DENTAL HEALTH

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (14:13): My question is to the Minister for Health. How many additional public dental visits will be made possible by the implementation of the Commonwealth Dental Health Program and what effect will this have on the state's dental waiting list?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:13): I thank the member for Torrens for this excellent question. Today I can announce that the reintroduction of the Commonwealth Dental Health Program—a program that had been scrapped by the former government—will provide an additional $24.7 million over three years for public dental services in the state of South Australia.

This will have a major impact on public dental waiting lists in South Australia. Members might like to know that, when the former government was in office back in early 2002, the restorative dental care waiting time reached a peak of 49 months. Since that time, this state government has provided an additional $56 million to public dental services, resulting in the waiting time reducing from 49 months to 19 months, which it is currently. The number of people on the restorative dental waiting list has been reduced from 82,000 in 2002 to 32,429 in June this year. This is a 60 per cent reduction, and it represents the lowest number of people waiting for dental care since the loss of the former commonwealth dental care program in 1996.

The funding provided by the commonwealth dental program will provide an additional 85,000 dental visits over three years. This will have a major impact on public dental care waiting lists, which will rapidly reduce from the 19 months in June this year to 11 months by June next year and they are expected to fall even further over subsequent years. As we all know, we should each have a dental check-up once a year, so this will mean that people on the list will have access to that goal.

I make this clear: under the former state Liberal government, the waiting list was around 49 months; under this government, by next year, it will be down to 11 months, which is a dramatic turnaround demonstrating the good cooperation and the big commitment by the state and the federal Labor governments. The other side in government, at both a federal level and a state level, neglected this important part of health care. As the program is further expanded, adult concession card holders will be able to enrol for regular check-ups and preventative dental care. This is where we want to get to because, if we can manage the dental care in this preventative way, we can ensure that all of the people on the list are looked after properly.

In addition, the Commonwealth Dental Health Program will enable adult concession card holders with oral health conditions that affect their medical conditions, or whose oral health is affected by poor general health, to receive enhanced access to public dental services. In its first year the program will include 3,000 visits for people with chronic disease, 1,900 for indigenous people and 3,100 for preschool children.

I also advise the house that the $3.9 million redevelopment of the Gilles Plains TAFE Centre for Dental Studies was opened on Monday by my colleague the minister for further education and that will help to provide the extra capacity to undertake these additional dental visits—so capital investment as well as recurrent investment. The redevelopment will also double the size of the centre's dental clinic, increasing the number of dental hygiene services offered to the public from 3,000 to 6,000 and it will significantly boost the capacity of the centre for training dental assistants, hygienists and technicians. This is very good news. Only the opposition would criticise it. Only the opposition would knock it. They have no morality at all because they produced the circumstances where people were waiting for 49 months.