Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of comments made by the President of the Australian Dental Association, Dr John Matthews, that the Labor Party’s policy on dental care is now ‘patchy and piecemeal’? Is the Prime Minister aware of comments made by his Labor Party colleague the member for Dobell that he will be ‘fighting for dental under Medicare’ because ‘too many Australians are living in misery’? Does the Prime Minister really understand the impact on disadvantaged Australians of his decision to remove dental care from Medicare only last week?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again we have evidence of the party of compassion! The party of Work Choices are trying to flap back into life again with a bit of compassion. They had 12 years in office, and what did the previous government do when it came to dental care? If you travel around the shopping centres of Australia, as I and members of the front bench did so much in the course of last year, and talk to people—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was specifically about the government’s abolition of the dental care program under Medicare last week.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The party of newfound compassion, the party of Work Choices, has not discovered one core fact: right across Australia people are crying out for proper attention from public dental care. That is why we committed ourselves explicitly before the election to fund the re-establishment of the Commonwealth dental health care program. That will cost us a considerable amount of money, $290 million, which is estimated to help 650,000 people currently on waiting lists. You would know this if you had bothered to speak to some of those people on waiting lists and to examine carefully the degree of pain and discomfort they found themselves in from these dental conditions, which have lasted for years without attention. The attitude of those opposite was simply to walk away, to say, ‘It’s not my problem,’ and to blame the states. That is not the attitude of this government. This government stands by working families who need that sort of assistance and, particularly, by those who need assistance from the Commonwealth dental health care program.

Beyond that, we also committed ourselves to what we would do with teen dentals. Teen dental care is critical. I notice that the member for North Sydney sneers at this. When it comes to preventative dental care and ensuring that our young people are merged into the workforce with the best state of physical health possible, dental health care is absolutely critical. Time and time again working families under financial pressure asked us, ‘What can you to do to help us with our kids’ basic dental treatment?’ Our response is to provide $150 towards an annual preventative check for teenagers aged between 12 and 17 in families receiving family tax benefit part A. Around one million teenagers will be eligible for these dental services. This is extraordinary. If you obtain a check like that, with proper scaling and cleaning, it does a huge amount in terms of reducing the impact of future dental health problems. On top of that, payments will be made by Medicare Australia through a new dental benefits schedule. The entire premise of the member for North Sydney’s question collapses at that point—not to mention the rest of the argument the opposition have put forward, which is that they are somehow the party of compassion, born with a sudden application of defibrillators last sitting Friday. It lasted until Monday, when the shadow Treasurer stood up and said to working families that they do not deserve a decent outcome from the national wage case. And now, again, the party which abolished within their first year in office the Commonwealth dental health care program are standing up and pretending to Australian families that they are serious about it. Well, frankly, nobody believes you.