Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak out on the Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2012. I think this side of the House and certainly I have always been very focused on how we better provide dental care to those who need it most. Having good quality of teeth and having good dental care does make a huge impact on various aspects of our lives. First and foremost is the impact on our general health and wellbeing. If we do not address this issue in a preventative way then it will put strain on our health and hospital system. Living with poor dental health can be a painful exercise, affecting speech, sleep and eating, with certain foods even triggering off nerve endings. For some people, chewing anything can hurt because of rotten teeth and decay. If we do not look after our teeth and we lose the ability to chew then it is really a nightmare for many, many people and a severe impact on their quality of life.

Having poor dental care and poor teeth and oral health can also have very severe adverse interpersonal social impacts on a person's poor health, which can drive a person to withdraw from their life. People can suffer from the embarrassment of the appearance of their teeth, which can lead them to avoiding eating in public or having meals with friends, and even being afraid to smile and show their teeth in photos. Unhealthy-looking teeth can also cause people to miss out on job opportunities due to their outward appearance not meeting the employer's expectation. I think it is important to note that if people are not able in childhood to have good oral health then this poor oral health can follow them into adulthood. That is why I have been an advocate for a long time about supporting preventative care and preventative treatment to ensure that small problems in childhood are addressed and these issues are not carried on and do not get worse into adult life.

I think it can be said that the overall dental health of children has been improving over the decades, but this trend is not necessarily improving over the last two decades. It is shocking to look at some of the statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, which shows that almost 20,000 children under the age of 10 are hospitalised each year due to avoidable dental issues. It is also shocking that more than half of young people have tooth decay by the age of 15, with 45.1 per cent of 12-year-olds reported to have decay in their permanent teeth. Perhaps more alarming is that just under half of children who have just started school had a history of decay in their baby teeth. This is of concern and something that we on this side of the House are very, very driven to address.

I think it is important to look at the effect that income has. For so long, we have treated dental health as separate to physical health—separate to our normal health for which we can go to the doctor. Our dental health has been set very separately. It is not as easy for those that have a more modest income to afford to go to the dentist, unlike going to the local GP with the universal health care that we have. It is not as easy for people to be able to go and visit a dentist, especially if they are on a modest income. Many families cannot really afford the prospect of going to the dentist just to do preventative work. I think that is so important.

I am so pleased that this bill is going a long way to actually saying that, for those families that suffer from cost-of-living pressures and need assistance with their children's health care, we are going to provide that assistance. We are going to provide it for those to ensure that their children are able to access the health care that they need and ensure that the issues that they may experience in their childhood get addressed and do not continue on and plague them in their adult life. So I think this is incredibly important.

I also hear many cases in my electorate of adults who are in pain, putting up with poor dental health. I have seen firsthand the devastating impact that it can have on their lives. For many of these people the necessary treatment with a private dentist is too out of reach for their budgets, so they go on putting up with poor teeth.

We have heard a lot from the opposition today about their great plan for dental care, which they have not announced; there are no details. They say they will have a plan but there are no details. When they were in government, when the Howard government was elected, they ripped millions upon millions of dollars out of public dental care. In my electorate, at Noarlunga, as it was around the rest of the country, that led to huge waiting lists being accumulated. So many people could not access dental care because of the funding withdrawal by the coalition. Today we are seeing some crocodile tears when it comes to dental care. Their record while in government showed they ripped money out of the public dental system. Of course, those on a low income, who cannot afford a private dentist, use the public dental system and rely on the public dental system. In government, the opposition ripped money out of that.

We have not been doing that. We have been ensuring that we are putting money back into the public dental system and we have already made significant dental care investments. The government has provided, in its most recent budget, $515 million to have a blitz on public dental waiting lists. This is a quite shocking statistic: those who earn more than $60,000 a year have seven more teeth, on average, than Australia's poorest people. That shows quite clearly the income gap that causes the difference between those with good oral health and those without. We need to ensure that the public dental care system is accessible. We need to ensure that those on the lowest income who cannot afford to go to a private dentist can actually access the care they need. While the Liberal Party in government pulled out money, we are putting money back in.

I see the member for Boothby here, who has been very critical about the GP superclinic at Noarlunga. It is very disappointing that he has not recognised the important services that are available there. At the Noarlunga complex we have been able, with a partnership between the state and federal government, to triple the number of dental chairs. We have seen a rise from six dental chairs to 24 dental chairs.

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