Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to again extend thanks to the shadow minister for moving the second reading amendment. In my previous contribution I spoke about the important policy reform that was undertaken by the last government in the area of dental care. We have known for a long time in Australia that dental care has been in many respects the poor cousin of health care not for any kind of moral or sound public policy reasons but really through the different ways it has been managed by governments. In 2012 Labor announced the biggest investment in dental care since Federation. It was an enormous reform that has changed the situation for so many Australians, especially Australian children, who were the big focus of that scheme, and lower income adults, whom all of us in this chamber know are those who have really borne the brunt of what has happened to dental care over successive governments both state and federal.

In my last contribution I was talking a little bit about some of the concerns we hold on this side of the House about the progress of this important issue through this parliament. I am very sad to say that we have seen a pretty destructive pattern from those on the other side of the House. They appear to have come into government with very few ideas of their own and instead have put their energies towards busily unpicking some of the really good things Labor did while in government. I think we heard the beginnings of some quite disturbing rhetoric from the minister when he gave his second reading contribution. He talked about these early concerns that he had with the dental program. He talked about how they would be monitoring this program very carefully. Unfortunately, we have heard this story before from that very same minister. Whether it was promises to make no cuts to health and then immediately attempting to introduce a new tax to make changes and cuts to state funding to health, whether it was school and university funding, all of these things went through this same pattern of behaviour. I want to put the government on notice that with the leadership of the shadow minister we will be very much holding them to account on upholding what has been an important reform that was made by the Rudd and Gillard governments.

Of course, much of the bill pertains to administration of the transfer of arrangements that were made in 2012, and we are very happy to support those detailed elements of the policy, but I say again that we will be watching. It is the same robust protection that we have turned on Medicare and other iconic elements of our system of social protection that we will also be putting onto the dental reforms.

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