Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope your constituents who need dental care know that Labor will deliver. Labor is committed to ending the blame game and working cooperatively with the states to deliver better dental care. Labor will reinstate the Commonwealth dental program to make sure working families can get decent dental care. It is about time what has been ripped out of health and dental care is put back in. It is obvious that the Howard government is incapable of understanding why this should happen or doing anything about it. This is a tired government. The speaker who came before me, the member for O’Connor, did not mention anything about the future; he just attacked his own minister at the table. His speech was that of a member of a tired government and of a government lacking any direction. I think it summed up the government quite well. He did not look at the bill or offer anything by way of innovation or the broader picture. His mind was locked into other matters. It is unfortunate that we have a government that has failed. It is a tired government that has run out of time. It is lacking any policy direction or policy ideas. It is time for new leadership in Australia; it is time for a Rudd Labor government to restore the balance in both health and dental care.

See this speech in context