Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House the continuing decline in dental care in Australia and in particular the pain inflicted on the people of Central Queensland by the continued inaction of the Howard government on such a basic community service as dental health. I was talking to an older constituent of mine in Rockhampton a couple of weeks ago and he was lamenting the fact that, in his view, we had better dental services in this country 50 years ago. Whilst I was not around 50 years ago, I suspect that this man might be right. The Howard government can talk about spending millions on this and millions on that, but it is clearly missing the mark if the ordinary men and women of Central Queensland are unable to eat a proper meal because of the neglected condition of their teeth. I see this as yet another example of the growing divide between the people living in our capital cities and those of us who have been abandoned by this government because we live in regional Australia.

The size of the problem this government is going to leave the next government is so great as to be almost incomprehensible in a country as prosperous as ours. It is a scandal. There are 650,000 people on waiting lists for public dental care, with an average waiting time of 27 months. Rural figures are not known, but rural incomes are, on average, lower than those in the major cities, and 30 per cent of the population lives in rural Australia. Lack of widespread access to fluoridated water in regional Australia also suggests that the prevalence of tooth decay will be higher in the bush. This means that rural people are likely to be over-represented on this 650,000-person waiting list.

This problem is exacerbated for regional Australia by the distribution of dentists through the country. Currently there are only 17 dentists per 100,000 people in much of rural Australia, compared with 55 per 100,000 in our major cities. I despair that, in Australia, a country which prides itself on its high standard of living and which is currently enjoying the fruits of the resources boom, we have the second worst oral health of all OECD countries.

And what has the Howard government said it will do about this? In the 2007-08 budget, a new dental school was announced for Charles Sturt University to train 30 additional dentists. But it will be at least six years before the first dentists graduate from the new Charles Sturt dental school. Whilst everyone would support this development, I have to ask: is it enough? Obviously, it is not. The National Rural Health Alliance proposes an additional 90 new places a year in schools of dentistry, on top of Charles Sturt’s 30 new places. An obvious reason for their concern is the fact that over one-third of practising dentists in Australia are over 50 years of age, and the demand for dental care is expected to grow 15 per cent by 2010.

The Howard government has very effectively clipped the wings of the tooth fairy, and the only way for us to go now is to import, in ever-increasing numbers, dentists from overseas, who will, of course, be joining the ever-increasing numbers of foreign-trained doctors we now see practising in Australia. Surely, with all its wealth, Australia can stand on its own two feet and train sufficient dentists here to meet the needs of our people without poaching those trained overseas in countries that often have an even greater need than ours.

What this government needs to do is listen to how its policy failures are impacting on the lives of ordinary men and women and their children. I saw a good example of this in the Sunday Telegraph of 17 June:

A team of dentists, appalled by the state of NSW residents’ teeth, is offering free treatment days for the most needy.

…         …         …

Twenty benevolent dentists delivered … care to more than 200 children and adults, with support staff also working for free.

…         …         …

Dr David Digges, a private practice dentist at Bellevue Hill, set up the Dental Rescue Squad and recruited colleagues to help.

“I knew something should be done because of the desperate state of young people’s teeth,” he said.

“It troubles me greatly and makes me sad that in a caring, democratic and just society so many people have to suffer and not be able to get into the [health] system.”

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr Digges and his team on their compassion and their efforts to help those people who have been abandoned by the Howard government.

My office is receiving complaints from constituents on almost a daily basis about the problems they are having in accessing affordable dental care. Recently, one of my constituents, Mr Colin Harder, contacted my office. Mr Harder is an elderly pensioner who had been kept waiting on the public list for over 2½ years for a couple of extractions. Mr Harder was advised that it could take another two years for him to receive attention for his teeth. Unable to put up with the pain, and being aware of the damage these bad teeth were doing to his general health, Mr Harder went to a private dentist, who referred him to a dental surgeon. The extractions cost this pensioner over $1,000. Mr Harder had great difficulty finding the money but he felt he had no choice. He knew he must somehow find the money or put up with his worsening condition for at least another two years—not a choice any of us would like to be faced with.

On 3 April this year, I referred Mr Harder’s situation to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott. On 31 May, I was sent a reply by his parliamentary secretary, Senator Brett Mason. In that letter, Senator Mason states:

The majority of dental health services in Australia are provided in private practice. For many Australians, especially families, the key to accessing affordable services has been through their private health insurance ancillary cover. Commonwealth Government funding for these services is provided through the 30% rebate for private health insurance.

Senator Mason then goes on to talk about the new school of dentistry at Charles Sturt University and the millions of dollars the federal government says it is spending in this area. But where does this leave Mr Harder? Let me read to you the advice Senator Mason gives Mr Harder:

The Minister responsible for public dental services in Queensland is The Hon Stephen Robertson MP, Minister for Health, GPO Box 48, Brisbane, QLD 4001. Mr Harder may wish to contact Minister Robertson to outline the concerns he has with the public dental system in Queensland.

That was a pretty predictable flick pass from the parliamentary secretary.

What is the government’s position according to Senator Mason? Either you have not only private health cover but also private ancillary cover or if, as is the case with a great many Australians, you simply cannot do this then the Howard federal government is not interested in you or your health problems. And for those health problems you can blame the state government. We in the Labor Party do not accept the government’s excuse that it is all the fault of the states. The tired old blame game does not cut it when it comes to people like Mr Harder. In fact the state and territory governments have increased funding for dental health by 25 per cent over the past five years to try and compensate for the $100 million the Commonwealth axed from dental health as one of its first acts of government in 1996.

In contrast to this neglect by the Howard government, Labor will establish a Commonwealth dental program so that with the states we can be part of the solution to the current dental health crisis. As all members of this House would know from the calls and letters that they get from their constituents, it is indeed a crisis. Bad teeth are now the number one reason for hospital admissions for children under five, around one in 10 visits to GPs are attributed to dental problems and there is clear evidence that oral health is connected to diabetes, low birth weight and premature babies. Untreated gum disease has been linked to heart disease. On top of this there are 50,000 preventable hospitalisations for dental conditions each year for people who were unable to access dental treatment.

Only a few months away from the next federal election the Howard government has quickly come up with a $377 million plan to try and fix some political holes that it has created for itself through its 11 years of neglect in this area, but the cracks in that program are already showing. The health minister himself admitted to the Australian Medical Association that the plan was a failure. It was originally intended to ensure that individuals with chronic health problems could get attention for their dental issues. It turns out that only 6,500 used the scheme over the past three years. That is a drop in the ocean when you think about the 650,000 people on waiting lists at the moment who need dental treatment. The Howard government has had 11 years to show that it is serious about dental health. It is time the tooth fairy started visiting our children again, and only Labor has the policies that will provide all Australians with the affordable dental care that they need and deserve.