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

as the Keating scheme was in terms of weight of money dedicated to public dentistry. The Keating scheme was not very good because we know that public dental waiting lists in Queensland were still up to three years in 1995, notwithstanding the political brilliance of the Leader of the Opposition in managing everything in the Christian socialist state of Queensland at that time. If the Keating government scheme did not work very well when it contributed 50 per cent of the quantum being spent by the states, this revived Keating government scheme is going to work even less well when it is spending 20 per cent of the quantum spent by the states. The Prime Minister was asked again and again today: will you embrace Labor’s plan? Of course we won’t embrace Labor’s plan, because Labor’s plan is not a very good one and the plan that the government has put in place, which has been out there for all to see since this year’s budget, is a much better one.

Members opposite are constantly accusing this government of neglecting dental health. Through the private health insurance rebate we spend about $400 million on dental health. How much did Labor spend on dental health except for the $100 million a year of the Keating scheme? Nothing; absolutely nothing. So, on top of the $385 million that we are proposing to spend under the revamped allied health professional scheme there is the $400 million a year that we spend through the private health insurance rebate.

The member for Gellibrand said that we were neglecting dental training. Let me inform the member that there was no substantial increase in dental training places throughout the life of the former Labor government. In 1996 there were 356 commencing dental students in this country; by 2002, thanks to the policies of this government the number had risen to 444; by 2005, thanks to this government the number had risen to 529; in 2010 there will be 569—and I am pleased that the member for Gellibrand is writing these figures down because she might learn something for a change; she is listening for once. It is good that she is writing it down and I hope she remembers it, because these figures show that there has been a 50-plus per cent increase in public dental training, thanks to this government.

As I said, I do not pretend for a second that the states have managed the public dental schemes well. I accept there are problems, but the job of the federal government is not to relieve the states of what is their responsibility; the job of the federal government is to run federal health programs as well as it possibly can. That is why we have chosen to make our good Medicare system—our great Medicare system—even better by giving it not just a small and minor dental component but a very substantial dental component.

I accept that not all of the 650,000 people on the public dental waiting lists are going to be helped by our scheme, but many of them will. The people on the public dental waiting lists are invariably pensioners—most of them are old age pensioners. Most old age pensioners have chronic disease and those of them that have serious oral health will at least potentially be helped by this scheme. It is a demand driven scheme. I would not be at all surprised if, as things pan out, an enormously larger number than the 200,000 currently envisaged benefit from this scheme and the government ends up riding to the rescue of these people to the tune of much more than $385 million over four years.

See this speech in context