Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that more than 16,000 Australians have accessed the $4,250 Medicare dental rebate in just two months? Is the Prime Minister aware that the replacement scheme proposed by his government provides no direct dental treatments for those Australians with the worst dental problems?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to receive a question from the member for North Sydney, a member of the party which axed the Commonwealth dental scheme. I find it remarkable that he would have the audacity to stand at the dispatch box and ask any question about dental health whatsoever. Literally hundreds of thousands of Australians out there—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for North Sydney has asked his question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

were without any access to effective public dental care over years and years and years, going back to the cruel decision in 1996 to axe that program, leaving so many people in the lurch. Frankly, it is breathtaking that the Liberal Party could put forward a question on this.

We have committed ourselves to re-establishing the Commonwealth dental program. We have committed ourselves to establishing a new teen dental program, which will assist teenagers to obtain a $150 subsidy effectively each year to assist them with getting a proper dental check each year. Why? Because dental health is fundamental to total health—something which those opposite when they were in government seemed not to grasp.

When it comes to the overall structure of our dental programs, we take the needs of working families seriously. That is why we have restructured programs we inherited from the previous government which, on balance, were not being effective, and have introduced instead a series of additional health programs targeted at working families, targeted at those who need public dental care and targeted at those who need teen dental care. We stand by the commitments we made before the election and will honour each one in full.