Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas asked the question. Let us take, as an example, my home state of Queensland. Queensland receives billions of dollars more than it would have received under the old taxation arrangements yet it cannot provide sufficient primary dental care for Queenslanders. Why is that? They receive more taxation revenue from the Commonwealth than they have ever received in the history of the federation and more than they would have received if the Labor Party had stopped the GST going through, which is what they tried to do. But, because the GST went through, the great state of Queensland receives more money in revenue than they would have ever received under the old arrangements.

All of us know that, yet they cannot provide adequate services for Queenslanders, and the Labor Party stands up here and says that it is all the Commonwealth’s fault. Well, it is not. I would like to talk about some of the problems that we have with dental health care, but I would like to say, by way of parenthesis—and I suspect I may even get bipartisan support on this—one of the big issues in Queensland over the last 10 years is fluoride. Fluoride has been a local government issue but also it has been raised in state parliament. I suspect that it is not an issue that is just about partisan politics. We have not even got fluoride in Brisbane city.