Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Reid, who has had a professional commitment and a personal commitment to the mental health of Australians throughout her entire adult life. This budget invests in essential services on a variety of fronts within the health space. We see a $6 billion investment in Medicare over and above that which was there—an increase. We go from $30 billion to $31 billion to $32 billion to $33 billion per annum over the course of the budget. In aged care a $17.7 billion increase will take aged care from $26 billion to $29 billion to $31 billion to $33 billion, almost as much as Medicare, over the course of the final year of the forward estimates.

But one of the most important investments is in mental health. Every single person in this chamber is interested in mental health, as a member for parliament but also as a mother or a father, as a son or a daughter, as a friend or as somebody within their community. We all know the challenges and the ravages of mental health. We saw predictions of catastrophic outcomes in terms of suicide last year. From the latest advice I have, thankfully we have been spared that.

But there's still so much more to do on suicide prevention. In mental health, we're investing $2.3 billion. To sit around the budget cabinet table with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, for whom this was an equal passion, was a great privilege, and to see that we've been able to invest in the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, which is transformative, is extraordinarily important. It will have five pillars. It will see $250 million going to prevention and early intervention for resilience for all Australians, but particularly young Australians; $350 million going to suicide prevention; $1.4 billion into treatment, for a new national network of treatment centres for adults, for youth and for children, and the Head to Health program, which will stand alongside the headspace program; $100 million for vulnerable Australians, with a particular focus on our Indigenous communities; and $200 million for workforce and governance.

But, in particular, with regard to suicide prevention, the Prime Minister said to me and to Christine Morgan, 'What's the single thing that will save the most lives?' and Christine Morgan said, as a result of her work, 'Universal aftercare.' That means, for every person who has attempted suicide and has been discharged, having the capacity to have a program that will follow them. There is $158 million for a universal aftercare program. It's something that has been summarised very simply by Suicide Prevention Australia. The head of Suicide Prevention Australia, Nieves Murray, said 'the additional investment in services to support people who have survived a suicide attempt will save lives'. There couldn't be a more important investment.

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