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

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Almost half of young women aged 16 to 24 experienced mental health issues in the last financial year. With more than one-third of women under 35 being those who access the additional 10 Medicare subsidised Better Access psychology sessions provided under the previous coalition government, does the minister agree that axing those sessions disproportionately impacts young women?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons is warned. Let me be really clear on this: the time to interject is not before a minister starts speaking. If everyone can get that message loud and clear, the question will be heard in silence, and when the minister walks to the dispatch box there will not be interjections.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for another question on this program. The program is called Better Access and, as the member knows, I'm sure, the previous government decided to add 10 additional sessions to the maximum rebatable session number for a two-year period in light of the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne and Sydney and regional parts of those two states. In the March budget, before the election last year, the former government decided not to extend the expiry of those additional 10 sessions beyond 31 December.

When we came to government, we kept an open mind about that. Even though the former government had made a conscious decision not to extend the additional 10 sessions, we kept an open mind about that. I indicated, in response to a question from one of the crossbench members, I think the member for North Sydney, that I would be looking at the evaluation of Better Access when it came to me—an evaluation done on a 10-yearly basis by the University of Melbourne.

What that evaluation said very clearly was, as the previous evaluation had said 10 years ago, that this is an effective program where it is able to be received, but it is highly inequitable. If you are living in a wealthy suburb in the inner parts of the major cities, you are far more likely to be able to access a session than if you are in the outer suburbs or particularly in regional and rural Australia. The evaluation then went on to say that the addition of the extra 10 sessions had made that inequity profoundly worse. What had happened is that all of the additional sessions had gone to the richest 40 per cent of Australians—mostly to the richest 20 per cent—and the poorest 40 per cent of Australians had seen their access to services actually go backwards. The number of new entrants to the scheme went backwards by seven per cent—that is to say, of all of the people every single member in this House would have had come into their office—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will resume his seat. The minister is being relevant. I'm going to hear from the member for Lindsay. I just said the minister is being relevant, but I'll take a point of order.

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

Relevance. I did particularly—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat.

No, resume your seat. It does not work that way. The minister is entitled to answer the question. You may not like the answer, but as long as he is relevant he may continue. The minister has the call.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every member of this House would have people coming to them, particularly after COVID, saying they cannot get in to see a psychologist. The psychologists in their areas have closed their books. The evaluation said that the additional 10 sessions the former government decided not to extend before 31 December had made that problem profoundly worse—that tens and tens of thousands of people had been cut out of the system altogether, making better access actually worse. The assistant minister for mental health and I held a round table with about 80 different groups and individuals last week, and I can say this: other than the colleges of the private psychologists, no-one at that seminar said we should reintroduce those 10 extra sessions. (Time expired)