Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday, I was proud to host the launch of Australians for Mental Health and a forum on youth mental health at Village Cinemas at Westfield, Fountain Gate. This event was attended by nearly 200 people. This event would not have occurred without the support of Kirk Edwards, CEO of Village Cinemas Australia, and the wonderful staff of Village Cinemas at Fountain Gate. They provided a beautiful Vmax cinema upon request, for no charge, to benefit the community. And they provided extensive support before and during the day. I also wish to thank Leanne Petrides, Executive Officer at the Cranbourne Information Support Service, for her impressive work in emceeing this event and her appreciation of the sensitivities that occur when holding a youth mental health forum. She did a wonderful job.

This forum and launch occurred because of the strength, tenacity and desire of our young people in the City of Casey. So often young men and women in our region read about themselves in a negative light. Rarely do they hear about the great work that is being done by young men and women like Dani Rothwell, Alycia Kiehne, Jake Downward, Amanda Carron and others. These young people have, literally, started a national conversation and a movement. They have started a campaign which is empowering our youth in local and national efforts to reduce the risk of youth depression and other mental health issues in our community.

Since our local summit on youth suicide in 2012, collectively we have been responsible for ensuring that there was a headspace built in Dandenong and a new headspace—which will be up and running by the end of the year—in the Fountain Gate precinct. Additionally, there will be an early psychosis prevention centre rolled out in both of those locations shortly. But we know that there is much, much more to be done, both locally and nationally, to ensure that mental health services are available to all Australians.

At our forum, we were proud to partner again with Professor Patrick McGorry from Orygen Youth Health, who launched Australians for Mental Health. Australians for Mental Health is a new mental health advocacy group and is a campaign similar to GetUp! This innovative advocacy campaign, if successful, will change the face of mental health funding in this country and will reduce the stigma that still clings to discussion about mental health in our community. Australians for Mental Health has several goals that include having the voices of Australians affected by mental ill-health heard and responded to; mental health care having equal access to care, and equal quality of care as physical health care by 2020, through transformational reform and investment; a reduction in the suicide toll to 75 per cent of its current rate by 2016, and 50 per cent of its current rate by 2020; an increase in annual funding for mental health to 10 per cent of the total health budget by 2016, and to 13 per cent by 2024; improved access to mental health care from a level of 40 per cent in 2008 to 60 per cent in 2016 and to 80 per cent by 2020.

Australians for Mental Health is headed by Professor Patrick McGorry , who, at the forum, noted that mental illness poses, by far, the greatest threat amongst all noncommunicable diseases to health, happiness and economic productivity. He said, 'We want to encourage the community to make its voice heard on the need for mental health across the whole lifespan.' We know that, after the game-changing Burdekin r eport , mental health treatment devolved from being treated primarily in institutions to being treated in the community. But we also know that mental health service providers have never been appropriately funded by any government to provide that service to the community.

We know that, in Australia, governments spend around seven per cent of their health budgets on mental health, when other comparable First World countries spend up to 14 per cent. We also know that we continue to underfund mental health research in this country even though we have some the best mental health researchers in the world. I believe that the discussion started by our young people in the City of Casey, and the launch of Australians for Mental Health, will be a game changer. I believe that, due to the efforts of Professor McGorry over many years, and so many others in the mental health profession, mental health—its funding, its discussion, its treatment and its prevention services—will truly have its day.

I want to thank our principal partners for the event—they included headspace, Orygen Youth Health and the south-eastern Melbourne Medicare Local—for their support. And I want to thank the people from the City of Casey who attended the forum. But primarily I want to thank and acknowledge those young people and the people who sat in the audience—many who had been affected by the profound loss occasioned by suicide. They have decided to transform their grief into advocacy and illuminating the need for prevention and treatment services for young people in our community.

I admire the bravery of many of the people speaking in that audience and I admired their commitment. We have to make sure, as Professor McGorry said, that the discussion about adequate services and treatment for mental health and illness in this country has its day. (Time expired)