Wednesday, 19 February 2020

Ministers statements: school dental services

Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education) (11:12): I am pleased to update the house on our commitment to provide free dental care at all government schools in Victoria. Last week I joined the Minister for Health and the excellent member for Footscray to announce the next phase of the rollout to more areas of Victoria, including Campaspe, East Gippsland, Macedon Ranges, Maribyrnong, Melton, Wangaratta and parts of Casey and Hume. An additional 146 government schools have been invited to join the Smile Squad this year. That means now that more than 300 schools will participate and offer free dental treatment to more than 100 000 Victorian students in 2020.

Our school dental program is the single biggest investment in public dental services in Victoria’s history. It started six months ahead of schedule and will be completely rolled out by 2022. A quarter of our children across Australia have untreated tooth decay, and here in Victoria dental conditions are the highest single cause of hospitalisation for kids under 10. Not only will it improve dental outcomes for the next generation of Victorians but it will save parents hundreds of dollars annually. This is an uncapped benefit covering everything except cosmetic treatments, and on average it will cut dentist bills by $400 per child per year. For some families it will be much more than that. We are delivering free dental care at all government schools—just as we said we would.

Health and education have always been priorities for the Andrews Labor government and always will be, and it is in stark contrast to $1 billion cut out of education by those opposite—cutting the education maintenance allowance, the worst ambulance response times ever. That is the record of those opposite. We are investing in dental care.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I am not going to have a situation where members are shouting across the chamber at each other. People will be removed from the chamber without warning if they shout across the chamber.