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

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker; I appreciate your advice. I was making the point that this bill makes changes to the Medicare levy. One of the announcements in the budget was a new program where money out of the Medicare levy can be paid for dental health. That is a good thing. It is a breakthrough. It is the first time the government has recognised a federal responsibility towards dental health. But the tragedy is—and I am sure the honourable member for New England would agree with me—that for people to take advantage of this new program announced in the budget, funded out of the Medicare levy, they have to have a chronic illness. You cannot access the program because you have bad teeth or you need dentures or you need all of your teeth removed; you actually have to have an ancillary chronic illness. How many Australians are going to benefit from that? In a program that I was referring to—

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