Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. With today being the inaugural headspace day, would the minister update the House on the important work this organisation does, and reaffirm the Turnbull government's commitment to youth mental health services?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

   (—) (): I thank the member for Dunkley for his question and congratulate him on an outstanding start as the member for Dunkley, including his strong representations to me about MRI, palliative care and indeed headspace.

It was actually the coalition government that established headspace 10 years ago, when Prime Minister Howard and the member for Sturt had a vision to provide a much needed service on the ground to young people aged between 15 and 25. Ten years on the Prime Minister and I and many, if not all, members in this place have not lost sight of that vision. That is why we continue to make the commitment that we do to headspace.

It is vital for young people to know that there is a door through which they can go that will never be the wrong door. That is the philosophy on which headspace is built. We know that three-quarters of all those who suffer from mental ill health are under the age of 25; we know that young people are overrepresented in the suicide statistics; and we know that those trends are increasing. We are therefore absolutely committed to the reforms in mental health, some of which I outlined yesterday.

We will guarantee funding for 10 new headspace centres, bringing the total to 110, a really solid foundation from the 30 that were announced 10 years ago. We are driving a national approach to suicide prevention, through 12 regional trials. And we are continuing funding for six early psychosis youth services, because we know there are 160,000 young people with severe psychoses or mental illnesses and it is important that we do the very best we can by them. We are promoting and supporting a more sustainable and flexible mental health nursing workforce, because the role of mental health nurses in primary care and in headspace is incredibly well recognised. I do want to give a shout-out to nurses for what they do across the spectrum in health care.

I want to make an important point about mental health spending, because the spend the government makes on mental health is a subset of the spend it makes in the entire health portfolio. Only by managing sensible, measured, sustainable health policy are we able to make the announcements we made during the campaign about mental health, and are we able to add $192 million of, effectively, new funding to support some of the initiatives I have mentioned: a healthier Medicare; a Medical Research Future Fund, including research into youth mental health; and access to new medicines. These are all part of this government's commitment. There are tough decisions to make and we do not walk away from those tough decisions, because we do not yet want any young person not to have the right door to walk through in the future.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the Prime Minister.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—Oh, come on!

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat for a second.

Mr Shorten interjecting—

I heard the interjection of the Leader of the Opposition. It is quite disorderly. If he refers to 'Practice' the Prime Minister can end question time at any time and those rules have existed for longer than both the football teams we support! It is very well written up. The Prime Minister has the call.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the notice paper.