodebt only reinforced that disappointment—disappointment in the effectiveness of the NACC, in its integrity and its transparency and in its leadership. In 2023, the Robodebt royal commission referred six individuals to the NACC to determine whether they engaged in corrupt conduct.”
“The Boroondara council has developed a good plan to address the risks by signalising the intersection, and they have nominated the site for federal funding under the Black Spot Program. Repeatedly, both the Boroondara council and I have written in support of this plan to the Victorian and federal ministers responsible, asking for urgent action. All levels of government have to work together to ensure timely action and protect the safety of the people of Kew. It is time for action on the Willsmere Road roundabout.”
“The Earl Street-Willsmere Road roundabout in Kew is one of the most dangerous intersections in the electorate of Kooyong. For decades, local residents have raised strong concerns about the risks that this roundabout poses. Boroondara council's transport team found that, during peak hour, a car enters the roundabout every 2.6 seconds. With no safe pedestrian crossing and no signalisation, it is extremely difficult and unsafe for families with prams, kids walking to school, older residents, people with a disability, cyclists and commuters who are simply trying to move safely around their community. The Willsmere Road roundabout represents a fatality waiting to happen.”
“That includes taking the next step: bringing the framework to life by formally endorsing it, acting on its primary recommendation to establish the national antiracism taskforce and then funding and implementing the recommendations in that framework in partnership with our communities. At a time when racism and division are deepening, there has never been a more pressing and urgent time for the government, the Prime Minister, all members of his cabinet and all representatives of our community to demonstrate real national leadership on racism.”
“In December 2025, I, with crossbench colleagues, wrote to the Prime Minister requesting a royal commission into the horrible events at Bondi, and I was really pleased to see the Prime Minister act to initiate the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. It's a really important step to addressing the scourge that is antisemitism in this country. But there are two important takeaways about that royal commission that I would like the government to heed. The first is that Dennis Richardson's resignation in recent weeks sends a clear message that intelligence findings simply cannot wait until December and that we have urgency in ensuring that all Australians are safe. The second is that selective action is not enough. We have to take decisive steps as a country to address all forms of racism.”
“And, when our institutions fail to address these inequalities, they do more than just ignore or overlook racism. They enable it. The N ational anti-racism framework confronts this reality. It's honest about the systems that sustain racism in this country. Its primary recommendation calls for a modest but important first step: the establishment of a national taskforce to begin implementation. We haven't taken even that first step. The Attorney-General has indicated that the framework is being considered and that a holistic approach must be taken to ensure the rights and freedoms of all Australians. But what's holistic about doing nothing? Racism is not going to disappear on its own while the government hesitates and obfuscates.”
“So are we really surprised when the Prime Minister and the home affairs minister are booed at a mosque in Lakemba during Eid prayers? What happened last week in Lakemba was just a visible expression of a deep anger from many Australian communities: anger at what they see as seeming indifference; anger at a government which, many people feel, has allowed division to be sown and to fester. For 16 months now, the government has chosen to neglect a report which makes it clear that racism in Australia is not just an interpersonal issue; it is deeply systemic. It exists within our employment structures. It exists and, sadly, it manifests in our provision of health care. It exists in our justice system, in our education system and in the media.”
“In November 2024, the Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner delivered The n ational a nti- r acism f ramework : a roadmap to eliminating racism in Australia . It's the most comprehensive plan in Australia's history. It's our first whole-of-government, whole-of-society framework designed to address racism at a national level. It was developed through extensive consultation with hundreds of communities and hundreds of organisations across the country. More than 50 civil society organisations have joined together and have asked for national leadership from the Albanese government to fully fund and fully implement that national antiracism framework. But, 16 months later, we're still waiting for the Albanese government to respond—16 months.”
“Just last month, a prominent politician—from this place again—brazenly claimed during the sacred month of Ramadan that there are no good Muslims. This is a brief and, sadly, incomplete picture of racism in Australia over just the last five years. Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Giri Sivaraman, says that there has never been a more urgent time to address racism in this country. I think he's right. Many Australians are scared. They're scared for their safety. They're scared of racial intolerance. They're scared, with good reason, of unprovoked violence. It's not a problem that we can ignore—that we can put off to the next electoral cycle. It's a problem that demands urgent action now.”
“Between 2023 and 2024, in-person Islamophobia more than doubled. Antisemitism, sadly, has also massively increased in the communities that I and many other members of this chamber represent. In recent years, antimigration rallies and racially charged demonstrations have tested the strength of our multicultural identity. During the federal election campaign last year, a number of events in the electorate that I represent of Kooyong were disrupted by Neo-Nazis, an unthinkable thing five or 10 years ago. In 2025, Indian migrants in our communities were subjected to targeted abuse and propaganda, worsened in some cases by some colleagues from this place. During last year's Hanukkah festivities, the unthinkable tragedy of the Bondi massacre affected all Australians but most particularly those who are Jewish.”
“Saturday 21 March was the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Here in Australia, the commitment to eliminating racism has never been more important. The following is the picture of racial hatred in this country. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a mainstreaming of racism and violence towards people of Chinese and Asian origin. I heard from constituents in Kooyong that they experienced racism against themselves and their family members for the first time ever during COVID. During the Voice referendum, we witnessed visible and widespread racism against First Nations people, adding to the systemic injustice that they endure every day. After 7 October 2023, both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism surged and have been an ongoing scourge in our communities since that time.”
“Australians deserve a healthcare system that is accessible, affordable and genuinely centred on patients. With those principles in mind and without declining to give this bill a second reading, I commend this bill to the House, and I move amendments (1) to (4) in my name: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that: (1) while the government is advancing broader economic and health reforms, out-of-pocket costs of receiving specialist medical care continue to rise in a way that exacerbates cost-of-living pressures; (2) consumer price indexation figures show that 'medical and hospital services' increased by 4.2 per cent in the 12 months to January 2026, outpacing headline inflation; (3) medical and hospital services should be non-discretionary items, however costs have resulted in approximately one million Australians missing out or delaying specialist care every year; and (4) while the measures in this Bill will improve price transparency, further reforms are needed to keep specialist healthcare affordable for all Australians, including fixing specialist billing practices, extending Medicare rebates across specialists, indexing Medicare rebates in line with inflation and reviewing gap fee limits".”
“And with only $7 million allocated for its implementation against the $24 million already spent on the failed initial model, questions about platform quality and data integration are legitimate. The voluntary Medical Costs Finder was an expensive policy fiction. It was a website that looked like transparency but delivered almost none. Moving to mandatory publication of data that the government already holds, it would appear to be a straightforward correction of a structural error. But it would be a mistake to allow this bill to serve as a substitute for the deeper and bigger reform that the specialist market requires—meaningful Medicare rebate indexation, regulation of those extreme fee outliers, expansion of public specialist clinic capacity and genuine workforce planning tied to community need.”
“Insurers will be required to seek ministerial approval for premiums on new products and for changes that reduce cover or the value of existing products. The issue with this is that we have seen, as was demonstrated by CHOICE just this week, that the price of many private health insurance packages, particularly of a gold level, has increased well beyond the level of inflation despite the measures that the government believes that it has put in place to keep those costs in line. This bill doesn't compel any reduction in specialist fees. It doesn't cap gap payments. It doesn't require bulk-billing by specialists. It doesn't mandate that the information displayed on the website is presented in a way that will be genuinely comprehensible to patients with low health literacy.”
“This deficiency has been identified by a number of inquiries, including the Snowball Review, the 2017 Accreditation Systems Review and most recently the 2022 to 2031 National Medical Workforce Strategy, which called for creation of joint medical workforce planning and advisory structures with sufficient authority and expertise to make recommendations in relation to the size and structure of the national medical workforce. I have long argued for national coordination of specialist training positions. This bill also addresses a second systemic issue in the healthcare system—the practice known as product phoenixing—wherein private health insurers close the product and then reopen identical one at a higher price or reduce the value of that product.”
“The inadequacy of training positions in multiple specialities has been repeatedly identified by inquiries and studies. Australia needs to ensure that we are producing a pipeline of doctors able to provide the services required. The existing Health Workforce Taskforce is not designed for or tasked with development of the national workforce strategic directions and priorities. Because health regulation operates at a state and territory level, new initiatives must be legislated in multiple jurisdictions.”
“The second is workforce. Medicare rebates have long been underindexed. That has driven higher out-of-pocket costs. The schedule should undergo ongoing review, and it should more accurately reflect the cost of care. At the same time, we should ensure that no specialists are engaging in excessive or exploitative billing. The bill does not address the ongoing maldistribution of specialist supply. Specialist billing has actually fallen by 10 per cent over the last five years, while the Australian population has grown by more than seven per cent. Doctors charge based on the competition in the areas in which they work. People living in areas with fewer doctors, like those in regional areas, face higher fees. You can't comparison-shop for a specialist if there isn't one in your region.”
“But, by addressing the structural drivers of the increasing cost, we're still not driving care. We know that the Medicare Benefits Schedule has not been appropriately indexed for years, nor has it meaningfully kept pace with inflation. During that time, wage and equipment costs—and increasingly restrictive private health insurance policies—have shifted the cost burden from Medicare onto the consumer. Fee transparency will reveal the size of the gap, but it cannot of itself close it. If the underlying cause is a Medicare rebate which is frozen in real terms while operating costs escalate, publishing fees will tell patients how bad the problem is, but will not equip them to solve it. The government has to consider other policy levers to manage the cost-of-care crisis. I'm proposing two to this House. The first is Medicare rebates.”
“As it's drafted, the single fee given will be a static snapshot of the previous year's charges. That figure needs to be updated more regularly if we're truly to drive prices down. While I recognise that price is an important metric, high-quality medical services can't be adequately qualified or quantified by a simplistic price comparison tool. There is a common misconception that doctors who charge more provide better quality care. As a medical specialist of 30 years standing, I know this to be untrue. While this bill is an important step in informed decision-making, it doesn't contemplate the publication of quality markers. Publication of complication rates, readmission or patient-reported outcomes could well support patient safety and more informed decision-making, and that's been used with success in other jurisdictions.”
“The EM for the bill proposes that the data presented will be a single figure against the medical practitioner's provision of a service. We've been told that the department is going to develop an analytical approach for the derivation of that figure, but we have no visibility into the derivation of that fee. A price which might be brought down by discounting for some but not all consumers could give an inappropriately low cost point on the website, and the complexity of billing practices could well render the interpretation of fee schedules quite challenging for many individuals. It doesn't matter what the cost of the service is if you still can't afford it. To be effective, the Medical Costs Finder has to put downward pressure on specialist fees.”
“This bill now legislates those changes by amending the Health Insurance Act and the Private Health Insurance Act to allow the department to publish information about doctors and their billings, including the use of gap cover arrangements with insurers. It will also allow publication of information about healthcare facilities and insurers, including the proportion of policy holders who experience different gap cover arrangements and the out-of-pocket costs associated. That data already exists—it's in Medicare—but this bill allows Medicare, hospital and insurer billing data to be published cumulatively, helping patients make informed decisions and allowing them to compare costs against the fees charged by other doctors. But I'm still concerned that the bill as drafted is not going to deliver on its stated objective.”
“Three years later, only 88 doctors had voluntarily disclosed their fee information; that represents a participation rate which rounds down to zero. The website did contain some useful aggregate data about average out-of-pocket costs for consultations across different specialities and about bulk-billing rates by speciality. At least half a million patients have used the site since its launch, but its central purpose—helping patients to understand what their doctor will charge them—has never been realised. Voluntary disclosure will always reflect a self-selected cohort of the most competitively priced practitioners. It will therefore present a skewed picture that further disadvantages consumers. So, in 2025, this government invested another $7 million to deliver the technological capacity to analyse Medicare, hospital and insurer data.”
“Patients should be able to compare prices before they arrive at a consultation. GPs should know what specialists charge. Specialist fees in turn need to be fair, transparent, reasonable and proportionate. That's why I'm pleased to see the government legislating reform to the Medical Costs Finder website. Just to remind the House: in 2019 the Morrison government spent $24 million on a tool to give Australians a way of understanding the cost of specialist services before they committed to their care. The website relied on voluntary fee disclosure, and it was a profound failure. Of approximately 11,000 eligible specialists, only seven chose to publish their fees by the end of 2022. The price transparency tool was, in effect, entirely devoid of prices.”
“I'm also hearing of hidden booking and administrative fees, some of which are unlawful, which violate the spirit of informed financial consent. Informed consent is enshrined in medical care but it's also a basic consumer right. It's ridiculous, remarkable and unacceptable that we demand it in other parts of our medical practice but not this one. For many Australians, private specialist care is increasingly the only timely option. In many parts of Australia, public waitlist times for specialists are now stretching from months into years. Fifty specialities across our major cities have public waiting times of longer than a year. For a child in regional Australia who needs to see a paediatrician, waitlist times are between 18 months and four years. We need a market for specialist medical care that works. Price is part of the story.”
“It's not surprising that the 2025 Australian Healthcare Index found that 49 per cent of Australians have delayed seeking medical support due to increasing out-of-pocket costs. A recent cross-country comparison found that Australia ranks second-last amongst wealthy nations on access to care; we're now only ahead of the United States. That is a sobering finding for a country that has rightly prided itself for a long time on the universal promise of Medicare. It's not just the high gap fees and out-of-pocket costs that worry patients. As an MP, I hear all the time from constituents that I represent about bill shock—unexpected bills that take constituents by surprise. At least one in two Australians receiving specialist care receive unexpected bills.”
“It is increasingly common for Australians to be charged $1,000 for an initial specialist appointment, $650 to see an obstetrician, $600 to see a cardiologist and $1,000 to see a psychiatrist. It's a similar situation in private hospitals. Out-of-pocket payments for private procedures rose 300 per cent in the five years to 2025. As many as 40 per cent of private hospital patients find themselves with bills of $1,000 or more after inpatient treatments. Disadvantaged Australians are rarely bulk-billed when they see a specialist. Three quarters of people who are earning less than $500 a week in this country paid a bill for at least one specialist visit in 2023. These are extraordinary costs at a time of personal vulnerability for patients.”
“Gap fees for non-bulk-billing GPs and specialists, bills from private hospitals and the increasing cost of some prescription medications—these kinds of out-of-pocket healthcare costs are now exceeding $33 billion annually for Australia. That is a higher share of total health spending than in the UK, Canada or the United States. Cost pressure is most acute in specialist care. On average, patients' bills for specialist appointments are $300 a year. Australian patients are now paying out of pocket for two-thirds of all specialist appointments in this country. The average out-of-pocket gap payment for specialist attendances increased from $49 in 2010-11 to more than $115 in 2023-24. That's a 136 per cent increase over a period in which the consumer price index increased by only 40 per cent.”
“The cost of accessing health care in this country is not just a wellbeing issue; it is a cost-of-living issue, it is a labour market productivity issue and it is an economic issue for any treasurer who is serious about Australia's long-term prosperity. When Australians can't afford health care, they delay or forgo it. Improving health outcomes is therefore not just desirable for our wellbeing; it's an important determinant of Australia's productivity and growth. Healthy people are more likely to participate in the workforce, to contribute to society and to spend into our economy, and they require less expensive care. Over decades, Australia has been drifting away from the universal promise of Medicare and back towards a user-pays healthcare system, which is increasingly pricing Australians out.”
“My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Industry and Innovation. Minister, the strategic examination of research and development report, released last week, is called Ambitious Australia . Much of that report, including its key recommendation to establish a national innovation council, is spookily similar to the Rudd government's Venturous Australia report from 2008. Given that this recommendation for a national innovation council is almost two decades old, will the government commit to actually acting on it?”
“It has tripled the second-hand EV market, and it is delivering, every day, $2.25 in economic, environmental and health benefits for every dollar spent. The events of recent weeks—surging fuel prices, global supply chain shocks—show that Australia remains dangerously vulnerable to disruptions in our petrol and diesel supplies. In this budget, the government has to continue to invest in sovereign energy capability, maintain EV incentives and stop subsidising diesel under the fuel tax credit scheme.”
“Last week, with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, I had the pleasure of launching Australia's largest EV-enabled apartment building, the Sierra apartments in Hawthorn. NOX Energy is delivering scalable charging in high-density residential buildings. It's absolutely vital that we support EV adoption by strata communities. But Australia's transition to electric vehicles is far from assured. Only 13 per cent of new car registrations in Australia, and only two per cent of the 21 million vehicles on our roads, are EVs. The Productivity Commission recently recommended scrapping the fringe benefits tax exemption for novated lease EVs. That FBT exemption should not be punished for its own success. It has already driven more than 105,000 additional EV purchases since 2022.”
“But we have to continue to consider broader gaps in our policy settings which continue to lead to healthcare discrimination, and that includes price discrimination.”
“1 barrier preventing Australians from accessing non-invasive prenatal testing. In 2023, new Medicare items were introduced to cover carrier testing during pregnancy for cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and fragile X syndrome. This was a very welcome and very overdue step, but it underscores how inconsistent and how incomplete Medicare coverage for genetic testing remains in this country. Australians should not face financial barriers when it comes to vital information about their health or about the health of their unborn children. As medical science advances very quickly, the gap between our clinical capacity and policy settings continues to grow wider. This bill attempts to bridge part of that divide by curtailing discriminatory insurance practices in relation to genetic testing. My amendment furthers that aim.”
“It's also to be hoped that timely and evidence based reviews will identify a significant uplift in the number of Australians who are accessing genetic testing, free of concerns about their insurability. Even with the enactment of this legislation, a discriminatory barrier to accessing genetic testing remains. Many Australians will continue to struggle with the out-of-pocket cost of many forms of genetic testing. For example, non-invasive prenatal testing is the most accurate screening test for most genetic conditions, but it currently attracts no Medicare rebate. Families are still being expected and asked to pay $400 to $500 out of pocket, which is an unaffordable sum for many households. It's not simply a cost issue; it is an equity issue. A study from Monash University found that these out-of-pocket expenses are the No.”
“The bill provides that regulations may prescribe what information is protected by genetic testing. This ensures that the legislation will remain effective, even in the face of rapidly evolving genetic testing technologies. But it's absolutely vital that insurance companies do not bypass the protections created by this legislation by inferring genetic test results based on other data points—for example, information about other aspects of their medical care such as risk surveillance activities, prescribed medications, participation in preventative health care, involvement in clinical trials and other indirect methods. An earlier review would help pick up whether or not this unintended consequence materialises.”