Greens leader Adam Bandt has acknowledged that any plan to incorporate dental care into Medicare would need to be phased in over time due to workforce limitations and gradual uptake by patients.
The Greens have made free dental one of their headline policies this election, featuring oversized tooth props at press events and even turning Bandt’s Instagram profile picture into an image of his face superimposed onto a tooth.
He has said it will be a key policy they will push Labor on in the event of a minority government after the May 3 poll.
But when questioned on the feasibility of the policy on ABC Insiders on Easter Sunday, which has been costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office at $45 billion, Mr Bandt confirmed the Greens expect a gradual rollout.
“In that costing… that’s basically what they’ve said would happen,” he told ABC’s Insiders host David Speers.
“It would take a while, based on international experience and based on their modeling, as people found out about the scheme, utilisation stepped up. So it would, in fact, slowly step up.”
The policy has raised concerns about the whopping cost to taxpayers and whether there are enough dentists available to meet a surge in demand.
Mr Bandt said while access may be a challenge in some areas, action was needed as the main barrier for Australians getting the care they need was still affordability.
“We know the main reason that people are avoiding going and seeing the dentist at the moment is cost,” he said.
“Now there will be some areas, of course, where it might be difficult to find a dentist, but the main reason is cost.
“In a wealthy country like ours, we think that people should be able to… afford to go and see the dentist.
“And one of the key messages that came back from that was that people were not choosing dentistry because of the massive debts they’d be left with, and we want to fix that as well with free education.”
Mr Bandt added that part of the Greens’ long-term vision involves growing the dental workforce by making education more accessible.
“We conducted a Senate inquiry into this that looked at things including the workforce,” he said.