Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. I hate to tell the shadow minister that these figures are available. They have been released. They were released by the previous minister. This program helped 15,000 people in four whole years, including not a single child or person under the age of 24 in the Northern Territory and not a single child under the age of 14 in South Australia. I can go through example after example. I listened to the shadow minister attentively for a period of time and I am trying to answer his questions, because I think there is a legitimate debate about the way we provide dental care to the community. I want to take the shadow minister through why the decision was made to close down a failing program that, we understand, helped some people—and we do not pretend that it did not.

The problem is that it was not a targeted program, it was not a successful program and—a point that was made by the shadow minister—the poorest people with the worst health did not get access to it. If you were simply poor and had bad dental health because of your poverty, because you could not afford to go to the dentist, you could not get treatment under this program. If you were extremely wealthy and had a serious chronic disease, you could get access to this program. It was not targeted. It did not help those most in need.

We agree that it helped some people, but we made a decision, as governments need to, about the way we can help the most people. The shadow minister will need to get into his head—because no doubt we will be debating this for months to come—that our $650 million program has two components to it that will be targeted particularly at those people whom he alleges the opposition is worried about: the poorest with the worst dental health, who are those in most need of support.

Our program has two parts. The part that the shadow minister wants to focus on is the $150 for teenagers—about 1.1 million or 1.2 million teenagers will be eligible for this. It is a component of Medicare. It is paid under a teen dental scheme program. It is going to ensure that we encourage people before they have serious dental problems. Of course, we know that some people have serious dental problems earlier on, but the majority get their problems later in life. We are going to encourage teenagers to care for their teeth properly—to get annual check-ups. We are going to try to ensure that they maintain their teeth in good condition by investing early on so that any problems that might arise do not get worse further down the track. That is one important down payment where we are investing in preventative care. We are going to improve people’s health long term and we are setting up infrastructure under Medicare that allows people to get their teeth checked.

The second important part of our program, which the shadow minister totally ignores, is the $290 million which is going to re-establish the Commonwealth Dental Health Program. In consultation with the states—the sum of the details is still being worked out—it is going to ensure that those who are the most needy, the poorest in our community with the worst dental health, will get the assistance they need through our public dental services.

The shadow minister can come in here time and time again—as we heard those opposite do when they sat on this side of the House—and criticise state governments for not being able to deliver the dental care that so many people in the community need. We agree that they need to do better but, unlike the previous government, we are prepared to do our bit in helping them to do better. They service the poorest of the community, they service the concession card holders and they service kids. They are often the only people in the community who treat people with the most chronic conditions. There will be examples here and there of people who benefited under the previous government’s program, but there will be many more millions of people who will get assistance under our program, which is better targeted, is means tested and is going to provide services, particularly to children, who so spectacularly missed out under the previous government’s program.

Let me just make the point—and I have made it in the House before—about the Northern Territory: we know that we have some of the poorest, most marginalised people in our Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and they have some of the poorest dental health outcomes. This program over four years—and I wonder whether anyone on this side of the House can guess how many people in the Northern Territory got assistance under the previous government’s program in four whole years?

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