Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

In the appropriations debate today I want to speak about the neglect of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has been in government for 11 years—his government has been in place for 11 years—and over that time many of us on this side of the House have highlighted the number of different ways that the government has failed to show concern for the plight of working families, particularly putting pressure on working families and the costs of their living. Today I want to talk particularly about the Prime Minister’s failure to appreciate the importance of dental care to working families, his failure to appreciate the impact of dental care costs on the budgets of working families and his insistence on blaming the states for problems that he could have helped with, that he should have helped with and that he must now take concrete steps to fix. Sadly, in this budget and when talking to the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2006-2007, there is nothing relating to dental care and nothing that is going to provide any relief to working families.

It is obvious to all of us on this side of the House that dental care is an area of incredible importance to a person’s overall health. It is an area that has suffered outrageous neglect under this government—although I think ‘neglect’ is the wrong word given that some of the actions appear to be more malicious than simply careless. Before 1996, as many in this House would know, there was a Commonwealth dental program. In 1995-96 it involved a $100 million investment in dental health and it helped to ensure that Australians could get the dental care they needed when they needed it. This was a great Labor government initiative.

In the two years following the introduction of the Commonwealth dental program—

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