Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too thank the member for Fisher for bringing this motion forward. Interestingly, this motion actually covers two distinct topics—mental health and aged care. Both of these are critically important issues that should be spoken about far more openly and broadly in our community. Addressing mental health is everybody's responsibility. Everybody in the community has a role to play in ensuring that we live in societies that are flourishing and where everybody has the opportunity for strong mental health. Before being elected to this parliament, I was the CEO of two community managed organisations. One was a mental health specialist disability employment service—in OECD rankings, Australia has an appalling record of getting work for people with mental health conditions and people with disabilities—and the other focused on social inclusion and community inclusion for people living with a range of mental health conditions.

I think it's fair to also mention at this point in time that, when we talk about our First Nations countries, we don't talk about mental health; we talk about social and emotional wellbeing. I think we need to be very mindful of that. Living in a multicultural country brings very different views for many communities about how we work with and support people living with mental health issues.

Mental health is certainly one of my passions, and I used my years of experience and dedication at the local, state and federal level to raise awareness and to ensure that the funding being put into the sector by governments was appropriate, timely and met the needs of individual communities. I can assure you that, during my time in the sector, the government that best supported mental health was the Labor government. It was Labor that actually gave us our first minister for mental health, and significant investment was made in that sector. It was a Labor government that focused on working with people and creating opportunities for peer support programs for people with lived experience, who have a vital role to play in being actively engaged and employed in the sector. Labor has a very proud record of delivering long-term mental health reform, as I have said.

Recently, in the by-election in Braddon, the Shorten Labor government announced that we would fund a new headspace for Burnie—a critical early intervention service that will assist young people between the ages of 12 and 25. In government, Labor increased funding for mental health by 357 per cent to approximately $2.4 billion from 2011-12 to 2014-15, compared to the $516 million provided in the four years from 2004-05 to 2007-08. It was a significant increase. Labor invested around $200 million over five years to fund an additional 30 new headspace centres, bringing the total number of centres to 90 in 2016. Labor also expanded the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre services that are delivered by headspace. They are vital services.

At the 2016 election, Labor's mental health policy had a strong focus on suicide prevention. I'm very pleased to say that we have a trial site in my electorate of Herbert that is focusing on veterans and their families. Our 2016 election commitments included the National Mental Health Commission's recommendation to reduce suicide by 50 per cent over 10 years—a significant target and one well worth working towards. Labor have encouraged the Turnbull government to accept this target but, as yet, that has not happened. Our policy was also to roll out 12 suicide prevention trial sites across the nation. We are very pleased the Turnbull government has since adopted Labor's policy on this very important issue.

We have also been pressuring the government to ensure that those Australians living with mental ill health who are not eligible for the NDIS receive continuity of care. This is proving to be a major problem. I am receiving at least two or three visits every three or four days about people with mental health conditions who are missing out. I would also like to say that mental health support should go from birth to death. We cannot safely assume that people in aged-care facilities don't need mental health support. They do. I urge the government to focus on that as well.

See this speech in context