Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House of progress in delivering the government’s mental health initiatives, particularly in Queensland? How can groups in my community benefit from these initiatives?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. I acknowledge his long-term passionate advocacy in this area and his advocacy on behalf of the Mental Illness Fellowship North Queensland and, in particular, its members working in his area. As the Prime Minister announced earlier this year and as was confirmed in the budget, this government will spend an additional $1.9 billion to boost mental health services over the next five years. This includes, amongst other things, about $800 million for psychologists consultations and mental health nurse services that should benefit up to 71,000 patients a year. The details are still being worked out in consultation with the relevant professional bodies, but the delivery will resemble current referred and ‘for and on behalf of’ services and services currently provided under the Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care program—which I should inform the House will be retained and expanded. I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing for the good work he has done in developing this important package of measures.

The government is also spending $130 million to train an additional 400 mental health nurses and an additional 120 clinical psychologists a year. There will be $370 million to help mental health patients to gain work and also to provide 650 new respite places for the families of mental health patients.

I think this demonstrates that the Howard government has certainly lived up to its responsibilities in this area. I can inform the House that so far the New South Wales government has committed an additional $420 million, the Victorian government $170 million, and the Western Australian government $47 million to improving mental health services. We would like to see some additional commitment from those governments but we would like to see some commitment to start with from the Queensland, the South Australian and the Tasmanian governments. I think, given what the federal government has done, the Australian people have a right to expect commensurate commitment from each of the states.