‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL HEALTH
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

TOPICS: Prime Minister jeered at Bush Summit, railroading of regional communities, social licence, pensioners affected by private health insurance rebate cuts, impact on public hospitals

Kenny  

Let's go to the Sunraysia District in Victoria and catch up with the Shadow Regional Health Minister Anne Webster. Anne, you weren't at the Bush Summit today, but you're in the bush most days, I suppose. What do you make of Albo's reception?

Webster  

Oh my goodness, Chris, Look, the Prime Minister gets the reception he deserves. I heard some of his comments today about you know how he's really concerned and he wants to get the balance right about red tape and, you know, farmers not wanting to have renewables on their land. Damn right they don't, and they're very angry about it, and regional communities across Australia have made it very plain. In fact, Chris, it reminds me of Ballarat last year. You would recall the tractors chasing the Prime Minister out of Ballarat. That was pretty funny. I don't know whether Dubbo managed that trick today, but no, he gets he gets what he deserves as a Prime Minister who is happy to railroad and bulldoze through our regional areas.

Kenny  

Yeah, he sounded like a Prime Minister who's only been in the job for a week because these issues have been running rampant for years, and all he said was, "Oh yeah, I might need to get onto that." Have a look:

Gemma Jones  

What message do you have for people here whose lives and livelihoods are being upended, and they can't understand why?

Albanese  

That I get it. [jeers] We need to do ... we need to do better than that. You can't have .... you need social licence in order to operate.

Gemma Jones  

Does it bother you that in regional communities, farmers see the Albanese government as the enemy?

Albanese  

Well, what worries me is overregulation. I wouldn't ... and we need to do something about it, and we are.

Kenny  

Gemma Jones, the editor of The Advertiser in Adelaide, putting the wood on the Prime Minister. This is incredible. He's halfway through his second term, Anne, and he's talking, "Oh yeah, we might need to do something on this..." I mean, do something!

Webster  

Yeah, exactly. Do something, and maybe also talk to your state counterparts, like the Victorian government, who are literally fining our farmers over $800 because they won't let biosecurity risks called VicGrid onto their properties. I mean, the Prime Minister is just extraordinary. He waffles about social licence like he actually knows what it is. He has no clue what social licence is out in the regions. He has none.

Kenny  

Yeah, it's incredible to see. I mean, I give him marks for being there. Good that he goes to Dubbo, but he's got to have some idea of the issues in the country and show some interest that in four years he might have turned his attention to it and seemed like he hadn't. I want to go back to an issue we've discussed before, this is the private health insurance rebate that's been cut in the budget for those over 65. I mentioned this statistic to Anne Ruston the other day. It is incredible that 1.2 million pensioners, 1.2 million Australians who are on fixed incomes, are going to be affected by this, and at least 44,000 of them will end up giving up their private health insurance. This is a massive problem, especially for those individuals, of course.

Webster  

Oh, 100 per cent - and the 44,000, let's remember that's a Labor figure. I think you can, you know, weigh that up ...  

Kenny

Yeah, exactly

Webster

.. Yeah, that's why I say at least other sources. . because there is ... certainly the National Seniors Australia are saying up to 400,000 people will drop their cover, or 270,000 remove it altogether. That's a huge problem. What the Prime Minister has done is he is robbing Peter to pay Paul because those people will end up in the public health system, and for anyone who doesn't know, Victoria's public health system is diabolical, and I'm aware that that is the same across other jurisdictions as well. So people are going to end up waiting for years; they're already waiting two and three years to have a hip or a knee or cataracts done, and this is only going to make it worse. It is a terrible decision in order to pretend they're going to grab $11 billion dollars from pensioners.

Kenny  

Yeah, and as a correspondent mentioned to me the other day, these are people who've paid taxes all their life, and the government managed to hand out $16 billion dollars to students to lower their debt to get their votes ahead of the election, but they're screwing over. People have paid taxes all their lives. Thanks for joining us, Anne. I appreciate it.

‍

‍