Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last five years, nothing has been more disastrous for residents of Gilmore and Illawarra than those members sitting on the other side. In the last two years alone, thousands of local skilled manufacturing and production jobs have been lost. Multimillion-dollar business operations have shut down entirely and sovereign risk for investors has increased dramatically due to the populist, on-the-run policy approach of this government.

Nowra, in the centre of my electorate, currently has an unemployment rate exceeding 10 per cent, and in Gilmore the total number of Centrelink customers, as supplied by the Department of Human Services, exceeds 51,800—one of the highest numbers across the nation. This is all from an electorate of around 100,000 adult residents. The above facts are stark. They go straight to the bad policies of the Gillard Labor government.

Tonight I wish to speak to the House on two core issues. First is the issue of unemployment. A few months ago, along with Senator Fierravanti-Wells, I met with Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill Holdings to discuss local recruitment prospects for their Roy Hill mining project, about to begin construction in the Pilbara. Roy Hill requires 8,500 construction workers starting from early 2013 to help construct massive amounts of infrastructure including roads, airfields and accommodation, which are all required to operate such a huge mining operation. After our meeting Roy Hill quickly agreed to hold a jobs forum in my electorate. The date for this forum has now been set for the 26th of this month. We have chartered a coach from the south of my electorate to take potential jobseekers on the hour drive to Shellharbour in the north free of charge.

Of the 8,500 positions available there are roughly 6,000 skilled and up to 2,000 semi-skilled, which include on-the-job training, on offer. The majority of the construction positions will be available by mid-2013 with Roy Hill engaging the employment firm Skilled to coordinate much of the recruitment process. Those selected by Roy Hill will primarily be placed on a four-week-on, one-week-off, fly-in fly-out roster based in Perth.

If enough interest is garnered it is entirely possible that the Illawarra Regional Airport at Albion Park could become a regional base for the fly-in fly-out operations to the Pilbara. This would be a huge economic boost for the region. The Roy Hill mining jobs forum is a very exciting development for the residents of Gilmore, and I look forward to updating the House in the coming months. The forum will be held in conjunction with a jobs expo. This will offer a further range of jobs to all the unemployed in the region.

The second issue that I rise to speak on is the Gillard Labor government's heartless decision to axe the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme and its subsequent attempts to sweep the axeing under the rug. This program currently offers up to $4,250 in private dental treatment under Medicare to more than one million Australians who have a chronic medical condition and complex care needs and dental problems which are impacting on, or likely to impact on, their general health. The program was introduced by then health minister Tony Abbott and is a program which recognises that it is smarter and cheaper to treat now rather than when health conditions balloon down the track.

This recognised and much appreciated program closed on 8 September leaving patients with chronic health conditions who need urgent dental treatment just 12 weeks to complete their treatment. Any doctor, dentist or nurse will be able to tell you that a patient with complex medical needs requires a lot more than 12 weeks to fully complete a course of treatment. That is not to mention the time for monitoring and follow up from the treating dentist. The scrapping of this scheme leaves a huge hole in Australia's public dental system.

Labor have said 'trust us' and that their new multi-billion dollar dental plan will plug all of the gaps left by the CDDS's demise. But there is a bit of a catch, Labor's scheme does not kick in until at least mid-2014. Mid 2014 is almost an entire year after the next federal election. That leaves more than one million Australians, or around 7,000 Gilmore residents, who are currently receiving treatment under the axed program, with no urgent dental care for at least the next two years and no details as to how it will work.

And did I mention that Labor are quietly saving $2.5 billion by scrapping Medicare's only dental scheme? It really is disgusting. For the next two years residents of Gilmore with complex medical conditions better hope that their teeth and gums stay fine because Labor changing the rules is forcing them back onto the public waiting list of more than 400,000 people and years of waiting. With every passing day it becomes more and more clear that Labor truly is a divided and dysfunctional government that has lost its way.

But for the sake of the hundreds of thousands of patients across Australia and the thousands of residents in Gilmore with chronic dental conditions I ask the Labor government to at least extend existing funding agreements to early next year. Let existing patients finish their existing courses of treatment. It is the ethnical thing to do.