Speech on the 2023/24 Mental Health Budget

Madam speaker,

I am speaking today as shadow minister for mental health because this Budget represents yet another wasted opportunity to reform the ACT mental health system.

While so many Canberrans struggle with mental health issues, unsure where to turn, this Government, and this Minister have offered nothing but recycled announcements, and tinkering at the fringes.

Madam speaker, on far too many occasions since I was sworn into this place little more than a year ago, I have met with individuals and families who have been let down by the mental health system. People who are unable to find support for severe mental health conditions, or even more mild and moderate conditions.

And most distressing and saddening, I have met with too many people who have lost family and loved ones to suicide – too often with gaps and failures in the system contributing to the suicide.

Madam speaker, when I speak to people who interact with the mental health system, the picture they paint is one of disconnection, gaps and cracks. This is not a connected mental health system. In fact you could barely call it a system at all.

Under this government, and this minister, we instead have an agglomeration of services, many of which have ever narrowing eligibility criteria because they are over-stretched.

Which brings me onto the next failure. Madam speaker, this Budget is also another wasted opportunity to address this government’s mental health workforce problem. Now the Minister has continued to blame national trends. Over the last year, it has seemed she relishes talking about how she’s waiting for the national mental health workforce strategy before she’s going to do anything.

Well Madam speaker, after years as Minister for Mental Health, perhaps its time she stopped waiting for someone else to fix her problems for her, and did something herself.

When it comes down to it, the 2023-24 Budget’s mental health package is comprised of reannouncements, bandaids and tinkering.

The Minister announced either $28 or $30 million of supposedly additional funding for mental health. Now that is a four year figure, meaning on average, around $7 million per year.

Of that, roughly 50% is dedicated to the operation of Canberra’s eating disorders centre. An initiative which was driven by the former Liberal Federal Government, was announced in 2019, and which should have already been delivered and incorporated into the Budget.

According to the originally announced timelines I believe the centre should already have been built and operational, but it has barely broken ground.

This is not new, and importantly, its not additional. This will be paid for by opaque cuts to the health funding envelope.

The next biggest line item is funding for community based mental health accommodation – a worthy sounding initiative - and one which sounds pretty familiar because once again it’s a simple reannouncement of an existing initiative.

When I saw this line item in the Budget, I was excited. I thought maybe this would be funding toward the Curtin MyHome project which was promised by the Government at two elections, features in their parliamentary governing agreement, and is still languishing. I knew it wasn’t the funding MyHome needs, but I was hopeful.

But sadly the Minister confirmed during estimates, that this is simply a continuation of an existing program, funded by a combination of previous underspends, and cuts from the health envelope.

Please understand. Supported accommodation for people with mental health conditions is important. The initiative seems worthwhile, but the Minister should be honest about it, it’s not new or additional – to claim otherwise would be to highlight the accounting fudge.

Over half of the already meagre so-called additional funding for mental health is nothing of the sort.

In fact, apart from the second safe-haven, the only really new things are bandaids, including bandaids for Federal Labor’s cuts to mental health in the ACT.

Now the second safe-haven seems worthwhile. The first one seems to be doing great things. But the service is forced to operate in the same dysfunctional and restrictive system as everything else.

Similarly, supporting services that had funding cut by Federal Labor is worthwhile – but it shouldn’t be necessary, and its only one year.

In fact, when you look at the total additional investment this Budget claims to make into mental health, it is telling that it is a mere fraction of what the Government blew on a single failed IT system.

Madam speaker, I’ll say again, this Budget is a missed opportunity.

There is no ambition for system level reform or repair. Not even an attempt to invest in building our mental health workforce, and zero recognition that the government’s failure is pushing more people to rely on the private system – even when people can’t afford it.

And I must make mention of the impact on GPs. The very group the Government seems to be at war with right now.

Madam speaker, GPs are already often the unsung hero’s of the mental health system. Mental Health represents a significant proportion of the load our GPs bear. Outside the public mental health sector, GPs are often at the heart of an individual’s mental health care and treatment. In mental health care, they can be stewards and green keepers. Connecting mental health care and physical health care, connecting multidisciplinary care, and making sure the care and treatment every person receives is evidence based and effective.

It is notable that Federal Labor cut rebates for GP mental health care, and every member of this Government voted to back that cut.

And today the Chief Minister stood in this chamber and suggested there is a problem with “unnecessary GP consultations”.

Well if the Chief Minister is concerned that too many people are relying on general practice, perhaps he – and the Minister for Mental Health ought to do more to create a functional, and effective public mental health system in the ACT.

Canberrans deserve better than this.