Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today on the motion moved by the member for Fisher. In doing so, I would like to congratulate him and thank him very much for his advocacy in this parliament for mental health issues. I know that he has a deep, abiding and bipartisan approach to this. I congratulate him for this motion. I also want to take the opportunity to highlight the dire need for us to adequately establish and fund mental health services. I think that this is very much not a partisan-political issue.

I have been involved in mental health issues with children and adolescents for many, many years. I was very saddened in the last few weeks to meet with the mother of one of my old patients Liam, who, unfortunately, took his own life a couple of weeks ago. I remember him as a lovely boy, full of life, full of energy and really having a lot to offer our community. Unfortunately, because of mental health issues, he began to self-medicate. As an adolescent and young adult, he had multiple admissions to hospitals in many different places and, ultimately, as I said, he took his own life. I wish and want us to do things better. I know that we can.

I do congratulate the government on its recent additions to mental health funding, but I see this from a slightly different perspective. It's not all about funding, it's not all about money. It's about the coordination of services, it's about all of us taking responsibility. There is not a family in this country that hasn't been affected by mental health issues. I know that we can do things better.

My own profession has to take some responsibility in this area. Pat McGorry, an Australian of the Year, has done a lot to establish mental health services. But, unfortunately, I do believe my profession has not done the right thing in many areas to provide ongoing and consistent mental health services for all Australians. By example, I know that there are many psychiatrists in the capital cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth—but there are very few practising psychiatrists in rural and regional areas. There are very few psychiatrists who do outreach clinics in rural and regional areas. I think that my own profession has to really take a good, hard look at itself in this regard.

I also know that there are very poorly coordinated services. Headspace is a good service for adolescents with mental health issues, but headspace's resources vary very much from place to place. We could certainly be doing better.

I also strongly believe that there needs to be much better coordination between inpatient and outpatient services. There is very little in the way of good ongoing case management for some of the most disadvantaged. I see this every day when I walk through the railway tunnel that connects Campbelltown railway station to the main street of Campbelltown. I see many people sleeping rough, many of whom I have treated as children or adolescents, who have mental health issues. They have very poor case management. It's not unusual for a person admitted to hospital for many different mental health issues to come into hospital under one psychiatrist and be discharged to be cared for by another mental health team who are not connected to the hospital mental health team and so on and so forth. So there's no continuity of care.

So yes, we should have funding, but we need coordinated care and funding of that care. A lot of what the government has done has been good in this—providing connections between headspace, psychologists and psychiatrists—but we could do a lot better. To me, this issue is not necessarily one of funding, but of coordination of care. I do strongly believe that, with all of us working together, we can do much, much better. Once again, I congratulate the member for Fisher for this motion. I completely support him, and I congratulate any positive moves by the government. (Time expired)

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