Australian politics live: Victoria Labor promises free abortion care if re-elected; Albanese criticises Hanson’s ‘monoculture’

The resources minister, Madeleine King, has defended the government’s proposed changes to reduce the private health insurance rebate for over-65s, saying it’s fair for the rebates to be tied to income, not age.

She tells RN Breakfast pensioners will still get a higher rebate than other over-65s with a higher income.

King accuses the Coalition of being hypocritical for calling on the government to reduce its spending and then block this cost-saving measure.

It’s a tricky time for the government – this is a key revenue-saving measure that’s come out of the budget. The other revenue-raising measure – a minimum 30% tax on trusts – is also facing an icy reception in the parliament, although it looks like the Greens are willing to sit at the negotiation table.

double quotation mark What we have seen last night is the Coalition and the Greens teaming up again to really be quite destructive of budget and budget savings, important principles that they, well, certainly the Coalition say they want to follow around responsible fiscal management, yet they want to blow the place up. In one moment, they want to save money, and the next moment they just want to keep spending money. So, we will be reintroducing this bill. It’s an important part of our budgetary process.

Fuente: The Guardian World