Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is nothing worse than a toothache. I am sure the minister at the table, the member for Lindsay, and the member for Wakefield would agree with me. When you have got a toothache it just takes over your whole system: it pains, it aches; it is debilitating.

We have just heard the shadow parliamentary secretary for regional health services and Indigenous health give a very impassioned speech about why this disallowance motion is so important. He would know; he is a doctor. He has actually practised at Gundagai in my Riverina electorate. As his portfolio includes Indigenous health, he knows how important oral health is to people of a low socioeconomic status and to people in regional areas.

I support this motion for disallowance of the Health Insurance (Dental services) Amendment Determination 2012 (No. 1), made under the Health Insurance Act 1973, which has been brought to this parliament by the shadow minister for health, the member for Dickson. From the speakers list, government members would have noticed the number of members from this side of the House who were keen to speak on the Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2012. That is because members on this side of the House are very in tune with their electorates and what they are saying, certainly when it comes to the provision of health.

The minister for health, and her predecessor, would know that I have been praiseworthy of the government for its investment in health in the Riverina. Indeed, there has been money for the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital: $55.1 million. There has been money for the private-public partnership at Griffith, to the tune of $11.388 million, as well as $6 million to the Hillston multipurpose service redevelopment. They were all good contributions. Mind you, it was money being spent by a federal government after years of inaction by the state Labor government.

Whenever anything goes wrong nowadays with the federal government, their default position is to blame the state coalition governments. The immediate option is to press the button to blame, in New South Wales, Barry O'Farrell; in Queensland, Campbell Newman; and in Victoria, Ted Baillieu is getting the blame for anything and everything. Mind you, those three premiers are doing their utmost to repair their states as a result of the huge debt and deficit left to them—the legacy of too many years of Labor governments to remember.

With this government, the ripping away of oral health services has been brought about because we have got $246 billion worth of national debt and now we find we have $120 billion of black holes in Labor's spending. Labor is allocating money which it knows it will never have to roll out; hopefully, after the next election, there will be a coalition government in place.

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