Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Even some of us, as the honourable member for New England points out, are prepared to own up to being members of parliament—he most honourably and I churlishly would own up to being members of parliament. But that is how our credentials are judged. I think a lot more work needs to be done to overcome some of those significant disincentives for people to return to work, especially when they want to do so themselves, quite voluntarily.

Some of these measures, of course, refer to the Medicare levy. I regret to say that one of the things that really made a big impact in my electorate was the closing of the Mount Druitt Medicare office. They did it under the pretext that, within 10 kilometres, you could go to Penrith or to Blacktown. Of course, the government might say, ‘It’s only your electors that are concerned about it.’ But now, with the changes to the electoral boundaries in Lindsay, there will be plenty of people in North St Marys, in St Marys, in Oxley Park, in South St Marys and in Colyton who are going to be in the electorate of Lindsay and would have gone to Mount Druitt when that office was open. The overwhelming majority of those people would have gone to Mount Druitt. I am very keen to have that Mount Druitt Medicare office reopened. If we are able to achieve it after the next election, I rest confident in the knowledge that not only are people in my electorate going to appreciate it but also people in the electorate of Lindsay due to the changed boundaries. I hope we are able to achieve it. We will have a great opening ceremony, and I will be happy to provide the bottle of champagne. Unfortunately, we are a long way away from that. A lot of people were seriously disadvantaged by its closure.

I am talking about the Medicare levy, and, of course, there were some important measures announced in the budget in relation to dental health. I welcome the additional dental positions that were established; I think that is a good thing. But again, one of the things that caused sadness in my electorate was this government’s decision to close down the pensioner dental health program. Governments get criticised from time to time for what they do and how effectively the programs run. This was a very good, effective program, and there is no doubt that the states also have a public dental health program.

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