David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I want to now turn to dental and allied health provider fees. You will recall, of course, that in the 2014-15 budget the Abbott government announced that they were deferring the indexation of Department of Veterans' Affairs dental and allied health provider fees to 1 July 2016. This was estimated to produce savings of some $35.7 million over four years. Budget papers stated that the savings from this measure would be invested by the government in the Medical Research Future Fund.

In the 2015-16 budget, the government extended the pause on indexation of the Department of Veterans' Affairs dental and allied health provider payments until 1 July 2018, for a total of some four years. This extension of indexation is estimated to produce $69.6 million in savings. While the government has retained the savings measure and indeed extended it and deepened it, unlike the initial 2014 budget measure budget papers now state that savings will go to fund other veterans' policy priorities rather than the Medical Research Future Fund.

The 2015 budget also reveals that the Department of Veterans' Affairs will undertake a review of dental and allied health services arrangements specific to the veterans community to complement the broader review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule to be conducted by the Department of Health. Dental and allied health provider fees are those rebates that are provided by the government to individual providers for the services they provide to the veterans community. Dental and healthcare provider organisations have expressed concern in ever more phrenetic terms that this extended pause on indexation will make it increasingly difficult for them to provide services to the veterans community. This is particularly the case, given that there already exists a disparity between the rebates and the mean customary fees, and it is illegal for providers to charge veterans a co-payment. Data accumulated by the Australian Dental Association has found that there has been an increase in the difference between the ADA mean fees and the DVA rebate from some six per cent in 2006 to 25 per cent in 2014. The Australian Dental Association is very concerned about the impact that the continuing freeze on the indexation of DVA fees will have on the ability of our veterans to access dental payments.

While dentists remain exceedingly loyal to our veterans and, indeed, to their customers, measures such as these are nonetheless likely to impact upon veterans' dental health. It is a fantasy for this government to continue to march around assuring veterans' organisations that it is service providers who have copped a hit, not them, while they undermine the businesses and the business cases of those who provide services to veterans. There will inevitably be a tipping point. While I accept that, as with policies such as direct action on climate change, this is a government that does not believe in market forces. Nonetheless, market forces do continue to exist and, as you pile pressure on service providers, you inevitably pile pressure on veterans. Why is the government still making harsh cuts to the veterans community? Why are you attacking them through the back door? Do you accept that the continuing freeze on indexation of these payments will inevitably affect services to veterans?

See this speech in context