Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate that the minister did make some attempt to answer those questions. I am still curious as to whether she is going to consider a review of the ACFI as part of the Living Longer, Living Better legislative review that Mr David Tune is doing. Hopefully she will be able to answer that.

I also have some questions I want to ask about some statements around mental health. We have had bipartisanship on mental health in the past and the minister made some comments earlier, as did the member for Dunkley, that I certainly agree with about making sure that people who need to access mental health services have an opportunity to do so.

Obviously the minister is very busy with a very broad portfolio. One of the issues she talked about, as did member for Dunkley, was reforming through the PHNs. I am really keen to hear from the minister about how the rollout of reforms is going, particularly around the PHNs and around mental health commissioning. I am concerned that some of the PHNs might not have the expertise or experience in mental health to be able to commission those. I am also concerned of course that there is no gap in existing services to the PHNs commissioning those services. These are vulnerable people with mental health issues out and about in the community, and we want to make sure that that they can access the services that they need at the time that that they need them.

Continuing on with the reforms that are happening, we have the fifth national mental health plan. We know that it is in draft and that it is going out to consultation but the fifth mental health plan, I understand, from COAG will not be signed off on until April 2017 and the last one expired in 2014. So I am a bit curious as to why we have had three years with no agreed national mental health plan. I am also really concerned that after four national mental health plans, we do not know if they actually worked because we did not have any measured outcomes in those first four mental health plans. So I am curious as to whether the draft fifth plan actually will have some measurable outcomes in it rather than just measure activity to see if the reforms that are so critical are making a difference. I think we really need to make sure that whatever we are doing when it comes to mental health—and we are investing, as the minister likes to use the term, 'scarce health dollars'—that we are actually getting results and making a difference to the mental health of the community, so that is really critical.

The National Mental Health Commission talked about a suicide prevention target, which I want to ask the minister about. Labor did say that we would agree to this in the lead-up to the election. The commission recommended a 50 per cent reduction over 10 years. We have not heard from the government about whether or not they support that target or whether the fifth national health has a target for suicide reduction in it. I think we would all agree that one death is too many and we all need to do everything we can given the latest ABS statistics in this area, which are really quite heartbreaking.

There is so much more that needs to occur. I appreciate that mental health is in reform at the moment. There is a lot of reform going on and I ask the minister these questions genuinely. I am genuinely concerned that with some of the programs that exist at the moment and with some of the things that we are doing at the moment, we do not know whether they are working. With the programs at the moment, we need to make sure that the PHNs do have the expertise around mental health, make sure that there is continuity of service as this commissioning occurs, and make sure that existing programs and the people accessing them are not going to be at any risk. I am sure there are transition plans, so I would be really keen to hear what they are.

The one thing that we do argue about with mental health is the dollars. I have also got a question for the minister about the dollars. In the last MYEFO, the government did cut or make savings of $141 million from mental health programs. Then of course there was an election commitment of $192 million over the forwards. I am just wondering whether that $192 million is on top of the health funding before the cut of $141 million or whether it is minus $141 million plus $192 million so therefore an increase overall of $50 million. I am curious as to when the minister says 'effectively new mental health money' whether she means it actually is $192 million on top of where it should have been or whether it is just the $50 million.

I ask the minister these questions around mental health genuinely because it is a bipartisan area and we have been trying to work with the government in this area in the past. I am concerned about vulnerable Australians in this area.

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