MEDIA STATEMENT 5 May 2026
Enough is enough. The Albanese Government is coming after the savings of older Australians on the Sunshine Coast, and I am not going to stand by and let it happen.
Labor has quietly decided to gut the private health insurance rebate for Australians over 65, a rebate that has helped retired Australians afford the health cover they have planned their lives around. New analysis from Private Health Australia shows this decision will slug couples aged over 65 with gold cover an extra $1,614 from April 2027, a staggering 21.3 per cent increase. That is the biggest rise in private health costs on record.
For retirees in Fisher living on fixed incomes, that is not a rounding error. That is over $1,600 more out of the pockets of people who worked hard their whole lives, did the right thing, and took out private health cover to look after themselves and ease the burden on our public hospitals.
This is Labor’s private health tax on older Australians, including pensioners, plain and simple.
Anthony Albanese promised no new taxes before the election. He lied. He is now delivering a Budget riddled with new taxes, on your home, your super, your small business, family trusts and now your health insurance. It is the same Labor playbook: spend recklessly, rack up debt racing toward $1 trillion, and then come after Australians to pay the bill.
Labor claims this is about fixing “generational inequity.” That is a cruel fiction. All it achieves is forcing older Australians who can no longer afford their premiums into an already overstretched public health system, with longer elective surgery waitlists, more ambulance ramping, and worse outcomes for patients. And who picks up that tab? Every single Australian taxpayer.
I want to be clear to every retired Fisher resident: I will fight this. The Coalition is calling on the Government to immediately reverse this decision. Our older Australians deserve better than a government that taxes them to have a shower and now wants to tax away their health insurance as well.
Anthony Albanese’s treatment of older Australians tells you everything you need to know about his values, and it is not good enough for the people of the Sunshine Coast.
[ENDS]
Media Contact: Brendan West – 0402 556 646 – Brendan.west@aph.gov.au
