Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the release this week of the report of the Standing Committee on Health and Ageing into health funding, entitled The blame game, we have seen firsthand how this government has failed the families of Australia. The Howard government has failed to take up the challenge of health reform and has failed to provide national leadership on an issue crucial to the lives of all Australians: access to affordable health care. Let us look at the report in detail and see how this blame game plays out.

The very first recommendation of the report deals with the roles and responsibilities of the levels of government and the need to specify the structures and service delivery arrangements. The division of responsibilities in health has caused inefficiencies in the system, resulting in gaps that sick Australians fall through, missing out on care. Inefficiencies within the health system have been estimated to cost at least $2 billion a year.

This issue urgently needs to be addressed. Yet, when health issues arise, we often hear the Howard government’s standard response of: ‘That’s up to the states,’ or, ‘It’s not our responsibility.’ It seems that they are very good at blaming but not good at fixing. As the federal government, they have a responsibility to set a national agenda and to actually show leadership on vital issues such as health, but all we get from them is: ‘It’s not my fault.’ They just blame someone else. That is not good enough. What we need is a national strategy to fix this problem. We need to have national leadership to overcome this issue of the blame game and define those roles and responsibilities so we can adequately address all of the health concerns for all Australians.

An area where the Howard government constantly plays the blame game is in dental care. In the report The blame game, recommendation 3 states:

The Australian Government should supplement state and territory funding for public dental services so that reasonable access standards for appropriate services are maintained, particularly for disadvantaged groups.

This is what the federal Labor Party—indeed, the community—has been saying for years. Since the Howard government scrapped the $100 million a year Commonwealth dental health scheme, so many people have had to wait many years to get their teeth fixed. It really is an outrageous situation. I am constantly approached by elderly people who cannot access affordable dental care. They are often in extreme pain and often cannot eat. It causes them vast amounts of distress. Some of these locals have been telling me that in some cases they have had to wait for up to two years to have essential dental work performed.

This situation is just not good enough, and it really is shameful that our elderly are in such a dire predicament. It is the seniors of our country who built this nation, and it is shameful how this government treats them. In my electorate of Richmond, 20 per cent of the population is aged over 65 years, and they have been deserted by this government. The matter of dental care is a huge concern in my electorate, so much so that over 4,000 people signed a petition for the Commonwealth to restore federal funding for dental care. It is an issue that people constantly raise with me and one that I have raised in this House on many occasions. Not being able to access timely and affordable dental care can also lead to a whole range of other medical conditions, and this in turn places a much greater burden upon our health system.

The recommendation in the report in relation to dental care is a recognition of the failings of the Howard government. What we need is a federally funded dental health scheme. This is what our nation needs and what Australians deserve. I note further the very important recommendations in the report in respect of producing adequate numbers of health profession graduates to meet the projected demands. This is a need that must be urgently addressed because we have such a shortage of doctors and health professionals right across the country. It is another issue on which the Howard government have failed to provide leadership. Instead they have just played the blame game. That is all we have seen. The government also need to be looking at the future health needs of our ageing population. It is an issue that must be resolved right now. They cannot just keep playing the blame game.

The government also needs to look at developing standards for better delivery of health services in regional, rural and remote areas—another recommendation within the report. We need a national system that ensures that people in regional areas have access to affordable health care. This report is titled The blame game because this government does nothing but blame everyone else, particularly when it comes to health care. It is an issue that people raise all the time, and they are sick of it. They are sick of this blame game. National leadership is not about blaming; it is about fixing. It is about having a national agenda and national leadership to fix issues, such as the ones I have raised tonight: dental care, better health services— (Time expired)