Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We all know which is the party of Medicare. We know who it is that established Medibank in the first place and who cut it, when it was Medibank, and who had to reintroduce it as Medicare, because Labor has always been the party of universal health care—health care that depends more on your need for services than on the credit card in your wallet.

We have seen from those opposite: a $57-billion cut to hospitals and a four-year freeze on GP rebates; $650 million cut from pathology and diagnostic imaging; almost $1 billion cut from health programs, including $200 million from the flexible funds that fund the services in your communities that are being closed down right now—drug and alcohol services, Aboriginal health services and others; the GP co-payment; and the increased cost of medicines proposed by those opposite. But perhaps the most distressing for me was the news on the weekend that the kids' dental program is going to be closed down.

Let's just take a little bit of a trip back in history. The Howard government killed the Commonwealth dental program that had been seeing 200,000 people a year. They killed it dead. In the year 1995-96 there was $105 million committed by the Commonwealth to dental programs. In 1998-99 that had dropped from $105 million to $6 million. Instead, when the system turned into a disaster, we had the ridiculous Chronic Disease Dental Scheme that the member for Warringah, as health minister, introduced. It was supposed to cost $90 million a year, and it ended up costing $80 million a month. It had 1,000 complaints made against it. It had patients billed for work that did not happen. It had dentists charging twice. It had one dentist ordered to repay more than $700,000 after admitting to incorrectly billing 293 times.

What did we do? We restored money to Commonwealth dental programs so that people on those ever-expanding waiting lists could be treated, so that more dental chairs could be opened across the country and so that young dentists coming out of university could get the experience they needed. Most importantly, we said that 3.4 million Australian children would go to the dentist every two years as easily as they now go to a GP, getting $1,000 worth of work: check-ups, fluoride and basic cavity treatment—all of the basic treatments that would mean those kids started life with good dental care. We know that, if you start well, your teeth are much more likely to last well through your life. We know that if you have early problems in dental care not only does it mean you are likely to have bad teeth for the rest of your life; it also means you are more likely to have bad general health.

The government have already cut $125 million from this. They cut $400 million or so from public dental programs and so on and $125 million has already been cut from kids' dental health. Now they are going after the rest of it. One million children have had treatment under this program. More than two million children are still eligible. Maybe the government will increase the tobacco excise, but who could tell from the conversation today. We know the health minister and Dr Laming up the back do not support it, but maybe it will be passed. They are not going to focus on multinational tax avoidance. They are not going to make cuts to very-high-income superannuants. They are maybe or maybe not going to increase the tobacco excise. Instead of any of these sensible improvements worth $100 billion to the budget bottom line that Labor have already proposed, they are going to go after the kids' dental program.

We know Australian children are already suffering poor dental health, with many children having to go to hospital under general anaesthetic to have all of their teeth pulled out. Instead of actually supporting the program that would prevent that poor dental health, they are going to go after kids' teeth. It really does beggar belief that, of all the things this mob opposite can think of to do to balance the books, the one thing that they come up with is cutting access to dental care for children.

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