Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

No, not the Tony Abbott dental school; not even the Peter Costello dental school—the Kerry Bartlett dental school! I have to say that the new measures in last night’s budget are possible only because of the great economic management that has been delivered to this country by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. New measures in last night’s budget will add $4.6 billion to federal government health spending. They will take total health expenditure to $52 billion next year, and they will take health spending as a percentage of total federal government spending to 22 per cent. That is up from just 14 per cent back in 1996. But we are not just spending more money; we are getting better results. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, since 1996 there has been a three-year increase in the life expectancy of average Australian males and a two-year increase in the life expectancy of females. That is because of the sensible investment of this government in better health services.

It was a particularly good budget for people with chronic disease. In addition to care plans from their GPs, people with multiple conditions will soon benefit from longer consultations with specialist physicians, and that measure is estimated to cost some $291 million. But even more importantly, for people with chronic conditions whose poor oral health is impacting on their general health, there is now greatly expanded access to Medicare funded dentistry. Instead of just three consultations a year, under Medicare those patients will be eligible for an initial consultation and up to $2,000 worth of subsequent treatment a year.

We are not relieving the states of their responsibility for public dentistry but we will not leave people in health crisis. Many of the 650,000 people on those public dental waiting lists will be eligible for a team care plan. My message to them is this: the Howard government will not let you down. It is a tribute to the way the Treasurer has managed health that it was only after question time began that we finally heard from the member for Gellibrand who, after two o’clock, finally surfaced with a press release that said: ‘Dental program lacks bite.’ Well, I tell you what: Medicare has a lot more bite than ever before; it has a lot more bite than it ever had when Labor was in charge. The Howard government is proving by its actions, not just by its words, that it is the best friend—the very best friend—that Medicare has ever had.

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