Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is responding to the day’s events and says:

If the leaders really want about things that are going to cut the cost-of-living pressures for families and to deliver genuine structural reform in terms of cost-of-living pressures, putting dental into Medicare is one of the best things they can do. That should be on the table for debate between the Leader of the Opposition and the prime minister tonight. And of course, so should claim action and the environment.

This debate was really about the future of this country, the future of the planet, and what type of community and society we are going to have next election, the Greens leader Adam Bandt should be on the podium being able to debate these topics toe to toe with the leaders of the other parties. I fear that there will be very little said about club action or the environment or indeed putting dental into Medicare tonight but we will wait with baited breath. Back on the issue of recession for one moment. In the midst of this looming global crisis, the last thing we want to see is cuts to public services. This is not the time to cut public services and to take the chainsaw to public services. The only thing that should be cut is interest rates. That is why we need RBA to do its job and we need to be very, very fearful of trusting anything that Peter Dutton says when it comes to services and public service jobs. I think that is it.

Of course the first question is ‘is it affordable?”

Everything is affordable if a government chooses to make it a priority.