Turnbull government cuts to dental services announced just days out from Christmas may be short-lived with the crucial Nick Xenophon bloc "seriously considering" joining forces with Labor and the Greens to disallow it in the Senate.
It's feared hundreds of thousands of Australians will miss out on dental care after the government slashed funding for adult dental services, providing $97 million per year to the states and territories under the national partnership agreement, compared with the $155 million provided in 2015/16.
Three million children eligible for $1000 every two years under the child dental benefits schedule will now only receive $700 under the changes announced by Health Minister Sussan Ley on Thursday, which are due to come into effect from January 1.
States and territories have been given two weeks' notice of the cuts, following months of uncertainty about what would happen when existing arrangements expired on December 31.
It's a move worthy of Scrooge, Senator Xenophon said.
"It's a mean and tricky move at this time of year," he told AAP on Friday.
"If it was done a few weeks earlier, it would've been subject to a disallowance."
Labor, the Greens and crossbencher Jacqui Lambie will move to disallow the changes when parliament returns in February.
If Senator Xenophon's bloc of three back the move, the changes will be overturned.
Senator Xenophon says he's "seriously considering" it.
Fellow crossbencher Derryn Hinch told AAP he wasn't happy with any scheme that took kids' dental health backwards but will have a look at the proposals before making a decision.
The federal government announced in April it would scrap both the child dental benefits schedule and the national partnership agreement for adult dental, instead providing $1.7 billion over four years for a new scheme that was widely criticised as inadequate.
That proposal was scrapped after several states rejected it.
Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick said the new arrangement amounts to a 75 per cent funding cut for the state, while Victoria said it will mean 26,000 adults miss out on dental care each year.
"Maybe the significant cut to funding for our state is why Sussan Ley was too embarrassed to pick up the phone and tell the Queensland government before she made the announcement," Mr Dick said.
"This sort of cut would even make the failed former federal treasurer Joe Hockey blush."
The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association said public dental services would be severely compromised, with 338,000 people losing access to public dental services from next year.
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