National Insurance was a planned system of social security in Australia which would have provided medical, disability, unemployment and pension coverage to its contributors and their dependents.

The scheme was passed into law by the Lyons government as the National Health and Pensions Insurance Act 1938, but was abandoned the following year in order to divert funds to defence.

[4] At the 1922 federal election, the Country Party's platform included plans for a national insurance scheme covering "sickness, unemployment, poverty and age".

[8] In September 1928, Page introduced the National Insurance Bill into the House of Representatives, which "provided for sickness, old age, disability and maternity benefits, mainly paid for by compulsory contributions by workers and employers, along with smaller payments to parents of children under 16 and to orphans".

The initial conflict was over the size of the capitation fees payable to doctors, with general practitioners claiming they would have to increase their workload in order to maintain their income.

[19] Casey told journalist Jack Hetherington in 1964 that the decision to abandon the scheme was made “largely at Mr Lyons’ instigation, by reason of his belief that [...] we could not finance it”.