Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I will be very brief. I have been positive about the switch from dental services for people with chronic illnesses to, suddenly, teen dental care, as proposed in the government’s election platform and budget. I can see a good need for there to be a service for teenagers. But, as I pointed out the other day in our debate on that bill, I think it does not go far enough. I will be listening with interest to the minister’s response to this disallowance motion. I think it would be good to have some sort of policy substance behind these proposals. I am not even sure that the proposal on dental care for the chronically ill, the Enhanced Primary Care Program, was necessarily the thing that was most needed. Unfortunately, too often in this place major policy changes are based on how they will play out in the media and with the general population rather than being based on very sound evidence. Perhaps we should have had an inquiry into dental health in the Senate Standing Committee of Community Affairs. We could have come up with recommendations and we would have all known where we stood on what should have been the highest priority. To dance from one program to another without really having much by way of policy justification seems to me to be unwise. I am interested in what the minister has to say about why we should not disallow the repeal of this program which, as Senator Colbeck says, appears to be working. I do not know what faults the government has seen in the program, but I hope the minister can cover those in this debate.