Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be representing the Minister for Health and Ageing today in the consideration in detail of the appropriation bills. The members for Gellibrand, Cunningham, Shortland, Boothby and Hindmarsh have been keen participants in this process and have asked me a series of detailed questions. Some of those are obviously within the portfolio of health, and I am less familiar with those than I am with the portfolio of ageing, but I will with the support and help of the department attempt to respond to these as best I can and hopefully to the satisfaction of the House.

The member for Gellibrand asked about a number of specific issues. I will deal with each one of those. Firstly, she raised the issue of dental health and dental treatment. It is an area that has been something of a bugbear in public policy for some time. Obviously dental health is a primary responsibility of the states. When Labor were in power all those years ago, they had a specific program that had targets to be met; those targets were met and the program came to an end. Since that time, the Commonwealth has expected the states to fulfil their responsibilities for the dental health of their electors, and in this budget we are—

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