Obvviously there is going to be an election.

Dental scheme promised by the government. $4 billionP/A

National Disability insurance scheme $4-$8 billion P/A (No one knows) Disabled should not hold breath waiting.

Today $430 million scheme for Pacific Islander women?

Keep it coming. Labor buying votes. I wonder how many of the promises will be delivered?

Rudd made a promise to pay WA $200 million P/A for something or other but that has not been forthcoming.

As an election looms we can expect more of the same. Labor specialises in buying votes. Expect another cash handout to those on welfare before the election and more promises.

Last i heard the government debt was $166 Billion, so would be more now. Must be close to $200 Billion by Christmas. Hey, interest at 5% is only $10 Billion P/A. Not much if you say it quick.

But this government will keep buying votes.

Don't worry that is what the Carbon con (tax) and mining tax are for. Buying votes and other wasted political favors

Pericles,

You have completely missed the point. The chronic disease dental scheme for all its supposed faults helps a lot of people, but is going to be stopped in Nov 2012. The new scheme which has been announced, costed and some details already given is not going to start until July 2014 nearly 2 years from now. There is a period of 19 months where there is no cover whatsoever.

Your comment that it takes time for a government to roll out something is besides the point. The question is why the chronic disease scheme is cancelled before there is a replacement?

As for the actual time of roll out, considering that the government has been planning replacing the CDDS for years, the implementation should take less than a year. However, given that it took the government nearly 4 years to investigate Thomson, it looks as they couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery.

Is the SM saying the people on the two year waiting list as of december will be deleted.
By the time you have chronic mouth disease you have other problems as well.
The govt; never had anything to do with Thomson investigation, it was an orchestrated event by the lib infiltrators.
There will be an election in about 14 months, so you have a lot of sweat to lose yet.

Polite and reasonable as always, Shadow Minister.

>>Pericles, You have completely missed the point.<<

I wonder, have you ever taken time out to consider, in your quietest moments, whether there may be more than one way of looking at a situation? Oh yes, there was that time back in 1968, wasn't there...

But you soon put that setback behind you.

When Tony Abbott set up the chronic disease dental scheme, he planned for it to cost $90m a year. Through a combination of poor process design, massive overservicing and widespread rorting it now costs $80m a month. It is, in other words, a failed scheme.

So, faced with the choice of continuing a failed scheme that was enriching all the wrong people and failing in its objective, or closing it down at the earliest reasonable moment, the government took the obvious decision.

Quite a few people, including dentists and the Department, but excluding the rorters and you - think this was a fairly realistic outcome.

On the topic of the implementation phase, you point out that...

>>...considering that the government has been planning replacing the CDDS for years, the implementation should take less than a year.<<

Less than a year, eh?

I presume you have some experience in this field? Would you care to share your thoughts on the timing of various phases of the roll-out, and how quickly it would happen under a Shadow-Minister-led Department?

AFAIK, Tony Abbott was the Health Minister when the libs cut the
number of doctor training places at universities. We now have
a massive shortage of doctors in Western Australia and are having
to recruit them from places such as Bangaladesh and Nigeria, to
cope. So the question of Tony's judgement is an important one.