Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note document.

I welcome the government's response, but let us not forget that the original Senate Stand­ing Committee on Community Affairs report is dated September 2008. It has taken this government three years to deliver a response, but this is business as usual for this gover­nment. It consistently orders reports and then has more conversations with the Australian people while it considers those reports. Mental health is very much like ageing. There were 17 or 18 requests for inquiries into ageing but then the government shunted everything off to the Productivity Commiss­ion. Now that the Productivity Commission has delivered its report we are going to have another national conversation.

Ageing and mental health have been the two areas that this government has well and truly neglected. Throughout that whole health 'reform' process, mental health and ageing well and truly fell by the wayside. Let us not forget Professor Mendoza resigning on 21 June 2010 in utter disgust at this government's position. This February the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing forgot to include mental health in the heads of agreement on health reform. Finally, this government was shamed into doing something on mental health.

Let us not forget that in October last year there was a motion in the Senate—supported by senators on the crossbenches but not by the Labor Party or the Greens—that called on the government to implement the coa­lition's mental health policy. As if that was not enough to spur the government on, in the House of Representatives in November last year a similarly termed motion was passed. Again, the government and the Greens voted against that motion. After sustained pressure, the government was finally shamed into doing something in the budget, but it was not because it decided to something, as the government would have you believe.

Let us look at that budget. What an illusion it really is. There is this big spend on mental health, yet the net spend over the forward estimates is only $583 million. That is after you rip out almost $600 million from the better access program without consult­ation with practitioners. When you look at the fine print there is only $47 million in new funding in 2011-12 and $62 million in program cuts over that same period of time.

The minister is very careful because he talks about new initiatives. He does not talk about new money; he just talks about new initiatives. Why? If you go back and look at the evidence given by the Department of Health and Ageing at the last estimates, it was confirmed to me that they are simply refinancing Howard government programs. Let us not forget that the biggest investment in mental health in this country was made by the Howard government in 2006—$1.9 billion over five years.