Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise this evening to speak on the Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Dental Services) Bill 2007, because it is this government which recognises that, through Medicare, we can address some issues of dental health care for people with chronic health conditions.

I was interested in listening to the member for Shortland as she was winding up her contribution to this bill. We hear a great deal from the other side of the House about this issue of the ‘blame game’, and here we have the member for Shortland, a member of the opposition, blaming the federal government for what has been for many decades a state responsibility. It was only during the previous Labor government that for a very short period of time—I think it was when Paul Keating was Prime Minister—the Commonwealth introduced a limited dental scheme because of the failings of some state governments in addressing dental health care at the state level.

For decades and decades, dental care has been a state government responsibility. I ought to know because my father-in-law was a dentist and my brother-in-law is a dentist—in other words, I married the daughter of a dentist. Dental health care and dentistry have been very close to my wife’s family and to her right throughout her life and even now. It is very important to understand in this House that the public side of dental health care has for decades been the responsibility of state governments.

I welcome the new items that will come under the Medicare banner because it will enable patients who have chronic conditions to have $4,250 of Medicare funded access to dental care. The $4,250 relates to two consecutive years. For instance, if a person needs dental care and is referred by a doctor to a dentist, as is required under this bill, they will have access over two calendar years to the $4,250 funded through Medicare.

That is a significant step forward, which recognises that there are people out there with chronic and complex health conditions that need some medical treatment which would help them with their quality of life. Some of these people may be cancer patients. Others may have other health conditions that, in the opinion of their doctor, without this dental care could further deteriorate. The federal government has recognised that need and funded up to $4,250 worth of dental care for those people who need that care on a fairly urgent basis because of their medical condition.

This legislation does not replace the responsibilities of the states and territories. We have to ensure that our state and territory Labor governments across Australia accept their responsibility for the funding of public dental health care of the people of their state and territory. The state and territory governments are receiving a massive influx of revenue from the GST—GST revenue that three, four or five years ago they were not budgeting on. It is almost like a windfall which has come their way. With that revenue, if they were responsibly managing their state and territory economies, they would be ensuring that the public dental health system was funded and was meeting the needs of their respective residents.

This bill would not be necessary if the state and territory governments were meeting their just responsibilities. That is why this federal government, concerned for the health and welfare of those people with very complex health conditions—some may be suffering cancer or may be on complex drugs for their health condition—is ensuring that they will be able to access this dental service, which should have been the responsibility of the state governments and funded by them. But time and time again we come into this place and we as the federal government have to deal with the failings of the state and territory Labor governments across this country.

The federal government initiated a dental health care program that is helping people in rural and remote Australia. In my electorate of Maranoa, the federal government provided some $384,000 to improve dental services in Barcaldine, Longreach and Winton. That money will be used to utilise teledentistry technology. It will certainly make a big difference to the dental health care of those communities. The Coopers Plains dental surgery in Brisbane will be able to look at very high-definition pictures of people’s teeth. That procedure will be conducted by a dental nurse or a practitioner nurse who would be seeing these people in the relevant public hospital, in this case in Barcaldine. In fact, about 12 months ago I visited the hospital and spoke to the dental nurse who was there full time. She is able to describe and also transmit the image of someone’s teeth or their dental condition to the dentist who will be visiting. They come about one week in every four weeks. So when they come to the hospital on their monthly visits they will know, in advance, the sorts of dental treatment that they have to deal with. They will know if there are extractions or fillings or other complex dental work that has to be conducted on someone’s teeth and the length of time it will take because they would have had a very clear video image of someone’s mouth and the dental problems that will have to be addressed when the dentist visits, in this case, Barcaldine.

This technology will also be extended into the public system in Longreach and Winton, where the dentist would utilise those dental surgeries. The federal government has funded this technology to improve the dental services of people living in rural and remote Queensland where they do not have a full-time dentist and where a dentist comes on a monthly basis. Sometimes they spend a week in one town. Sometimes they spend a few days in one town and then they move to Longreach for the remainder of the week. They provide a service but, importantly, because of this federal government’s funding this dental service is improved. It is better able to utilise the good technology that is available today to provide the dentist with a very clear picture of what sorts of conditions they will have to address when they come to a town. It also means that the dental nurse in a town can anticipate the number of patients who can be seen on a particular day. That is all possible through teledentistry, which this government has been able to fund. I am very proud of this federal government’s initiative because it is helping people in rural and remote parts of my electorate.

Under the Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund this government is providing funds for health care. In my electorate of Maranoa we have seen some $400,000 recently provided to the Aramac shire. That shire will put in that medical infrastructure, which will include dental facilities in the rural medical infrastructure building. It will enable doctors and a dentist to visit—because the federal government will have provided the purpose-built building, which is not there today—without them having to put money of their own into the infrastructure, which obviously will be used not every day but on demand.

The rural medical infrastructure that is to be provided and will be funded by the federal government, in conjunction with the local government, is now at real risk because of the forced amalgamations of local shires in Queensland—which was Premier Beattie’s initiative, but Premier Bligh does not now want to visit the mistakes of the Beattie government—because that shire is to be amalgamated with two other shires in their region. I really fear that that rural medical infrastructure building will not be needed in that community because the shire will be abolished and the shire workers will no longer have jobs in the community. Those shire workers will have to move to the bigger town, which will leave a community without the rural medical infrastructure because of the decimation of that community through the forced amalgamation of local shires by the Beattie Labor government.

I congratulate Premier Bligh on being the first woman Premier of Queensland but, if she wants to govern for all Queenslanders, I appeal to her to revisit this issue of forced amalgamations of local shires in Queensland. I know that this week she will be out in Charleville in my electorate and she will probably go up to Longreach. When any Labor member goes into my electorate in outback Queensland they always go to Barcaldine, which we acknowledge is the birthplace of the true Labor Party, not the one we see today because that very symbol that brought about the Labor Party when it was born in Barcaldine, the tree of knowledge, died recently. Some say it was poisoned but there are many out there who say that it died of shame because of the actions of the Labor state government in forcing amalgamation of shires against the will of the people and in denying them an opportunity for a free vote on whether they agree with the proposition.

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