Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I will talk about the four-year program, if you want to talk about an absolute failure, or we could talk about the EPC dental access program that started when? November 2007. That is when the current opposition finally realised that dental health was apparently somewhat important.

We have all received, over the time we have been in this place, letters particularly from pensioners explaining their difficulty in getting service for their teeth. One hundred million dollars a year over 11 years would have been an enormous assistance to ensure that pensioners, in particular, had some access to dental treatment. But, all of a sudden, this new-found interest in dental health was realised by the former Howard government—you are right, Senator Colbeck—about four years ago. If you want to go to real failure in public policy, let us go to the original dental scheme—or so-called dental scheme—that the Howard government introduced some four years ago. It was not a dental scheme at all; it did nothing to assist people in need in terms of their dental health; it provided very limited assistance.

Dental services could be provided under the scheme introduced four years ago to people if their GP considered their dental health was exacerbating other chronic diseases with complex care needs. The referral processes and eligibility criteria were so complex and restrictive that very few people—and Senator Colbeck knows this—were able to access it. It was not a dental scheme, because simply having bad dental health did not get you into the scheme. If you had poor dental health because you could not afford to go to a private dentist, your teeth had deteriorated and you were in pain, that was not enough; you had to wait until you developed a chronic disease as a result of your bad teeth before the Howard government would assist you. If you were wealthy and had a chronic disease with complex care needs, you were in as long as you could negotiate the red tape. Of course, we all know, those people with more assets are always able to negotiate red tape far more effectively than those with fewer assets can.

We acknowledge that some people did get some help from the program if they could navigate their complex referral processes and the red tape but many in the community, often the neediest in the community, did not. A millionaire could get access to the program if they had a chronic disease as a result of their poor oral health once they got through the red tape, but a pensioner who had excruciating toothache, but in every other aspect was well, could not. As a result, the scheme provided very little assistance to some of the neediest in our community. If you look at the access to the former government’s so-called dental scheme, you find that very few young people and children, even children with chronic and complex needs, had any access to the service.

For example, in the Northern Territory—and we have had a lot of discussion about the Northern Territory in this place over the last while—not one service was provided to a child or young adult aged up to 24 years over the four years to 30 April of this year. Not one. That is a terrific program, Senator Colbeck, and here you are defending it! Not one person under 24 in the Northern Territory had any access to your triumphant dental access scheme. In South Australia in the same four years, zero, not one person up to the age of 14 had access to that program. In the entire term of the Howard government, no child born and raised in South Australia or the Northern Territory got any access at all from that failed dental scheme. Fifty-two young people under the age of 20 in my state of Queensland accessed the previous government’s program over the four years to April 2008. Fifty-two young people out of my state and you are saying this is a good program! It is a bit hard to defend.

One person a month over four years in my state of Queensland had access to this program. Ninety-four people in the whole of Victoria under the age of 20 received services in nearly four years and two people a month in the whole state of Victoria under the age of 20. Those figures are nothing to be proud of. It shows clearly that the previous government’s dental scheme was a total failure and yet we have the opposition here trying to resurrect it. In total, over the four years to 30 April 2008, this scheme that the opposition is now trying to resurrect spent less than $50 million. If you want to argue about numbers, Senator Colbeck, we should talk about the numbers that the former government put in its budget papers about how much it was going to spend on dental health. If you design a poor program and put a big number on it, it sounds good in a press release, but it does not actually deliver services on the ground. It is a big saving when you have only spent $50 million on dental health over four years.

By contrast, the Rudd government will spend up to $780 million on dental health over the next four years. We will support the provision of up to one million additional consultations and treatments targeted at those most in need through the $290 million investment in the Commonwealth Dental Health Program and 1.1 million eligible teenagers will have access into preventative health checks through our $490 million Medicare Teen Dental Plan. This is a desperately needed program. According to the OECD, the dental health of Australian adults now ranks second worst in the OECD, with rapid deterioration in dental health observed in the teenage years. This is a crisis and this government is responding to it. According to dental health experts, there is a fourfold increase in dental decay between 12 and 21 years of age. Almost half of all teenagers have some signs of gum disease. Everyone recognises that having healthy teeth is important to teenagers’ self-confidence and is especially important at a time when many are seeking their first job. Just as importantly, good oral health is closely connected to a person’s overall health and well-being.

The Teen Dental Plan is an important social program, and I commend those opposite for their support of the legislation in this place yesterday. But let us be clear about this: that support for a broad based dental health program is a very recent development from those sitting opposite. The previous government and now opposition has an appalling track record on dental health. This government is implementing programs to provide assistance with dental health to hundreds of thousands of people, spending over 10 times as much a year as the Howard government did. This disallowance motion is not about protecting a dental health program that was making any sort of difference to people’s teeth; it is about causing mischief and budgetary disruption.

It is also important to note the fundamental difference between the Labor Party in government and the now opposition in government. There is a fundamental policy difference here. Labor’s focus when it comes to dental health is very much about prevention, and that is always recognised in the dental health sector as good, sound investment in long-term health outcomes. We are focused on prevention and stopping decay before it starts, stopping the need for extraction and stopping chronic illness as a result of poor oral health through a focus on prevention. That is a sound public policy position compared with the former government’s approach, which was: ‘Wait until you are chronically ill as a result of your oral health and then we’ll give you help, if you can get through all the red tape.’ That is the difference. That is the decision we are making today: do we support a program that potentially fixes up something after all the damage has been done or do we invest in long-term good oral health through a good prevention program?

This brings me to the second reason why this disallowance motion should be rejected. Those opposite who are proposing this motion have forgotten what happened on 24 November last year. Let me remind them: on 24 November the Australian people voted for a change of government. They chose to pass responsibility for the government of this country to the Labor Party, and an important part of that responsibility is the economy and the budget. We announced before the election that we would close the chronic disease program and use the savings to pay for our much better directed programs. It was on the public record—that is not in dispute. It was assessed by the Charter of Budget Honesty process; it was part of the platform we put before the Australian people, and they supported it.

Those opposite are now seeking to dismantle part of the elected government’s budget strategy, which was put before the people and supported. It is not only mischievous, bloody-minded economic vandalism; it is also sabotaging a clear policy that the government took to the election and was supported by the electorate. This is an irresponsible, reactionary opposition. It is opposition for the sake of opposition—on dental care, on hospitals, on alcohol, and on unfair tax slugs like the Medicare levy surcharge. The opposition is following a clear pattern: do nothing for 11 years and then attack the new government for pursuing the path of reform. The Liberal and National parties have to choose between responsible economic management and responsible health policy or short-term cheap politics, and today they are making a bad choice.