Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have spoken in this chamber a number of times over the past year about the review of mental-health services and programs that were conducted by the National Mental Health Commission. On a number of occasions the Senate has agreed to my request to order the Minister for Health to table, firstly, the two interim reports from the commission and, secondly, the final report delivered to the government—on time—on 1 December.

On each and every occasion, when the Senate has made that order for production of documents to the Minister for Health, the minister has refused to table those documents. Why did the mental-health sector so desperately want to see these reports? Why did they wish to read them prior to the government responding to them? The answer is simple. The commentary and recommendations in these reports will directly affect the lives of people living with mental ill health. The direction that the commission recommends will directly affect the service providers, clinicians, peer workers and family carers who provide support to those who are unwell.

When I worked with the disability sector I learned a fundamental principle: 'Nothing about us without us.' This principle is equally applicable to the policy approach designed for mental-health services and programs and should be adhered to. The fear from the mental-health sector is that this government's approach will not be as inclusive as it should be. With that background, it was unsurprising that the executive summary and then the whole report were leaked to the media on 14 and 15 April this year. The frustration in the sector is palpable. That is obviously what led to the leaking of the report. Finally, on 16 April, the minister did what should have happened before Christmas. She published the report along with a press release. Ms Ley said:

A consultative and collaborative approach is essential to achieving this—

That is, a genuine, national approach—

and I intend to seek bipartisan agreement to revive a national approach to mental health at tomorrow's COAG meeting of Health Ministers.

However, in the very next paragraph of that press release the minister makes a highly political and inaccurate attack on federal Labor. That is not a good way to achieve bipartisanship.

Just for the record, the Labor's commitment to mental-health reform and funding is impressive. Labor increased Commonwealth spending on mental health by 357 per cent to around $2.4 billion in the four-year period from 2011-12 to 2014-15. That stands in contrast to the $516.3 million providers in the four years from 2004-05 to 2007-08 under the Howard government. This has been an embarrassing series of events for the government and could have been avoided if they had thought through the principles of respectful consultation and codesign.

Now we have the report and the promise of an expert reference group, which will focus on four things—and last night's budget papers repeated that claim. I encourage the minister to become more engaged with mental-health policy and services. We acknowledge that since her appointment she has had to manage the disaster that former Minister Dutton left her. The $57 billion in cuts to public hospitals, the four—or was it five—iterations of the GP tax and the freeze on indexation to the MBS. But mental health needs the engagement of a minister who is committed to engagement and reform, who understands the needs of the sector and is prepared to do the work needed to build on the reforms of the former Labor government.

Earlier this month we also saw the announcement of the extension—but only for one year—of program funding for services to people living with mental ill health. Again, this was an eleventh-hour announcement that the sector was very desperate for. Mental Health Australia's survey of services, published in December last year, showed that the sector was clearly suffering from the uncertainty of funding. They found: 40 per cent of services report they have already experienced loss of staff because of this funding uncertainty; 46 per cent report difficulty in attracting new staff; 53 per cent report a reduction in services to clients; 81 per cent report a decline in staff morale; 85 per cent report a loss of trust in government, amongst management and staff; 56 per cent report they have had no communications regarding the future of their Commonwealth funding after June 2015—remember, this is November last year; 91 per cent of organisations said if they did not find out about their funding they would need to reduce staff; and 88 per cent said they would need to reduce services. The minister knew about this in December last year, but we had to wait until 2 April for an announcement to be made—and then it is only for one year.

Last night's budget basically restated what was already known when it comes to mental health. The papers talk of the new mental health plan, but there is no detail, no time frame and no funding. The extension of one year of funding to services is restated. I do welcome the renewed funding for three years to the National Mental Health Commission. However, the budget papers do show the continuation of the indexation pause for service funding until 2019-20. We will explore what this means for mental health services at Senate estimates. The Health portfolio budget statements show that $34 million less will be spent on mental health services over the next four years compared with the budget papers from last year. Again, we will pursue that further at estimates. There was no announcement of the Partners in Recovery funding for the 13 Medicare Local regions, which still have not yet been brought online. It is simply unfair that there are 13 regions in Australia that look over the boundary and see these programs rolling out for people living with severe mental ill-health and can do nothing for people who need those services in their regions.

It is clear that mental health has not received the priority it deserves from this government. What are the reasons for this low priority for mental health? Is it that the minister is so consumed with cleaning up the mess of last year's budget—the $57 billion of cuts to public hospitals, the GP tax and the freeze on indexation—that she has no time to deal with the pressing issues of mental health, or is it that mental health is simply not seen as a vote winner by Mr Abbott and his government? This budget confirms that the Abbott government does not believe that mental health and the wellbeing of Australians deserve their proper attention. Engagement and reform in mental health has slowed to a standstill. What we know is that it will be another year before anything will happen in the mental health sector. The momentum of reform begun through Labor's historic 2011 commitments has been lost. People living with mental ill-health, their families, their carers and the mental health sector deserve better.