Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Macquarie for bringing this motion to the House because it gives me the opportunity to talk about the terrific work the government is doing in the youth mental health space. The government recognises that this is a critical issue. We know that the COVID pandemic and recent natural disasters have exacerbated anxiety disorders and mental health problems, sadly. Responding to a headspace survey last year, 74 per cent of young people reported that their mental health was worse since the outbreak of COVID-19 and 34 per cent reported a higher or very high levels of distress, particularly among 15- to 17-year-old men.

Seventy-five per cent of mental health issues develop before the age of 25, so we know that investing in the mental health of our young people is fundamentally important. This government has committed a record amount of funding to mental health in the recent budget. We've provided some $278.6 million to expand and enhance headspace youth mental health services. Headspace is the government's flagship program for the provision of services for young people aged 12 to 25 experiencing, or at risk of, mental illness. It was my pleasure to visit headspace at Upper Coomera recently in my electorate along with the Minister for Health and the Minister for Home Affairs. Headspace does an incredible job in providing young people with a place where they can go and receive high-quality, youth-focused, inclusive mental health services. The centre's director told me that they appreciate the additional funding that the government's budget has brought and they appreciate that we've committed funds to provide 10 new headspace centres and upgrades to several satellite sites. They also appreciate the fact that we are rolling out a round of centre expansion funds for existing centres to increase their physical capacity to help manage demand. At Upper Coomera, the initial demand has been far exceeded with the requirements of the services they need to provide. In an area that's one of the fastest growing in Australia on the northern Gold Coast, their services have been very well received across the community.

I'll also say that my late nephew was very involved in the headspace at Meadowbrook as part of the youth consultative committee and did a tremendous amount of work there and got a lot of support from headspace over the years as he struggled with mental health.

This government has committed some $111.4 million to support the take-up of group therapy sessions and the participation of family and carers in treatment. We have also committed another $54.2 million to establish child mental health and wellbeing hubs to provide multidisciplinary care and preventive services. I have the pleasure of having two of these in my electorate of Forde, one at Eagleby State School and one at Norfolk Village State School, which I opened recently. Both of these wellbeing hubs provide multidisciplinary care, and the government provided $500,000 of funding to each of those through the community development grant scheme to provide those facilities.

The facility at Eagleby and also the one at Norfolk Village State School provide high-level health services to students with complex needs and this includes assessment, diagnosis, development of management plans, intervention, supervision and professional health guidance. This means that, for these school communities, students will have onsite access to health providers and school staff will have access to adequate support. This means that parents don't have to take time off work in order to take children to appointments at hospitals that may be well distant to where they live. For many of these communities, that is a significant barrier. We know from the discussions with the community this will make it easier for students to receive the care they so desperately need and it will all add up to better care and better outcomes for these at-risk students. We know that early intervention is fundamental to better outcomes for mental health conditions, and that's why we support these initiatives.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:56 to 17:12

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