Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to provide a short contribution to this piece of legislation, the Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2021. I think it's an important step forward to make sure that we are expanding the number of people—children from zero to 18—that have access to good-quality dental health care. Being able to use your Medicare card when you go to the dentist is something that should be available for everyone. We've seen throughout COVID-19 just how important universal health care has been, and we know, if we listen to the doctor, that dental health is an extremely important part of making sure the rest of our body is healthy. But, of course, there is a disparity between what is accessible under our universal health system and what isn't. If you've broken your jaw, you can use your Medicare card to go to the doctor but not to go to the dentist to get the tooth fixed. That is just bonkers. It's time for Australia to move forward and to ensure that we properly fund dental health care for everybody.

The Australian Dental Association has a look each year at the average cost of dental health care and totals it up. For a regular check-up for a regular Australian, the average cost of going to the dentist to get an examination, a scale and clean, and some fluoride treatment is $215 a pop—$215 a pop to make sure you stay healthy so that the rest of your body doesn't start to deteriorate. It is just crazy that under our wonderful Medicare and healthcare system in Australia we don't allow dental to be included. So it's $215 on average—some are more than that, of course, depending on what dentist you choose—just to go and have a check-up and make sure everything is okay. If things aren't okay and you need a filling, it might cost you an extra $250 on top of that. If you need a tooth extraction, we're talking about another $200. If you need root canal, we're talking $425 on average. The bills keep going up and up. By the time you get out of the dentist, you might be paying $700, $800 or $900.

Australians deserve better than that. We have a tax system and a system of universal health care in this country. It is time for dentistry to be included. You should be able to go to the dentist, whip out your Medicare card and have your dental health covered. You can go to the doctor with your Medicare card. You should be able to go to the dentist. It's as simple as that. It's important that we do this for children, of course, but every Australian deserves to be able to use their Medicare card to go to the dentist and keep their teeth and their mouths healthy. And you wouldn't want to be in a situation of emergency, because, if you need a crown, the average cost for a crown is $1,500. You can't put that on Medicare. You can't write that off on tax. That comes straight out of your pocket, and, as we know, there are many, many Australians in this country who simply can't afford that. So what happens? You don't go to the dentist, and your teeth get worse, which starts to have other health implications, or you do go to the dentist and have to go into debt.

The Greens have been arguing for a long time that we need to put dental health into Medicare. You should be able to use your Medicare card at the dentist just as you can at the doctor. Everyone knows it makes sense. We just have to get it done.