DENTAL HEALTH

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (15:45): Today I want to talk about one of the big issues in my electorate—and, no doubt, many other electorates—namely, dental health. Today 650,000 Australians are on public dental health waiting lists around the country. In my electorate 957 residents are on waiting lists, and the clinics in my electorate have 2,362 South Australians waiting for an average period of 22.9 months for dental treatment. These are unacceptable figures and can be laid squarely at the feet of the Howard government because it was the Howard government which in 1996 scrapped Labor's commonwealth dental health program, ripping $100 million per year from public dental health services and $1.1 billion over its 11 years in office. This was a cruel and heartless move—one which the government justified in its 1996-97 budget speech by saying 'as waiting times for public health dental services have now been reduced funding for the commonwealth dental program will cease'.

In other words, the federal government acknowledged the problem, acknowledged the work of the Keating government and acknowledged the great work that the commonwealth dental program was doing and then scrapped it. It does not make sense to me. When the Howard government faces any questions on why it abolished this program it resorts to its tried and tested strategy of passing the buck and saying that the states have exclusive responsibility for dental health. I wish the Prime Minister and his cabinet would read the Constitution, in particular section 51(xxiiiA), which clearly gives the commonwealth the responsibility.

In any event Labor is not interested in the blame game and, as a result, state and territory governments have not shirked their responsibility towards public dental care. State and territory governments have more than doubled their investment in public dental care over the past decade from $205 million in 1995-96 to $503 million in 2004-05. In South Australia we have invested an extra $12 million over four years to try to cut the waiting list. It is paying off. We have reduced the waiting list for restorative dental care from 26 months in 2006 to 23 months in 2007; and we have set a target of 18 months for the coming year. However, we still need help from the commonwealth government. A commonwealth government—with all its ballyhoo surpluses and bragging of responsible economic management—simply sits on its hands and refuses to assist the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are stuck on long waiting lists around the country.

Let us take a look at what the Howard government has done during its 11 years in office for public dental health care. In its first year it scrapped the commonwealth dental health program. It then did nothing for eight years. In 2004 it was responsible for a program that can only best be described as a complete and utter failure—a program which made dental care available through Medicare but which imposed such complex and restrictive eligibility criteria, high out-of-pocket-costs and complex GP referral processes as to render it almost completely inaccessible and unworkable. Let us look at the figures.

Over the past three years the program has helped only 7,000 people across the country, including a pitiful 370 in South Australia, and spent only $1.8 million of its allocated $15 million. Yet what do they do? Faced with this train wreck of a public health policy, they take the old scheme with the same eligibility criteria and the same complex referral processes, add some extra Medicare items, throw hundreds of millions of dollars into it and wrap it up with election ribbon; and then, outrageously, as they did in this year's budget, say that this new scheme will attract 200,000 people. When the old scheme attracted 7,000 people over three years and the eligibility criteria have not changed, how do they expect to suddenly attract 30 times the number of people? In short, it will not. It will not help any of the people currently on the waiting lists.

Unlike the Howard government, federal Labor has a plan. Unlike the Howard government, federal Labor has acknowledged its responsibility in this area. Federal Labor will bring back the commonwealth dental health program. Federal Labor will fund up to 1 million additional dental consultations for Australians. Federal Labor will stop playing the blame game and work with the states and territories to deliver the best dental health care possible to those Australians who need it. Perhaps if the Howard government had spent some of the $2 billion it has wasted on advertising and propaganda over the last decade on public dental health this would not be the No. 1 issue in my electorate; and 650,000 Australians would be receiving the dental health care they deserve. I commend our Minister for Health for what he has done to reduce the waiting lists for those people who have been suffering for a long time.