They called it rebalancing. They called it sustainability. They called it a lot of things that sounded responsible in a press release. What it actually does is take private health insurance away from almost eighty thousand older Australians by 2028-29. Eighty thousand people. That is not a rounding error. That is a stadium full of pensioners being told their coverage was not worth the rebate.
Mark Butler stood up there and accused the Greens of spied a political opportunity because David Shoebridge said fine, cut the rebate if you want, but leave the pensioners the hell out of it. And Butler’s response was not you are right, let us protect them. His response was to attack the people asking the obvious question: why does your savings plan start with the people who can least afford to lose?
This is the same goddamn bullshit we see everywhere. The government finds money by taking it from people who do not have lobbyists. The rebate that keeps an older Australian in private cover is not a luxury. That is the difference between waiting for surgery and getting it. And Labor looked at that and said there is our savings line.
The Greens said do not do it to pensioners. Butler said that is political opportunism. Eighty thousand people are supposed to shut up and be grateful the adults are managing the budget.
No. Fuck that. You do not get to call it fiscal responsibility when the receipts show you picked the softest targets in the room. If you need savings that badly, go find them somewhere the money actually is. Not off the backs of people who already paid for every damn thing else.
Source story: the source story.