An entire future generation of Australians will benefit from a new dental scheme aimed at improving children’s oral health, Greens senator Richard Di Natale says.

As parliamentary debate on Labor’s proposed $4.1 billion scheme got underway on Monday night, Senator Di Natale said it was just the first step towards what he hoped would eventually be a universal dental health system.

Australia used to be a leader in children’s oral health but had slipped to the point where the nation’s young were suffering because of the cost of care, he said.

However, the current reforms would be the biggest in dental health in Australia’s history.

The six-year package includes $2.7 billion for children aged two to 18, $1.3 billion for adults on low incomes and $225 million to expand services in outer metropolitan, regional and remote areas.

“For the first time, Australian families will be able to take out their Medicare card and get dental treatment for their children just like they do at the doctor,” Senator Di Natale told the Senate.

“This focus on children is a good investment of the future dental health of the country.”

The opposition has criticised the changes because they involve closing down a chronic dental disease scheme (CDDS) set up in 2007 by then health minister Tony Abbott, now the opposition leader.

Liberal senator Sean Edwards said the closure will leave thousands of people in pain and unable to get help for 19 months until the new scheme starts for adults.

He dismissed government claims that the scheme helped wealthy Australians receive cosmetic procedures at the taxpayers expense.

“The end of the chronic disease dental scheme would put the health of many older and lower income residents at risk,” he said.

“80 per cent of patients under are concession card holders and they are being left stranded by this government.”

He and fellow Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells also blasted the government scheme as being unfunded.

But Labor’s Senator John Faulkner said the government’s scheme will address the inequalities that had prevented thousands of low-income Australia’s from receiving basic dental care.

“Unfortunately it is true that dental health in this country has been a luxury for the haves, and a dream for the have nots,” he said.

“I am very pleased to speak in support of this important legislation which I believe will make that concern a thing of the past.”

New investment in dental care was one of the main conditions on which the Greens pledged its support for Labor in forming a minority government.

Debate on the Dental Benefits Amendment Bill 2012 has adjourned.