Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This omnibus bill, the Health Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 1) Bill 2025, seeks to make changes to the process for claiming a private health insurance rebate. The private health insurance rebate enables, as we know, eligible people to have the cost of their private health insurance subsidised by the government. Right now, the IT systems responsible for administering these rebates simply can't meet the expectations set out in the legislation, so this bill will update the law to better align with what the system can actually deliver. The Greens have been clear on our position in relation to private health insurance. Our priority, in our view, is that we should be improving and strengthening our public health system. However, while there remains a private health structure in Australia, we see the need and the value in aligning these systems.

Let me move to the issue of head and neck cancer. I would like to take the opportunity presented by this legislation to talk about an issue that I am incredibly passionate about: access to affordable oral and dental health care, particularly to dental prosthetics for people who have undergone treatment for head, neck and oral cancers. Head, neck and oral cancers can cause significant damage to a person's mouth and oral health. In some people, this might be through the removal of parts of the face or mouth, such as their lips or gums. For others, the radiation treatment around the head area can cause permanent damage to the salivary glands, which play a crucial role in keeping the mouth healthy. If it were any other type of cancer that we were talking about, Medicare would cover the post-treatment rehabilitation, including prosthetics. But, because we are talking about cancers of the head, mouth or neck, these prosthetics and that rehabilitation aren't covered by Medicare. Instead, cancer patients need to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars out of pocket for it.

We have heard of people having to mortgage their house and pull from their super in order to pay for dental prosthetics that they need. While millionaires are living large on government funded tax cuts, it is unacceptable that Medicare can't cover prosthetics. In 2023, the dental inquiry that I had the honour of chairing uncovered these huge gaps in the Medicare system and made two recommendations. These recommendations were to further investigate the ways in which cancer and cancer treatment could impact the mouth and to look into addressing these impacts, including reviewing the Medicare Benefits Schedule with a view to improve access to care.

Today I call on the government to implement those recommendations so that survivors of head and neck cancer can access prosthetics and post-treatment care that they need without going broke trying to afford it. I moved the second reading amendment in my name last night during the debate, and I would ask the government to consider supporting that amendment and to action those recommendations. Somebody who has won the battle with cancer of the head, neck or mouth should never have to then think about where they will find the money for the postcancer treatments or the prosthetics that they may need. I am so sick and tired of hearing that yet another member of my WA community has survived cancer and that, after a battle that has claimed a large section of their face or a large part of their mouth and has taken their ability to produce spit in their mouths—can anybody actually imagine what it is like to live with that as a reality day in, day out? And that's their life. The one thing that can collectively be done is to make sure that, when they are in need of medical treatment and prosthetics, they can get it through Medicare.

I'm often asked where we should begin the work of bringing dental care into Medicare. Well, here is an opportunity. Let us start by uniting around the idea that people who have survived cancer should be able to get rehabilitative treatment covered under Medicare, regardless of where on the body that care needs to be administered or where the prosthetic might need to be attached. Can we all just do that? Could we all just agree that that is something that should be done?

Back this amendment. Let's have it be a unanimous position of this Senate that it should be the case that head, neck and oral cancers are covered under Medicare and that you can get the prosthetics and the treatment you need without having to mortgage your house. Come on—let us do this together. It's a good thing, and the time has come.