Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Hansard source

Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Health, ripped $1 billion from Medicare for dental—a proud achievement. It is an extraordinary day: a Labor Party minister, a minister from the party of Neal Blewett and Bob Hawke has been the first Minister for Health, since Medicare was introduced in 1983, to have actually slashed Medicare and removed a whole class of patients from Medicare. These are the sickest people in our society. They are the people who had been forgotten by the state dental services. They are the people who had new hope of being treated with a choice of dentist and through Medicare. It has now been lost. I encourage all members of the House, and the Independents, to support this disallowance motion.

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