Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Werriwa for bringing this motion to the House, but I do find it quite extraordinary that those opposite, on the government benches, are singing their own praises about fair and accessible Medicare, when over the Christmas break we saw an extraordinary cut to Medicare when it comes to mental health. Perhaps those opposite haven't been keeping up to date with what's been going on within their own government. The Minister for Health and Aged Care cut access to Medicare for thousands of people. Over a million mental health sessions have been held since the coalition government doubled the accessibility of mental health sessions during the pandemic, from 10 to 20. It is quite extraordinary that the minister for health cut those sessions, when we certainly are not on the other side of the pandemic. In fact, today many people are very much struggling with their mental health when it comes to COVID-19.

This cut was made over the Christmas period, when so many people really struggle with their mental health. Not only was it a poorly timed cut to mental health sessions; it was a pretty heartless cut. Psychologists contacted me from right across this country really concerned about the mental health of their patients, because those patients were saying, 'We don't know what to do, because we need those sessions.' I had mothers write to me saying that, because their children had been able to access the 20 sessions, they were now interacting with other children in the schoolyard, and they had more confidence to go out and about. And those mothers could not afford to pay for any more.

This is what we're left with: a heartless cut over Christmas, during a pandemic, when people are suffering the most. They're not only suffering with the pandemic; they're suffering through the cumulative impacts of multiple disasters—floods and fires. I've stood with people when they've lost everything due to floods, when their homes are no longer standing, when they are trying to pick up their lives. They were suffering with trauma. They were suffering with mental health problems because of the cumulative impacts of these disasters.

Many people asked the health minister to reverse these cuts. Psychologists across the country called for it. In fact, the minister promised he would hold a roundtable with stakeholders to come up with a better solution. So we waited in hope. But that roundtable did not produce a reinstatement of what had been cut. In fact, just days after, the minister released a report from his Strengthening Medicare Taskforce. This report, which looked into the state of Medicare and provided recommendations to improve Medicare in this country, barely mentioned mental health at all. It certainly did not prioritise the mental health of people in this country. The Medicare report did not mention mental health, yet 70 per cent of GPs across this country say that one of the top three reasons people come in and see them is for mental health issues. So it is extraordinary that we have a cut to Medicare mental health sessions, and now the Medicare report does not even mention mental health. Perhaps that's because the minister did not have one mental health professional on his Strengthening Medicare Taskforce—not one. It is extraordinary, when we have a mental health crisis in this country, that the minister has cut the mental health sessions from 20 to 10, he has not mentioned mental health in the Medicare report and he did not have one mental health representative on his task force.

What is this telling the Australian people? It is telling them that their minister for health is not listening and, worse, he is possibly not caring. When we have multiple disasters, when we are still in the midst of a pandemic, when we have young people struggling with being locked up through COVID, when we have a mental health crisis, this government is not listening. This government needs to start taking the mental health of Australians a lot more seriously.

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