While Australia’s Health Ministers have received some praise for making progress on oral health reform, policy analyst Charles Maskell-Knight PSM says recent statements suggest they are just “kicking the can down the road”, and delaying meaningful action.
Charles Maskell-Knight writes:
At their meeting on 4 September, Health Ministers “agreed to establish a National Oral Health and Dental Reform Senior Officials Group to progress dental health reform as a national priority”.
The Australian Dental Association (ADA) described the decision as “a major advocacy win”.
ADA President Dr Chris Sanzaro said “this is a significant moment for oral health in Australia”.
“For too long, dental has sat outside the national health reform conversation, even though it’s one of the most common reasons people avoid care because of cost,” Sanzaro said.
“The establishment of this Senior Officials Group shows Government is finally treating dental as the national priority it should be, and the ADA will be at the table making sure the plan delivers real change.”
I hate to break it to the ADA, but we have been here before. I have an overwhelming sense of deja-vu.
Some recent history
Over two years ago, in July 2024 the Government responded to the report of the Senate Select Committee into the Provision of and Access to Dental Services in Australia, tabled in November 2023.
In its response the Government said a “National Dental Reform Oversight Group [established by the Health Chief Executive Forum] would develop reform options for sustainable and longer-term funding arrangements that better meet the needs of the communities across Australia, particularly those of Older Australians and First Nations people. These options will be presented to Health Ministers for their consideration during 2024.”
While preparing an article on dental policy reform for Croakey in November 2025, I asked the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing a series of questions including:
- Did the National Dental Reform Oversight Group complete its work and present options to Health Ministers during 2024?
- If so, what were the options? how did Health Ministers respond? what will happen next?
I was told: “The Dental Reform Oversight Group developed preliminary options on long-term dental reform in 2024. These options are scheduled to be considered by Health Ministers.”
Just remember, this response was provided in November 2025, at which point Health Ministers had already met three times during the year and failed to consider the options.
And here we are, almost two years after reform options were due to be presented to them, with Health Ministers agreeing to yet another process “to progress dental health reform”.
They must be channelling the revised ALP platform, which was amended in July to include a commitment to “developing a roadmap towards improved access to dental services, prioritising those with the greatest need”.
In other words, kicking the can down the road.
Crack the whip
Australians deserve better than this.
And even if the case for equity and universal access to a basic level of health care does not win support from a purportedly democratic socialist Government, there is a strong economic case for action.
As I wrote last year, if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is serious about reducing growth in public hospital activity and Treasurer Jim Chalmers really wants to improve productivity, they could begin by addressing poor dental health as a major source of preventable hospitalisation and illness.
While we wait for senior officials to do whatever they need to do to provide advice to Ministers, the average waiting time for an appointment in public dental services is about a year in most states.
Rather than patting itself on the back for its success in getting yet another bureaucratic process established, the ADA should be cracking the whip on the Government to deliver real reform in this term of office.
Author details
Charles Maskell-Knight PSM was a senior public servant in the Commonwealth Department of Health for over 25 years before retiring in 2021. He worked as a senior adviser to the Aged Care Royal Commission in 2019-20. He is a member of Croakey Health Media, and provides the weekly column, The Zap, as a probono service to our readers. Follow on X/Twitter at @CharlesAndrewMK, and on Bluesky at: @charlesmk.bsky.social.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on oral health
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