Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (14:29): Everyone should be able to afford to see the dentist, but a third of Victorians do not go to the dentist until it is an emergency because it is too expensive. That is a recipe for more emergencies and for chronic health problems that spread well beyond the teeth and end up making it more expensive in the long run. Victoria has a public dental system, but it is so underfunded and inaccessible that most people are forced to visit expensive private clinics or just grin and bear it for as long as they can.

Half the dental chairs in the system we have are unused because there just are not enough staff. Labor has had 12 years to fix these issues, but getting them to fund public health services outside of election time is like pulling teeth. Labor’s recent announcement will do nothing to fix these systemic issues. In typical Labor style, it is a veneer, and it does not fill the cavities. The Greens will address the root of the problem. We will rebuild the public dental system, growing the workforce by boosting wages and conditions and increasing training and placements. We will open an initial 20 dental clinics across Melbourne and regional Victoria to expand that well-resourced care to new places, and we will pay for it by taxing the gambling companies that extract so much money from our community.