Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

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An honourable member: Not a day over 90.

That is right! This wonderful woman, who has been a community leader for many years and very active in the community, has enormous problems with her teeth. She has had these problems for some time. Sadly she apparently will not go to Katherine, which is some distance away, to have it treated because there is no real treatment available in her community. This is one of the key issues which confronts people who live in rural and regional Australia, specifically Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—the lack of availability of accessible dental services.

That leads to a whole lot of issues which I am sure the deputy leader may refer to; if not, I will at least passingly refer to them. There are huge issues with the dental workforce and with attracting people to work in the bush. I know there are some dentists—some of whom come from Canberra—who volunteer their time working in remote communities. They do a marvellous job, but they are not full time. There is an issue here about how we make sure we have the available workforce to look after this populations.

Sadly, what we have seen from this government so far is cuts to health, and they have not missed the oral health sector. Again, this has direct implications for the health workforce, with $40 million cut from the Voluntary Dental Graduate Year Program, a program that was increasing access to dental services for people in regional areas through workforce support. So the very people who need the greatest input from the dental workforce are those who are now suffering directly as a result of the cuts to this particular program. That is something which is quite shameful, and I am wondering why members of the National Party in particular—and those Liberals who represent regional seats—are not up in arms about this issue, because it directly impacts all Australians who live in rural and regional Australia.

I was also recently with the member for Blair in Pukatja, or Ernabella, in South Australia. There is a story here because one of the issues around prevention is, of course, trying to get people to stop drinking high-sugar-content drinks. They have a program there called Mai Wiru which is about healthy food. What they have now done in some stores in the Bush is take the high-sugar-content drinks off the shelves, or put them at the very back of the shelves so they are not in the line of sight of people when they come in. This is a real issue. I spoke to a dentist who runs a mobile dental van for Nganampa Health Council; I launched the van some 18 months ago. I asked him what the situation was like in terms of the background fluoride levels in the water. He said, 'There is nothing wrong with the fluoride levels in the water; they are very good. The problem is the kids do not drink water or, if they do drink water, they drink bottled water from the store which hasn't got fluoride in it.' There are some real issues here about how we make sure people do the right thing, and that requires leadership not only from the communities but from the people who run the stores.

I would say to those big companies who flog these high-sugar-content drinks to the community: you need to understand the health implications, particularly the dental health implications, of people consuming these products. I also make the point that, while we can change this behaviour, we also have to get people to eat properly. If they eat properly and they are healthy they will not have all these diseases. I commend the bill and support the amendment moved by the shadow minister for health.

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