Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens did not support this motion—and I had already signalled to Senator Fierravanti-Wells that we would not—because there was no costing associated with the proposal. The Greens were very clear during the election that we wanted to see improvements to the funding of mental health, including for headspace, but we differed with the coalition’s policy in that we also wanted community based care and other care services provided, such as having people trained in mental health in emergency departments and having step-up, step-down accommodation. That is not dealt with by this motion. Until we see the full breadth of the coalition’s funding for this proposal, it worries us that the funding that is available for mental health will all be spent on this and not on the provision of other vital services. I do not want it taken that we do not support headspace or EPPI centres. We support those in the overall framework for the provision of services for mental health. The provision of other vital services was not accommodated in this motion, so we were unable to support it. We are very happy to support any motions that cover the full suite of mental health services.