Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the disallowance motion put by the member for Dickson, the shadow minister for health. It is always a pleasure to follow the member for Bradfield and also the member for Aston and the member for Wannon who put such salient arguments before. I also heard the member for Blair speak and I will raise some of the issues he brought forward in his contribution. I think the contribution he made was based a lot on politics of envy. I heard him talking about the millionaire's scheme for a lot of his speech. As we know, 80 per cent of the users of the previous scheme were concession card holders.

The Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2012 has been presented as part of the recent dental announcement by the health minister and the Greens. This is the first opportunity for the House to consider the government's announcement on 29 August. The number of speakers we have heard so far just on this disallowance motion reflects the many controversial elements of that package. Everyone in this chamber supports investment in dental health. Going to a dentist is a relatively expensive trip for most Australians and it is important that we do what we can in this place to make dental care accessible to the general public.

Earlier in the week in this chamber we saw what happens when the government has good intentions but fails on the drafting and on the implementation process. The Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill 2012, which had the express goal of easing regulation and making life easier for charities and not-for-profit's, a goal that was written into the preamble and announced by Minister Shorten in 2009 as the reason for being for the legislation, morphed into the most burdensome piece of legislation that the not-for-profit sector has seen in this country. The bill created uproar in the charitable sector and the government made nine amendments to its own legislation. So the charities were not happy nor should they be. This demonstrates that you can have the best intentions but if you cannot implement your ideas in a practical way then you can end up doing more harm than good. It is in this respect that we in the coalition have two main issues with this legislation before the House today. The first issue is the provision to close the Medicare Chronic Dental Disease Scheme on 30 November. The second issue is if the government has the money to be able to deliver this package. The closure of the Chronic Dental Disease Scheme to be replaced by a scheme that does not start until 2014 seems to be bad policy that lacks rhyme and logical reasoning. The existing scheme has been a good scheme. We have heard that it has had its faults. We know that no schemes implemented by governments work perfectly, but instead of canning schemes we can adjust them as we go along.

The present scheme has worked well and efficiently for the benefit of Australians. Over the last five years some 20 million services have been provided to over a million patients. It has not been rorted as some government schemes are. The average claim under the scheme was $1,716—well under the cap of $4,250. It is also worth noting that the scheme has been utilised by those who need it the most. As I said before, it is reported that 80 per cent of services under the CDDS have been provided to concession card holders.

I know, through my connection with the forgotten Australians that many of them are coming up to that age where a lot affected by chronic disease and they have taken advantage of this scheme implemented by the Leader of the Opposition when he was in government. I know those people will be disappointed. I have seen some of the forgotten Australians and I have seen the benefits they have had from sourcing this scheme. I am sure that many of the forgotten Australians who have chronic disease will be disappointed by the fact that this government has canned the scheme and that there will be nothing available for them until 2014. While the scheme was successfully implemented by the coalition this government has chosen to close the Medicare Chronic Dental Disease Scheme on 30 November.

The closure of the Chronic Dental Disease Scheme, to be replaced by a scheme that does not start until January 2014 seems to lack logical reasoning, as I said before. The existing scheme has been a good scheme. As I said, it delivered for some 20 million services. So, while Medicare is a universal scheme that all Australians pay for through the Medicare levy and the taxation system, the CDDS is a system that has been predominantly utilised by low income Australians. This is a key point: it is accessible to all.

Given that the scheme has been an enormous success by the standards of any government health program it is worth posing the question: why would any government in their right mind be proposing to end a program that has done so much good for Australia? The answer, as usual, has nothing to do with policy or principle. With the Labor Party it is all to do with personal and petty politics and achieving their desire—the sacred budget surplus.

Of course such a successful scheme could not have been implemented by this government. It was a scheme implemented by the coalition. As I said before, is was implemented by the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, when he was the health minister.

Labor are trying to close the scheme for political reasons, as we heard from the member for Bradfield. We know that Labor has gone to great lengths to undermine the scheme because it is a coalition policy and had been such a success in improving access to treatment. The mechanics of what the government is doing here is to close the scheme altogether at the end of November with no new services to be provided after 7 September—a date which has now passed. There is then to be a 19-month gap before people will be able to access a scheme. This is a long period for Australians not to have access to a chronic disease dental scheme, and the coalition has legitimate concerns about the children who will lose access to treatment on 30 November with the closure of the CDDS and also about the children will not be able to complete current treatment by 30 November. Where are they going to go and what are they going to do? They will have to wait until January 2014.

The Dental Benefits Amendment Bill refers to children's dental care or, more specifically, dental care for children between the ages of two and 17. So it is worth considering in particular the potential implications of the closure of the CDDS on children. The bill does not commence until 1 January 2014 and makes very minor amendments to the Dental Benefits Act 2008, changing the eligibility age of the current Medicare Teen Dental Plan from 12 to 17 years to two to 17 years. It makes other minor terminology changes to provide essentially for a change from the Medicare Teen Dental Plan to the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, although I would also note that the schedule of services and fees and their essential details are not yet available. As with most of the programs and schemes implemented by the Labor Party, we are still waiting on detail and clarity so that we can see was is actually going to be implemented.

As the shadow minister said, the minister has acknowledged that services for most children will cost less than the proposed $1,000 cap but there will be children on the Medicare Chronic Disease Scheme who will require more services and there is no provision to ensure they continue to receive adequate treatment, especially in the period before the bill commences.

We know from previous speakers that 60,000 services have been provided to children under the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme, and cutting off the scheme will provide a great degree of discontinuity to children in the middle of treatment, who will not be able to have their treatment completed any time soon. A 16-month gap in care is not an acceptable outcome and is a clear failure of the bill we are debating today.

So why the rush? Why the rush towards 30 November, when the replacement is not due to come into effect until 2014? One could be cynical and say it was about manufacturing the paper surplus for 2012-13, but we know that any surplus for this financial year is looking extremely unlikely. Also, it is legislation that will not even be implemented until after the next election. Instead, it looks as if the reason is more likely to be and attempt to satisfy the Greens and to fend off a challenge from the member for Griffith in the short term.

Madam Deputy Speaker, aside from the specific provisions in the package, we in the coalition are also concerned about its unfunded burden on the taxpayer. This program, which the government is estimating at $4.1 billion, is completely unfunded. And it is just one of a host of high-cost announcements over recent weeks that have created a black hole of up to $120 billion. I think I hear an interjection repeating that: $120 billion!

Do you remember Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, what was being discussed in this place in May? The government was announcing years of surpluses to come—a promise they had been repeating for years—starting in this financial year, 2012-13. They promised fiscal discipline. Just four months later, they have delivered $120 billion worth of unfunded promises. So, barring new taxes, there are going to be continued deficits under the Labor Party—no great surprise, as the last surplus they delivered was before the member for Longman was born, whom I am fortunate enough to sit next to in this place.

So what prompted the government to break a promise that they repeated time and again in the lead-up to the election? What has prompted them to turn their backs on fiscal discipline and break the very clear promise they were making before the last election? You have guessed it: the Greens. It was the Greens that forced the Prime Minister to introduce a carbon tax and it is the Greens that have again forced the Prime Minister and the Treasurer's hand here. No promise is so sacred, no commitment to the Australian people worthy enough, that it would prevent this government from breaking a pre-election promise to satisfy the Greens. But, as with all policies that the Greens design, there are problems.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was announced as costing $10.6 billion a year when fully operational. As Joe Hockey said, there is no crueller hoax on people with disabilities than announcing a program that they cannot deliver. It is the same with this bill. This is a program that is unfunded, and I would be surprised if they can deliver it. There is also $2.1 billion for reopening Nauru and Manus Island. The increase in the refugee intake to 20,000 is going to cost $1.4 billion. The government has committed to 12 new submarines at $35 billion. There is $6½ billion for the Gonski review. This is all in the space of no more than a couple of weeks.

Furthermore, this spending spree is taking place in the most difficult of environments: there is global uncertainty in iron ore prices, a driver of our economy; there is slow growth and recession around the world; and industry in Australia is reeling from the carbon tax, the mining tax and other taxes. The resources minister has already declared the mining boom over, the budget is at an all-time high in terms of debt and we have had the four biggest deficits on record delivered by this Treasurer. Now is not the time to be going on a massive spending spree to satisfy the Greens. Before the spending spree, the Prime Minister stood up and said, 'Every time we announce something, we properly account for it and properly fund it.' Well, that is not what is happening with this bill. What is more disturbing is that the newspapers are reporting the spending binge as being about the Prime Minister warding off a Rudd challenge—$120 billion of unfunded spending designed only to keep the Prime Minister in her job. This is not what a dental scheme should be about. It should be about caring for those who need it.

So it is because of those two main concerns—firstly, the closure of the chronic disease dental scheme and its implications for Australians and children in particular; and, secondly, the unfunded nature of this commitment and the rushed way in which it is proceeding through the House—that we in the coalition have moved the disallowance motion, to disallow the closure of the chronic disease dental scheme. We will continue to fight against the closure of the scheme for the 18-month period in which people will not be able to access chronic disease dental assistance. Thank you.

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