Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The past 18 months have placed an enormous stress on our community, and young people have experienced a unique loss in the pandemic years. Too many have missed out on what should be formative experiences and vital opportunities to develop. It's no wonder then that many of them are struggling with their mental health. Most of us have seen this anecdotally, but the evidence backs it up as well. Researchers at the Australian National University released a report on youth mental health that found that 71 per cent of parents had observed worsening mental health conditions in their family. According to the Black Dog Institute, the rates of psychological distress in young people jumped from one in five in 2012 to over a quarter in 2020. Thankfully, the rates of suicide have fallen over that particular period, but we still know that suicide is the leading cause of death among Australians aged 15 to 24 years old. For our young people, the decision to access mental health care is fragile, and, if they don't have a positive experience, they may not make another attempt to seek help. Youth-friendly mental health services aren't available uniformly to young people. That's why we need to provide targeted, sensitive and effective mental health support for young Australians now more than ever.

Over the past decade we have had an overdue revolution in our understanding of mental health. It's now time we backed that up with actual resources, including in our schools. And that's why we have been calling on the Morrison-Joyce government to increase mental health services and support for young people across all stages of ill health. We also need to focus on building the youth mental health workforce to meet the current and future needs of our young Australians. The recent announcement of a world-first national mental health and wellbeing strategy for Australian children is welcome and desperately needed. But the government has taken far too long to get there. We welcome the plan to tackle mental health issues as young Australians battle through this difficult period. Early intervention as well as the extra funds for support services like Head to Health are welcome initiatives. But it's long overdue. The strategy was in the works well before COVID and should have been implemented much sooner. There's an urgent need to support the mental health and wellbeing of Australian children, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

This plan also fails to embrace and to consider the impact that climate change is having on children's mental health. Australian children are especially vulnerable to anxiety, sleep disorders and a sense of hopelessness because of this government's lack of action and lack of commitment or positive language about taking a positive approach to climate change and investing in renewable energy. Australian children see what happens on the news every night, and when you have someone like the Deputy Prime Minister out there arguing on a constant basis that we don't need to take action on climate change and that there's not a problem, when children know that there is, makes them feel even more anxious and hopeless. There's no consideration of that in the national strategy.

There also needs to be a greater focus on services in the middle, if you like. There's great support for acute mental health services. If you're having a desperate mental health episode, you will be hospitalised and acute services will be available. There are entry-level services, but it's the services in the middle that are vitally important, particularly if someone is young and they are admitted to hospital during a mental health episode. After they're discharged there's very little in the way of follow-up and support in that interim period to get them through. That is the area the government needs to be concentrating on and investing in.

Students are now starting to head back to the classrooms after another lengthy lockdown and it's now more important than ever that they have access to mental health services, particularly those from poorer families. They're going to come back to school maybe not having access to the internet and maybe not having access to catch-up strategies that other students would have had, and they'll feel desperate and they'll feel left behind. That's why it's important that we cater for them and make sure that they have access to the services that they need.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for her motion giving us the important opportunity to speak about such an incredibly vital issue, but I simply can't agree with her characterisation of the situation. Though there is more work to be done—I'll readily accept that—the Morrison government and this minister for health have made mental health, and particularly young people's mental health, a great national priority, perhaps more so than any other previous federal government. The government is investing $6½ billion this year in mental health support, more than double what was being spent in 2013. This government has doubled the number of Medicare-subsidised psychological services available to 20, introduced publicly funded telehealth, improved access to these services in regional areas, and increased funding significantly to Lifeline, Beyond Blue and Kids Helpline. For headspace alone, we're delivering an extra $278.6 million to increase the number of services to 164. Many of these new centres are already opening around the country. This government's commitment to youth mental health and suicide prevention has helped to make my own community in Fisher a national and, indeed, world leader in this field. The government has invested $3.2 million in a trial to pilot a new approach to treating eating disorders through our local Primary Health Network. It's provided more than $6 million to endED and the Butterfly Foundation to construct Australia's first ever residential eating disorder facility, operated by the Butterfly Foundation, called Wandi Nerida.

This government has also invested $7½ million in specific programs on suicide prevention and youth mental health at the University of the Sunshine Coast Thompson Institute, led by Professor Jim Lagopoulos. The results of that investment in my own community, and its world-leading expertise, have been unmatched around the country. Thanks to this funding and the hard work of Jim Lagopoulos's team, between 2018 and 2020 the Thompson Institute published 14 book chapters and more than 150 different peer reviewed journal articles filled with world-first research. Its groundbreaking publications about young people's mental health alone have covered subjects as diverse as insomnia, cannabis, binge drinking, early intervention, brain differences in young people with psychotic disorders, the impact of exercise and psychological distress on the brain, pregnancy and mental health, chronic fatigue syndrome sport related concussions, transcranial magnetic stimulation, mindfulness and sexual violence.

Today, that work continues. The Thompson Institute is in the process of conducting the world's first study using functional MRI technology to understand how cyberbullying impacts the brains of our young people, and the first longitudinal study of the developing brains of 12- to 15-year-olds. The Thompson Institute's impact, however, has gone far beyond research. Its insights and training have been spread widely through my community. The Thompson Institute has reached more than 250,000 with its suicide prevention and mental health first aid programs and has run fortnightly community presentations. Its Myndset program has enhanced coordination between the Sunshine Coast University Hospital and headspace in our region and ensured that young people who might otherwise fall between the two have an appropriate service provider. The Thompson Institute has taken its brain changes program into local schools, while its EMERALD wellbeing program is even being exported to Victoria.

Social impact organisation Rooy estimate that the total economic value created by this suicide prevention work on the Sunshine Coast amounts to $13.8 million. It is unquestionably the case that the suicide rate on the Sunshine Coast has come down from 18 per cent above the national average five years ago to 9.1 per cent above the national average. This is still far too high. However, the significant reduction that we have seen over the past five years is a testament to the Thompson Institute's dramatic impact. I'm continuing to work with the Thompson Institute and the government to try and get them continued funding so they can keep doing the great work that they're doing.

David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the motion proposed by my colleague the member for Macquarie. The COVID-19 pandemic has been tough for many Australians, but it has been particularly hard on younger Australians. They have faced ongoing disruption to their education and upheaval of the social networks centred on school and university. Year 12 students have had to deal with uncertainty about the timing and format of the year 12 examinations. Young people who relied on part-time or casual work in the hospitality and entertainment sectors saw their jobs vanish in a few days last March. While these jobs slowly returned over last year, the lockdowns this year, caused by the government's quarantine and vaccination failures, have again led to widespread job losses and underemployment, which have particularly affected young people. Compounding these problems has been anxiety about the disease itself. Younger people were at the back of the queue when it came to getting access to vaccines, and it's only in the last few months that vaccines have been readily available to them.

While the pandemic may have exacerbated the poor mental health of many younger people, all was not well at the start of 2020. The mental illness section of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's June 2021 report on Australia's youth brought together a range of data on the mental health of young people. It reported that, in 2013-14, 20 per cent of people aged 11 to 17 had high or very high levels of psychological distress and 14 per cent experienced a mental disorder. In 2017-18 an estimated 15 per cent of young people aged 18 to 24 experienced high or very high levels of psychological distress.

A 2017 study in the Medical Journal of Australia, by Associate Professor Sarah Hetrick and her colleagues, reported that the largest burden of disease in young people was due to mental health problems. It noted that half of all mental health disorders suffered by adults emerged by the age of 14 and three-quarters were apparent by the age of 24. The study found that if left untreated these mental health problems have high rates of recurrence and cause negative outcomes for the individual, including reduced economic productivity as well as societal costs.

Given the poor state of young people's mental health, it's reasonable to expect that the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, agreed by the Commonwealth and all states and territories in 2017, would address this issue. Not only does it not address it, the plan does not even mention youth or young people. The lack of planning for young people's mental health translates to poor access to services.

Various studies published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry report that young people made relatively less use of services than older adults and that parents identified high out-of-pocket costs and long waiting times as barriers to access. As well as these barriers to access, the study by Professor Hetrick noted that mental health services have often not been youth oriented and have restricted access depending on age, diagnosis or comorbidities. The study concludes that there has been a crisis in care, where most young people with mental health difficulties do not get the care they need, resulting in high rates of distress, functional impairment and suicidality. In the absence of appropriate services, it's not surprising that almost 80,000 young people turned up in crisis situations at emergency departments in 2019-20, according to the AIHW.

The Commonwealth government already funds two services designed for young people: Orygen and headspace. While these are both excellent services, they exemplify the problems of access. Orygen only deals with more severe mental illness, while headspace does not. Even Professor McGorry, who was central to establishing headspace, has acknowledged that there is a missing middle of young people—those who are too sick for headspace and not sick enough for the very limited provision of care through state government services, and there are large gaps in geographic access.

The National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan expires next year. There's an overwhelming body of evidence that youth mental health is a significant issue with long-term consequences and that current services are not effective in providing access to the necessary treatments and other supports. I urge the Commonwealth government to work with the states and territories to develop a new plan that includes effective services for young people. We need to get this right for our young people's future. I commend the motion to the House.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The lockdowns from this pandemic have often led to a debate between health and economics. The more thoroughly we lock down, the better the health outcomes in the fight against COVID but the worse the economic cost for all the struggling businesses that can't open. This dichotomy doesn't cut to the heart of the matter, because economic costs are not the end of the chain; they are merely a step along the way.

When a business can't open, the effects are felt hardest by the owners and the workers. They can lose income they rely on, and the stresses this can lead to are enormous. Ultimately, this results in huge concerns about mental health. So, in reality, the effectiveness of lockdowns is a contest between public health and mental health, and, as we know, the mental health of Australians has taken a huge hit. While all people have been affected, young people have been hit harder than most.

The formative years, between 15 and 24, are full of uncertainty and stress at the best of times, but this year they have been harder than ever. Exams have gone from things that we can prepare for together to terrifyingly solo ordeals. The parties and ceremonies—stress relief values at the end of school—have been cancelled or scaled back. Apprenticeships are upturned. Universities have lost their face-to-face collaboration, not to mention the buzzing social life. Forays into job markets are tougher than ever, and if you already had a job it's likely that it was in one of those low-paid service sectors that have been so ravaged by the lockdowns.

While we don't have data for 2021 yet, research conducted in 2020 showed that one-third of young Australians reported having experienced high or very high levels of distress. This is deeply concerning. Even more concerning is that every year in Australia more than 3,000 people lose their lives to suicide. That equates to approximately nine people dying by suicide each day. Suicide was the leading cause of death in people aged between 15 and 24, and 25 to 44 between the years 2016 and 2019.

Thankfully, mental health and suicide prevention remain one of the Australian government's highest priorities, as they should be. We are committed to delivering meaningful and lasting reform to this important area in reducing suicide towards zero. Young Australians in particular continue to be a focus of the government's investment in mental health to support them reaching their full potential. We want them to receive the help, support and care they need where and when they need it so they can reach their full potential. In the 2021-22 budget, the government invested a record $2.3 billion in the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan to lead landmark reform. This is the largest federal government mental health investment in Australia's history.

Much of this investment is hitting the ground through headspace, the government's flagship program for the provision of services to young people aged 12 to 25 experiencing or at risk of mental health illness. Since it was started by the Howard government back in 2006, they have expanded to 139 centres operating across Australia. Through the 2019-20 and 2021-22 budgets, the government is undertaking the largest single expansion of the headspace network, bringing the total number of headspace services to 164 nationally by 2025-26. There have been over 3.6 million occasions of service provided through headspace since 2006. It's tragic that this much support has been needed but essential that this service is always there to listen, support and respond. If you or any young person you know is suffering from mental health issues, please reach out to headspace at www.headspace.org.au or on 1800650890.

I don't want to decry the usefulness of lockdowns—they have been a vital tool in our fight against this pandemic and have probably been the difference in keeping our case numbers low compared to similar countries—but we must make sure that while we ensure Australians are safe from COVID we don't leave them vulnerable to mental health concerns, and, if we do, that they always have the support and treatment to ensure they are able to manage this safely. We cannot afford to get this one wrong.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] The member for Bennelong is right, in that the government has increased the number of headspace services, but that is not enough. There is a big systemic issue with headspace, which I'm going to talk about in this speech. First of all, let me say that this motion is really important. The mental ill health of young people in Australia is a growing issue that we all must confront as members of parliament and as people who all care deeply about the future generations, but this is a systemic policy issue that can be addressed by the government today. I'm going to go through two key areas of policy that we should be implementing, not just talking points from the Prime Minister's office.

The first key area is around headspace. The biggest issue with headspace is staff. Yes, there is an increased number of headspace services around the country—that's a good thing, and I acknowledge the government doing that—but, if you're a staff member at headspace working as a therapist, a mental health professional in Australia, the Medicare rebate for a session at a headspace is somewhere in the vicinity of just over $80 for 50 minutes. You can basically bill a young person around $80 for that service via the Medicare rebate system. The way that headspace services work is that most of the staff pay rent. They also have overheads. Many of the professionals, OTs and psychologists would have supervisors as well. There's also the cost to get to and from the headspace service. So what most mental health professionals are earning at a headspace these days is much closer to $27 to $35 an hour for high-quality mental health services for our young people. That's just not sustainable. You can earn a better living stacking shelves or working as a labourer in this country than you would working as a mental health professional helping young people in these really important clinics. Many of the people who turn up to headspace can't afford private mental health services; they are young people who cannot afford to access private clinicians or private therapies. Therefore, what we're seeing is that the really good practitioners in youth mental health can't afford to stay in the headspace services, because they just can't earn enough of a living. So we really need to look at that rebate so that we can provide high-quality staff with adequate pay in order for them to help service and treat young people in our headspace services.

The other big policy issue relating to youth mental health that we need to confront is around the access to adequate care. So many different reviews, including royal commissions in Victoria and other policy reviews, have shown time and time again that the much, much higher interventions—so not just one-hour sessions, but the much more involved and higher levels of intervention, whether it be more wraparound services or a range of other high-intensity mental health treatment services—have only been accessible to people who are, basically, deemed to be at risk of suicide. That is a really high threshold for someone to get to in that spectrum of mental health decline. What we need to do is lower that threshold so that more young people can have access to more interventions and much more involved mental health treatments, so that it's not just the one hour of clinical care—and it is amazing that we have that available and, yes, the therapists and those professionals and staff helping young people in that area are so important in the treatment and the support for young people. But the truth is that too many young people are being locked out of the level of care that they actually need, because of a threshold that is too high.

Just to repeat, we need to increase the Medicare rebate and we need to increase the number of young people who can access the higher level of care. They're the policy changes that we could make today that would make a real difference in this important sector.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mental health issues disproportionately affect young people, and in the past 18 months it's been a real challenge for many as we continue to navigate our way through the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 560,000 children and adolescents in Australia are estimated to have a mental illness, and one in four young Australians aged 16 to 24 experiences mental illness in any given year. Young people are less likely to seek help for mental health issues if they hold negative attitudes towards help-seeking or have had negative past experiences when they've sought help. This needs to change.

Children and young people have been particularly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns. Since March 2020 the government has provided more than half a billion dollars of additional funding for telehealth and direct supports to ensure Australians have the mental health support they need during the pandemic. Young Australians continue to be a focus of the government's investment in mental health to support them reaching their full potential. The government is committed to delivering meaningful and lasting reforms driven by the government's zero suicide target. Every year in Australia more than 3,000 people die by suicide. That's approximately nine people each day. We know suicide is the leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 44, with more deaths from suicide than from cancer or car accidents. That's why support in this area is absolutely critical. In the 2021-22 budget the government invested a record $2.3 billion in a national mental health and suicide prevention plan to lead a landmark reform. This is the largest federal government mental health investment in Australia's history.

There are several mental health and suicide programs serving my electorate which provide vital services. The Northern Sydney Local Health District, which serves my electorate of Berowra, supports young people facing mental health issues. The district has a youth response team, which provides free and confidential services to young people and their families experiencing distress within the community. They also have a safeguards team which provides additional supports for assessments and therapy for young people, in-reach support to emergency departments and community rapid response. Since the beginning of the pandemic there have been 940 emergency department presentations for mental health reasons in people aged zero to 24 in the northern Sydney district and 2,887 new registrations to mental health community teams.

I want to acknowledge the work of the mental health unit at Hornsby hospital, which has admitted a number of these patients during the course of the pandemic. I particularly acknowledge the work of Dr Choong-Siew Yong, the clinical director, and Ayisha Chitakunye, the service director of the child youth mental health service at the hospital. Another key mental health organisation is the Ku-ring-gai Youth Development Service, KYDS, a free local and confidential counselling service for young people founded in 2003 by the Lindfield Rotarians, who were concerned about the increasing number of young in Ku-ring-gai people who were struggling with mental health issues, including the stigma associated with it. They raised funds and partnered with Ku-ring-gai council to establish KYDS. On 31 March 2005 KYDS opened its door with a counsellor who operated out of the library. They supported 36 people in their first year. Today a team of 18 passionate and qualified mental health professionals support young people to work through their challenges and help them achieve their potential. Over the past year, they have provided 5,462 counselling sessions to more than 400 young people. KYDS is led by Anthony Rigney and the chair of the board is Helen Jarvis.

Lifeline Harbour to Hawkesbury is another service providing support, led by the outstanding Wendy Carver. They offer support when members of my community are experiencing distress, with access to 24-hour crisis counselling and suicide prevention services. With a workforce of over 90 per cent volunteers, they deliver first-class volunteer management and training that create rewarding experiences for people and meaningful impacts for people in my electorate and across the country. They also work in response to immediate local needs, providing other community services, including in-person financial counselling, community and corporate training programs.

Finally, Youth Insearch, led by Stephen Lewin and chaired by Gary Rothwell, has helped over 30,000 young people rebuild their lives since it was founded in 1985, currently assisting 1,000 people a year across the country, including in my electorate. Youth Insearch runs one of the most successful youth intervention programs in the country. They working with at-risk youth aged 14 to 20, supporting them to turn their disadvantage into an advantage, enabling them to reach their full potential through peer-to-peer support programs and community programs.

I would like to commend the thousands of mental health workers across the country for the outstanding work they have done over the past 18 months. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for us all but it is their selfless work that has saved so many Australians. They are the ones who pick up the pieces and get peoples' lives back to together. I want to put my thanks on record to them for all of their efforts.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this motion moved by the member for Macquarie because improving mental health, youth mental health in particular and preventing suicide is a key priority of this government and it is a key priority of mine. We recognise that one-in-four young Australians experience a mental health issue each year and approximately nine people die by suicide each and every day. That not only has a devastating and profound impact on the friends and families of each one of the individuals but it also has a devastating impact on our community, on our nation and, of course, on the future that would have been, that will not be because these young people are no longer with us.

My own family has been impacted by the challenges not only of mental health but of losing our loved ones to suicide, with young people in their 20s, lost too soon due to the impact of this devastating sense of hopeless despair that so many young people go through. I know people in my community who have experienced the loss of loved ones, people that they have walked with and who are not with us today, and I know the impact that this has, particularly on our young kids, who deal with so many challenges, often silently. They often wrestle with issues that are bigger than what they can comprehend and that perhaps what we can comprehend. That is why this particular motion is so important and it's why the Australian government is investing a record $2.3 billion in the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, the largest federal government mental health investment in Australia's history. It builds on the government's significant existing investment in mental health services through the 2019-20 bushfires and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and it brings the total estimated mental health spend to $6.5 billion in 2021-22.

This government is working towards zero suicide. Christine Morgan was appointed as the first National Suicide Prevention Adviser in 2019 and handed down a final report on the issue last year. The federal government is providing $107 million over five years under the National Suicide Prevention Leadership and Support Program for a range of projects designed to help reduce suicide across Australia.

In my electorate of Robertson, the government is funding a number of important local initiatives as well to help support our community, including a Head to Health pop-up service, which is now available for people across the Central Coast who may be experience challenge with mental health due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This clinic is located at Tuggerah, and it offers free services and involves a multidisciplinary team of mental health workers, psychologists, mental health nurses, occupational therapists, social workers and peer workers. It's a really important service that does recognise that many Australians have struggled in recent months during the lockdown, unable to see family members or friends or support people that they might rely on.

The Central Coast also has three headspace centres, at Gosford, Lake Haven and the soon-to-be-opened Wyong facility. During the 2019 election, the government committed an additional $30 million over four years from 2020-21 to establish 10 new or expanded headspace centres, which included the satellite facility in Wyong. I'm pleased that the service is expected to commence from December of this year. I want to thank our local headspace staff for their tireless work in providing support to 12- to 25-year-olds across our region and for their passion and care in all they do. I know that the government will continue to support the important work they do.

In my electorate, given this is such a big issue here on the Central Coast—our suicide rates are higher than the state average—I've convened a committee to tackle these issues. It's supported by many local organisations, including the PHN, the LHD, police, Lifeline, council community services and small businesses. We've been focusing on attracting funding to implement a bespoke suicide prevention initiative for our region. All these groups that are involved in this have been providing their expertise in designing and implementing actions through an analysis of the mental health of young men and people on the Central Coast, and I really want to thank the committee for their time and their expertise. They've identified two key areas: the need for improved integration of services and upgrade to the mental health system to make it easier to navigate and access. We've developed a funding proposal, and I'm going to continuing fight to see this very important initiative become a reality. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I'm grateful to the member for Macquarie for raising this issue and moving this important motion. We're one of the richest, most privileged countries in the world, and yet in the area of mental health services we're clearly failing those patients and those families. We're facing nothing short of a mental health crisis. To be honest, the numbers are quite frightening. According to Suicide Prevention Australia, suicide is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24, and the vast majority, 70 per cent, are young men. This is tragic. Those numbers are absolutely tragic. The rates of suicide for our Indigenous population, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth, our LGBTIQ people, our young people who live in rural and remote areas are higher still.

Reports from the ABS have shown that suicide results in the greatest loss of productive years of life in Australia compared to any other cause of death—115,000 years of potential life, if you add them all up, were lost from intentional harm in 2019 alone. That is tragic. This is a far greater number than for cancer, heart disease, et cetera, precisely because of the shocking number of younger people dying tragically early from drug use and mental health issues. What is most heartbreaking is that this number continues to grow year by year. Evidence shows that half of mental disorders first emerge by the age of 14, and 75 per cent by the age of 24. This demonstrates how vital it is that we get youth mental health services correct—that we get them right, accessible and affordable. As a parliament and as a society, we have to give priority to youth specific early intervention strategies.

It is having a significant flow-on effect on our health system. More and more patients present at emergency departments for lack of any other option, for lack of services, for lack of specific clinics that deal with mental illness. According to an article in The Conversation from April earlier this year, there was close to a 40 per cent increase in mental health presentations at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, in my electorate. This 40 per cent increase then puts pressure on all the other services as well. That was between February 2019 and February 2021. This puts increased pressure on our EDs, our doctors and nurses, and contributes to the growth problem of ambulance ramping in our state, which has been horrendous. These people need a specific service, a specific clinic, somewhere they can present 24/7 that will deal with mental health illnesses.

Also, according to some of the paramedics that I speak to here in my electorate in South Australia, on one particular day in September this year there were no ambulances available for 17 high-priority emergencies in Adelaide's southern suburbs because ambulances were tied up ramping at hospitals. A lot of those people were presenting with mental illnesses. This is an enormous problem for South Australia—one that this Liberal state government, the Marshall government, has simply failed to address. The increase in mental health patients and the difficulty these patients face accessing help means that the emergency department is no longer a last resort for care as it should be; it is often the only resort available to many. We need a specific service that deals with people that are able to present themselves 24/7 for a specific mental illness clinic here in South Australia.

The Grattan Institute has previously highlighted that there is a huge gap—in fact, they called it a 'yawning gap'—in services for people who need intensive community support but not inpatient care. In a report published in 2020 it said that federal and state governments need to work more closely to provide appropriate resources for mental health care. Unfortunately, it's not happening, and those people that require mental health care are being left behind, many ending up homeless and many in trouble with the police. (Time expired)

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Sitting suspended from 12:44 to 16:00