Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I could not let an opportunity go by—provoked as I was by Senator McLucas—to remind her that the government did promise to spend $800 million on dental care during the term of this parliament. I acknowledge that she has provided responses to me in respect of the value of this program but, as I indicated in my previous contribution, we have now had four numbers for this amount. My concern is to hold the government to its promise that it would spend $800 million on dental care during this term. It is nowhere near that at this point in time. Senator McLucas’s response was essentially as I predicted: check the website and you will see the statistics. But that does not deal with what the states might do in response to this program, which is a real concern to the opposition and I think it should be a concern to the government.

This has really got nothing to do with the colour of politics on either side. As we discussed at estimates, there is a pattern of behaviour by states—unfortunately on occasions with respect to the relationship between state and Commonwealth governments—and there are natural tendencies. The opposition is concerned to follow through with respect to the scrutiny of how this program interacts with state programs, and looking at statistics on the Medicare website will not necessarily do that. We did hear at question time today of programs where statistics were supposed to be placed on Medicare websites and they were not. So, scrutiny does not necessarily follow. We also know that, with respect to the reductions in hospital waiting lists, the first quarterly reports were due on 6 May and here we are well into June and we still have not seen the first reports on the websites.

As predicted, the government came up with the response: ‘Just check out the website and you will see what the numbers are.’ I do not necessarily want to get into a long debate over this because I do understand that the government wants to have its legislation passed, so I am quite happy to leave it at that after having made my point.

Question agreed to.

Bills, as amended, agreed to.

Dental Benefits Bill 2008 reported with amendment; Dental Benefits (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 reported without amendment; report adopted.