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2016
THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
DENTAL BENEFITS AMENDMENT BILL 2016
EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Health, the Hon Sussan Ley MP)
DENTAL BENEFITS AMENDMENT BILL 2016
OUTLINE
This Bill amends the Dental Benefits Act 2008 to close the Child Dental Benefits
Schedule (CDBS) from 30 June 2016, and establish a framework for agreements
between the Commonwealth and the states and territories ("the states") to underpin a
Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme.
The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme will deliver better dental care to public
patients. Both adults on concession cards and all children will be eligible to receive
public dental services under the Scheme.
Under the Scheme the Commonwealth will provide funding to the states to improve
access to public dental services from an ongoing capped special appropriation under
the Dental Benefits Act 2008. Funding will be made available to the states under a
National Partnership Agreement (NPA) to operate from1 July 2016 for an initial five
year period. After the fourth year, the program will be reviewed and the outcome of
the review will inform the policy parameters of the next Agreement.
It is anticipated that this long term certainty of Commonwealth funding will enable
the states to invest in infrastructure and improve dental service provision. The states
will retain the ability to contract with private providers to deliver public dental
services where required.
The Commonwealth contribution under the program will be set at 40 per cent of the
efficient price of provision of dental services. The states will meet the balance of the
costs of service provision. They will continue to manage their waiting lists through
controls such as co-payment arrangements; will determine state-specific eligibility
criteria (subject to the Commonwealth's policy intent that all children will be eligible
for public dental services); and will continue to provide services based on clinical
need.
With the additional funding available, more services will be provided which should
reduce waiting times. It is expected that the Commonwealth funding provided through
the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme will enable the states to treat an additional
600,000 patients annually.
The CDBS will be closed from 30 June 2016 (although benefits will still be paid for
eligible services provided on or before that date). The CDBS has been poorly utilised,
with less than a third of eligible children accessing services since it began in 2014.
Public dental patients are more likely to suffer from decay, tooth loss and gum disease
than the general population. Financially disadvantaged Australians eligible for public
dental services, namely pensioners and concession card holders, have a substantially
reduced ability to access affordable and timely oral health care.
The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme will focus on improving dental services
for all public dental patients, including an increasing focus on preventative dental
care.
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Financial Impact Statement
The Bill establishes a special appropriation to fund payments to the states for the
Child and Adult Dental Scheme. The appropriation is capped at $415.6 million for
2016-17, $415.6 million for 2017-18, and $420.2 million for 2018-19. For 2019-20
and later years the appropriation is indexed by growth in population and the
Consumer Price Index.
Expenditure under the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, which will be closed by the
amendments in the Bill, is estimated at $313.7 million in 2015-16.
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Regulation Impact Statement
Name of proposal: Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme
Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR) ID number: 20127
Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme
Regulation Impact Statement summary
Problem Recommended option
Access to public dental services. Option 2 - Child and Adult Public Dental
Scheme
Poor oral health leads to poorer overall This measure will provide funding to the
health outcomes such as visits to the GP or states and territories to improve access to
emergency department, hospitalisations that public dental services by establishing an
could have been prevented, and ongoing capped special appropriation under
complications for other illnesses. the Dental Benefits Act 2008. Funding will be
made available to the states under a National
Good oral health involves ongoing Partnership Agreement (NPA) to operate
maintenance for life but dental care in from1 July 2016 for an initial five year
Australia can be very expensive. Thirty per period.
cent of adults avoid seeking dental treatment
due to cost. The Commonwealth contribution under the
program will be set at 40 per cent of the
Public dental services face great pressure in efficient price of the dental service, with
providing services to eligible people. states contributing the remaining costs.
The existing Commonwealth funded Child With the additional Commonwealth funding
Dental Benefits Schedule is poorly targeted available, more services will be provided
as children already had good visiting patterns which will have a positive impact on waiting
prior to its commencement. Utilisation has lists.
also been low at around 30 per cent of
eligible children. The intention is that both adults on concession
cards and all children will be eligible to
This proposal closes the Child Dental receive public dental services under the
Benefits Schedule to fund the proposed new program.
Scheme in part. As private dentists will not
have direct access to the new Scheme there The Dental Benefits Act 2008 will be
will be deregulation offsets achieved through amended to close the Child Dental Benefits
the closure of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule and to implement the Child and
Schedule. Adult Public Dental Scheme. The new
scheme will commence on 1 July 2016.
Background
The Government has proposed a new national Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme
to be introduced from 1 July 2016. The Scheme is to be implemented through a new
five year National Partnership Agreement (NPA) that will provide funding to the
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states and territories (the states) to assist them with the delivery of public dental
services to children and concession card holder adults, supported by an ongoing
special appropriation. Funding for the Scheme is offset by ceasing the existing Child
Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS) and from not continuing with the current NPA on
Adult Public Dental Services.
The Commonwealth would pay 40 per cent of the national "efficient" price of dental
services provided or purchased by the states. The high level principles underlying the
Scheme will be set out in a NPA.
The closure of the CDBS and the establishment of the new scheme will require
amendment of the Dental Benefits Act 2008 before 1 July 2016.
Problem Definition
Although Australians' oral health has improved over the past three decades,
largely through the introduction of fluoridation in the 1960s, poor oral health
among adult Australians is still widespread. Across the population as a whole
three out of 10 adults have untreated tooth decay. The rate is more than twice this
among adults on low incomes and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Rural and remote populations are also at greater risk of poor dental health.
Poor oral health leads to poorer overall health outcomes such as visits to the GP
or emergency department and complications for other illnesses. This also leads to
greater costs to the health system.
Good oral health involves ongoing maintenance for life. However, dental care in
Australia can be very expensive. Thirty per cent of adults avoid seeking dental
treatment due to cost.
Public dental services face great pressure in providing services to eligible people.
The CDBS is significantly underutilised, with only around 30 per cent of eligible
children having accessed the scheme. The CDBS is also a poorly targeted use of
Commonwealth funding, in that it is substituting Commonwealth expenditure for
other sources of funding. Before the introduction of the CDBS, around 80 per
cent of children visited a dental practitioner in a 12 month period.
Objective of Government Action
The Scheme will better utilise existing Commonwealth dental funding.
The Scheme will consolidate Commonwealth effort to target funding where it is
most needed, to assist the states to provide more services to children and
concession card holder adults, irrespective of where people reside.
Policy Options
Given the overall fiscal circumstances facing the Commonwealth, the only options
considered were those that did not increase the Commonwealth's fiscal exposure.
Option 1 (Status Quo)
Option Overview
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The current Commonwealth funding arrangements for dental services are provided
through the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS) and the National Partnership
Agreement (NPA) on Adult Public Dental Services. Under the CDBS, eligible
children can receive up to $1,000 worth of dental treatment, capped over two calendar
years. Under the NPA, $155.0 million is being provided to the states and territories
during 2015-16 for the treatment of 178,000 additional public dental patients.
Impacted Parties
state and territory governments; and
private dentists.
Impact Analysis
As these programs are already in place, there will be no change to the regulatory
burden. Under the CDBS, the dentists will continue to be required to obtain financial
consent and to train staff in the processing of claims under the program.
The states are responsible for the delivery of public dental services and would
continue to deliver services to concession card holder adults and children.
Option 2 - Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme
Option Overview
This measure will provide funding to the states and territories to improve access to
public dental services by establishing an ongoing capped special appropriation under
the Dental Benefits Act 2008. Funding will be made available to the states under a
National Partnership Agreement (NPA) to operate from1 July 2016 for an initial five
year period. After the fourth year, the program will be reviewed and the outcome of
the review will inform the policy parameters of the next Agreement.
The Commonwealth contribution under the program will be set at 40 per cent of the
efficient price of the dental service. With the additional funding available, more
services will be provided which should reduce waiting times.
Both adults on concession cards and all children will be eligible to receive public
dental services under the program.
The CDBS will be closed from 30 June 2016 (although benefits will still be paid for
eligible services provided on or before that date).
Impacted Parties
state and territory governments and individuals seeking public dental care; and
private dentists.
Impact Analysis
There will be an impact on state and territory governments which are responsible for
the provision of public dental services, as the amount of Commonwealth assistance
will increase from an estimated $200 million in 2015-16 to over $400 million each
year over the forward estimates. Under this option, the additional Commonwealth
funding will enhance the existing mechanisms in place to provide additional services
with the increase in funding.
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The states will continue to manage their waiting lists through controls such as co-
payment arrangements; will determine state-specific eligibility criteria (subject to the
Commonwealth's policy intent that all children will be eligible for public dental
services); and will continue to provide services based on clinical need.
Low income adults (predominantly concession card holders) who can generally only
afford to receive dental care from public dental services have poor oral health and
poor dental visiting patterns. About half do not attend a dentist annually, and of those
who do about half attend only to address an urgent problem.
Before the National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on Treating More Public Dental
Patients that began in 2012-13 national average waiting times for adults for general
treatment were over two years. The Commonwealth investment under that NPA of
$344 million over three years saw an additional 400,000 average complexity patients
treated and national average waiting times for adults for general treatment reduced
from 20 months to less than one year.
The states achieved this through a range of measures including employing additional
temporary staff, extending opening hours for clinics, and increasing the contracted use
of private sector dentists to deliver services to public dental patients.
Under the new Scheme, which will see a Commonwealth contribution of over
$400 million a year, a sustained ongoing reduction in waiting times should be
achievable. The Commonwealth estimates that services should be available to an
additional 600,000 average complexity patients who could not afford services in the
private sector.
In the short term under the new Scheme it is expected that the states will continue the
range of measures introduced under the NPA to increase service volumes and hence
reduce waiting times. In the medium term the assured source of funding made
available through the special appropriation under the new Scheme should allow them
to expand infrastructure and workforce and reduce their reliance on contracting with
the private sector. The final impact on the distribution of public service provision
between the public and private sectors is uncertain.
The closure of the CDBS is not expected to have a significant impact on private sector
dentists. While the CDBS has been in operation for almost two and a half years, only
thirty per cent of eligible families (or around 750,000 children annually) have made
use of the scheme.
Before the introduction of the CDBS around 80 per cent of children - or about 4.4
million children - visited a dental practitioner annually. This proportion has been
stable for many years.
Of the children who visited a dentist annually before the CDBS began in 2014 some
3.7 million were treated in the private sector using private health insurance or
families' own resources. This strongly suggests that the CDBS simply substituted
Commonwealth funding for other sources of funding for dental services for children.
The Commonwealth expects that closure of the CDBS will see a return to the service
and funding patterns that applied up until the end of 2013.
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Given the low utilisation of the CDBS, the direct financial impact on private sector
dentists is expected to be minimal. The government will continue to subsidise the cost
of private health insurance, which pays benefits for many private sector dental
services, through the private health insurance premium rebate. There will, however,
be a reduction in the regulatory burden on private sector dentists due to the closure of
the CDBS, as set out in Appendix 1.
In summary the new Scheme will more effectively target Commonwealth assistance at
low income adults with poor oral health and poor dental visiting patterns who attend
public dental services.
Consultation
Consultations have taken place with jurisdictions, the Australian Dental Association
(ADA), Consumers' Health Forum (CHF), the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals
Association (AHHA) and Private Healthcare Australia (PHA). While discussions
focused on an alternative public sector model to the option agreed by Government, the
discussions covered principles which were broadly consistent with the new Scheme.
This included discussions on consolidating existing funding arrangements and
developing a new legislatively based proposal to support states in the provision of
public dental services.
Nature of consultation
Teleconferences and face to face meetings were held with the jurisdictions, ADA,
CHF, AHHA and PHA.
Impacted parties
The ADA does not support the exclusion of the private sector from accessing direct
Commonwealth funding. The ADA also seeks further Commonwealth expansion of
items and increased schedule fees under the CDBS.
AHHA was concerned that increasing funding for states would not result in a
universal scheme, and would entrench differences between the states in how services
are provided.
Other groups, including states and territories, were broadly supportive of the proposal.
Preferred Option
The Government's preferred option is option 2.
It considers that providing increased support to the states for public dental services
which provide treatment for low income adults and children is a more effective use of
taxpayers' funds than the CDBS, noting that only 30 per cent of eligible children
utilised the CDBS and 80 per cent of children were already receiving dental treatment
annually before the CDBS began.
By focusing additional resources on improving access for concession card holders and
children, the ongoing NPA will fill a key gap in the dental system. The ongoing
nature of the measure will provide the states with long term funding certainty, which
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will allow for the development of innovative models of care and will stabilize and
improve waiting times.
Implementation
The broader principles of the Scheme will be established under a NPA, which
operates under the Federal Financial Relations framework, with payments based in
statute and paid via the Treasury through a specific purpose payment.
The states will provide information on the services they provide to the Department of
Health, which will calculate the amount of funding payable. The Department will
then recommend that payment be made by the Treasury.
The new Scheme will allow the states to maintain existing private sector arrangements
in place and build on these where necessary.
It is proposed that the CDBS will close on 30 June 2016 and that the Scheme will
commence on 1 July 2016. The closure of the CDBS would be communicated in
writing to eligible patients and dentists by the Department of Human Services.
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RIS Appendix 1
Regulatory Burden and Cost Offset (RBCO) Estimate Table
Average Annual Compliance Costs (from Business as usual)
Change in Costs Community Total change
($m) Business Individuals
Organisations in Cost
Total by Sector -$5.254 $ -$3.671 -$8.925
Cost offset ($m) Community Total by
Business Individuals
Organisations Source
Agency $ $ $ $
Are all new costs offset?
Yes, costs are offset, please provide information below
No, costs are not offset
Deregulatory, no offsets required
Total (Change in costs - Cost offset) ($million): $
The RBM calculations focus on closure of the CDBS. They assume that closing the CDBS
will lead to savings which are exactly equivalent to the regulatory costs associated with
participating in the program.
The costing only relates to private sector regulatory costs: public sector dental services were
excluded. The regulatory costs of participating in the CDBS apply to dental practices and
patients and there are no costs for community organisations.
There is no up-to-date data on the number of private dental practices operating in Australia.
The number of private dental practices involved in the CDBS was estimated using Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) workforce data, advice from the Department's dental
advisers about the structure of the industry and the likely ratio of employed dentists to dental
practices, and departmental data on the number of dentists participating in the program. As of
2012, there were 10,254 employed private dentists in Australia. The calculations assumed the
number of private dental practices in operation is 60% of this figure, i.e. 6152. 88% of dental
practitioners participated in CDBS in 2015. By applying the same percentage to the number
of practices it was calculated that there are 5414 private practices participating in the
program. Public dental services were excluded.
In 2015, 780,150 children utilised the CDBS as private patients which we used as the basis for
calculating the regulatory costs to the individual. Public patients using the program were
excluded.
The key requirement for participating in the CDBS include checking eligibility and cap
balance during dental visits, documenting informed financial consent between the dental
provider and patient, and invoicing either by bulk billing or non-bulk billing methods. The
average amount of time taken for dentists or their staff to perform these procedures was
calculated based on advice from our dental advisers. Salary rates were sourced from
Payscale.com and the standard non-wage labour on-costs multiplier was applied.
As both dentists and patients take part in these processes, similar timings for patients were
applied, less the time for administrative tasks that are only undertaken by dental practices
such as record keeping. The cost of patient time was calculated using the recommended cost
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of leisure time. Additional time for patients who are not bulk billed and need to seek
reimbursement from Medicare via the various claiming channels available was also estimated.
There are no offsets required for the proposed Public Dental Scheme as government-to-
government regulation falls outside the Regulatory Burden Measurement Framework.
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Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights
Prepared in accordance with Part 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny)
Act 2011
DENTAL BENEFITS AMENDMENT BILL 2016
This Bill is compatible with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared in
the international instruments listed in section 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary
Scrutiny) Act 2011.
Overview of the Bill
The Dental Benefits Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 (the Bill) amends the Dental
Benefits Act 2008 ("the Act") to close the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS)
from 30 June 2016, and establish a framework for agreements between the
Commonwealth and the states and territories ("the states") to underpin a Child and
Adult Public Dental Scheme.
The Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme is intended to provide financial assistance
to the states to provide dental services to all children and concession cardholder
adults. The Bill establishes a cap on the amount of financial assistance that will be
provided by the Commonwealth. The terms and conditions for access to the financial
assistance will be set out in agreements with the states. The government intends that
these agreements will be published on the COAG website, as are existing National
Partnership Agreements.
Human rights implications
This Bill engages the following rights:
right to health
right to social security.
Right to health
Article 12(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESR) defines the right to health as "the right to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health."
Whilst the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (the Committee)
has stated that the right to health is not to be understood as a right to be healthy, it
does entail a right to a system of health protection which provides equality of
opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health.
However, the Committee has stated that the notion of 'the highest attainable standard
of health' takes into account both the conditions of the individual and the country's
available resources. The right may be understood as a right of access to a variety of
public health and health care facilities, goods, services, programs and conditions
necessary for the realisation of the highest attainable standard of health.
While the CDBS targets benefits to children in low to medium income families, it
does not provide benefits for adults.
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The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report Oral health and dental
care in Australia: key facts and figures 2015 found that adults have much worse oral
health than children (measured by the number of decayed, filled or missing teeth).
A 2008 AIHW report Oral Health of Adults in the Public Dental Sector found that
public dental patients were far more likely to suffer from decay, tooth loss and gum
disease than the general population. This suggests that financially disadvantaged
Australians eligible for public dental services, namely pensioners and concession card
holders, have a substantially reduced ability to access affordable and timely oral
health care.
Accordingly, the CDBS is not seen by the Government as the best mechanism for
providing Australians with equal opportunity of access to dental care.
The Government intends instead to direct resources for dental services to children and
low income patients who traditionally access public dental services through the states
and territories.
The ICESCR recognises that the right to health may be subject to limitations made for
the purpose of promoting the general welfare of society as a whole. The ICESCR also
recognises that the ability of a government to promote the right to health is affected by
the country's available resources. In this context, governments must assess which
measures are most suitable to address the health needs of population as a whole.
Accordingly, a limitation on a section of the Australian population's access to a
particular health service will be legitimate where the Government:
(i) believes that the service is not well targeted to providing assistance to
those Australians most in financial need; and
(ii) has limited resources and intends to re-direct resources to more appropriate
programs that are more equitably targeted to those financially
disadvantaged Australians in greatest need.
The amendments made by the Bill are for a legitimate objective and are reasonable,
necessary and proportionate, and therefore are compatible with Australia's obligations
with regards to the right to health.
Right to social security
Article 9 of the ICESCR contains the right to social security, including social
insurance. The right requires that a country must, within its maximum available
resources, ensure access to a social security scheme that provides a minimum essential
level of benefits to all individuals and families that will enable them to acquire at least
essential health care. Countries are obliged to demonstrate that every effort has been
made to use all resources that are at their disposal in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of
priority, this minimum obligation.
Further, the Committee has stated that there is a strong presumption that retrogressive
measures taken in relation to the right to social security are prohibited under ICESCR.
In this context, a retrogressive measure would be one taken without adequate
justification that had the effect of reducing existing levels of social security benefits,
or of denying benefits to persons or groups who were previously entitled to them.
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However, it is legitimate for a Government to re-direct its limited resources to
programs which it believes are more effective at meeting the general health needs of
society, particularly the needs of the more disadvantaged members of society. The
closure of the CDBS will enable the Government to focus resources for dental
services targeting not only children, but also adults with low incomes.
It is also relevant that the CDBS has only operated since the beginning of 2014, that
before it began some eighty per cent of children saw a dentist annually, and that less
than a third of eligible children have utilised the scheme. This suggests that the
CDBS has not been an important factor in supporting access to dental services to
children, and that its removal will not be retrogressive.
The state public dental services that will receive increased financial assistance under
the amendments made by the Bill all provide services to children.
The Bill does not impact upon alternative means of support for services through
Commonwealth funded rebates for private health insurance covering dental treatment.
There is no incompatibility with the right engaged because it is for a legitimate
objective and reasonable, necessary and proportionate in the circumstances.
Conclusion
The Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2016 is compatible with human rights because it
advances the protection of human rights by enabling limited resources to be spent
more effectively and to the extent that it may limit human rights, those limitations are
reasonable, necessary and proportionate.
The Hon Sussan Ley MP
Minister for Health
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DENTAL BENEFITS AMENDMENT BILL 2016
NOTES ON CLAUSES
Clause 1 - Short Title
This clause provides that the Bill, once enacted, may be cited as the Dental Benefits
Amendment Act 2016.
Clause 2 - Commencement
This clause provides that the Bill will commence on the day following Royal Assent.
Clause 3 - Schedule(s)
This clause provides that each Act that is specified in a Schedule to this Bill is
amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule concerned, and
any other item has effect according to its terms.
SCHEDULE 1 -- AMENDMENTS
Age Discrimination Act 2004
Item 1 - This item amends the Age Discrimination Act 2004 to provide that it does
not apply to the new Part 1A to be added to the Dental Benefits Act 2008 by Item 5 in
this Schedule.
The Age Discrimination Act already provides that the Act does not apply to section 5
and Part 4 of the Dental Benefits Act. This is because the Act has previously limited
benefits to children. It is expected that agreements with the states to be entered into
under the new Part 1A will provide for services for all children but only concession
cardholder adults.
Dental Benefits Act 2008
Item 2 - This item amends the title of the Act to reflect that it will no longer provide a
framework for dental benefits.
Item 3 - This item replaces the simplified outline of the Act with a new outline
reflecting its main focus on providing financial assistance to states and territories in
relation to dental services.
Item 4 - This item limits the application of the definition of dental service in
section 4 so that the term will have its ordinary meaning in the first sentence in the
outline of the Act in section 3 and in the new Part 1A of the Act.
Item 5 - This item inserts a new Part 1A into the Act. The new Part sets out a
framework for the provision of grants of financial assistance to the states and
territories.
New section 7B sets out a simplified outline of the Part, and section 7C defines
various terms used in the Part.
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Section 7D empowers the Minister, by notifiable instrument, to determine amounts to
be paid to a state by way of financial assistance in relation to dental services provided
on or after 1 July 2016. The Minister must not make a determination unless an
agreement is in place between the Commonwealth and the state as provided for in
section 7E, and in making the determination the Minister must have regard to the
agreement.
Section 7E empowers the Commonwealth to enter into agreements with the states
relating to financial assistance for the provision of dental services. The Government
intends that agreement made under this section will be published on the COAG
website, as are existing National Partnership Agreements.
Section 7F provides that the terms and conditions applying to the grant are those set
out in the agreement, and any other terms and conditions determined by the Minister
by legislative instrument.
The ability for the Minister to set additional terms and conditions is intended as a
reserve power to cover unforeseen circumstances. As any such terms and conditions
will be in a legislative instrument they will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny and
potential disallowance.
Section 7G provides that financial assistance is subject to a cap. The cap for the first
three years is set as:
2016-17 $415,616,000
2017-18 $415,632,000
2018-19 $420,224,000
For 2019-20 and later years the cap will be calculated as the previous year's cap
multiplied by an indexation factor and a population factor.
The cap for a financial year applies to the amount payable in respect of services
rendered in that financial year, but does not limit the amount to be paid during that
financial year. If the terms of a section 7E agreement involve the calculation of
payments based on activity during a financial year, and that activity is not reported
until a later financial year, payments can still be made in that later financial year (as
long as the cap for the first year has not been reached).
Section 7H sets out the calculation of the indexation factor by reference to the ratio
between the ABS CPI index number for the twelve months to December preceding the
financial year, and the ABS CPI index number for the preceding twelve months.
Section 7J sets out the population factor by reference to the growth in the estimated
resident population in the twelve months to December preceding the financial year.
This figure is published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its quarterly
publication 3101.0 - Australian Demographic Statistics.
Indexation under sections 7H and 7J by reference to a period ending before the
financial year will allow the cap on financial assistance to be determined before the
financial year begins, thus allowing certainty for state governments in planning the
provision of public dental services.
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Section 7K creates a special appropriation for the purpose of making the grants under
section 7D.
Section 7L requires the Minister to commission an independent review of the
operation of the Part to be conducted before the end of 2020, and sets out the
composition of the panel to conduct the review. The report of the review must be
tabled in the Parliament within 15 sitting days of its provision to the Minister.
This provision mirrors the existing section 68 of the Act (to be repealed by Item 27),
except that it is a once-off rather than a recurring triennial review. The government
will continue to monitor the operation of the Act, and does not consider triennial
statutory reviews to be necessary.
Items 6 and 7 - These items amend the heading and simplified outline of Part 2 of the
Act to make it clear that the Part establishes an entitlement to dental benefits only for
services rendered before 1 July 2016.
Item 8 - This item amends subsection 9(1) to provide that dental benefits are only
payable in respect of services rendered before 1 July 2016.
Items 9 and 10 - These items amend the heading and simplified outline of Part 3 of
the Act to make it clear that the Part deals with the payment of dental benefits only for
services rendered before 1 July 2016.
Item 11 - This item amends subsection11(1) to provide that dental benefits are only
payable in respect of services rendered before 1 July 2016.
Items 12 and 13 - These items amend section 20B, dealing with directions by the
Minister to practitioners who are wholly or partly disqualified from providing dental
services to refrains from providing services. Item 12 amends subsection 20B(1) to
provide that directions can only be provided before 1 July 2016, and Item 13 inserts a
new subsection 20B(3A) to provide for the revocation of any directions at the end of
30 June 2016.
Items 14 and 15 - These items amend section 20D, dealing with directions by the
Minister to practitioners who are wholly or partly disqualified from providing dental
services to display notices of disqualification. Item 14 amends subsection 20D(1) to
provide that directions can only be provided before 1 July 2016, and Item 15 inserts a
new subsection 20D(4A) to provide for the revocation of any directions at the end of
30 June 2016.
Items 16 to 18 - These items amend the heading and simplified outline of Part 4 of
the Act to make it clear that the Part does not require vouchers to be issued after
1 July 2016, and that any vouchers issued for 2016 cease to have effect at the end of
30 June 2016.
Item 19 - This item inserts a new section 22A providing that a reference to a calendar
year in Part 4 does not include a calendar year after 2016.
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Item 20 - This item amends section 27 to insert new subsection 27(2A) providing that
a voucher must not be issued after 30 June 2016.
Items 21 to 23 - These items amend the heading of section 31, and include a new
subsection 31(2) providing that a voucher issued for the 2016 calendar year ceases to
have effect at the end of 30 June 2016.
Item 24 - This item amends section 34, to provide that protected information does not
include information obtained by a person performing duties or functions or exercising
powers under new Part 1A of the Act. Under Part 1A information will only relate to
the affairs of states, not individuals.
Item 26 - This item amends the simplified outline of Part 6 to make it clear that
Division 4 does not deal with recovery of amounts paid under new Part 1A.
Item 25 - This item amends the heading of Division 4 of Part 6 to make it clear that
the Division does not deal with recovery of amounts paid under new Part 1A.
Item 27 - This item repeals section 68, dealing with the review of the Act. Item 5
inserts a new section 7L requiring a review of the new Part 1A of the Act by the end
of 2020.
Human Services (Medicare) Act 1973
Item 28 - This item amends the definition of dental service in subsection 3A(3) to
align it with the definition in the Dental Benefits Act as amended by Item 4 in this
schedule.
Item 29 - This item amends section 41G to provide that services, benefits, programs
or facilities provided under new Part 1A of the Dental Benefits Act are not "medicare
programs".
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