Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I speak about an issue that is as personal as it is national, an issue that affects families, friends, neighbours and communities right across Australia. That issue is mental health. For too long, too many Australians have struggled in silence, navigating a system that is hard to access, hard to understand and often out of reach. This is not a challenge we can leave out of sight and out of mind. That is why the Albanese Labor government is putting mental health at the very heart of Medicare and services at the centre of communities. We are building a national network of 91 Medicare mental health centres across the country so that, no matter where you live, help is never far away.

In the northern suburbs of Adelaide, we have our own mental health centre in Elizabeth. It's open Monday to Sunday, including public holidays, because we know a crisis does not hit the pause button depending on what time of the year it is. All of these centres are free and open for walk-ins, ready to provide short- or medium-term care with a safe space to sit and talk, or even just sit quietly, when you need it the most. You do not need an appointment, you do not need a referral and you do not need a mental health treatment plan, because, when you are in crisis or when you are just starting to realise you need help, you should not have to navigate red tape before you can speak to someone. You should be able to walk through the door and find care from qualified clinical staff who can provide treatment and non-clinical staff who can listen, guide and connect you to the support you need.

This is about more than one-off interventions. That is why the government is opening new perinatal mental health centres to make sure new parents have the help they need during one of the most challenging transitions in life. We are delivering Medicare mental health kids hubs so that children and their families can get early support when signs first emerge, before problems become entrenched. We are expanding headspace centres for young people because adolescence and early adulthood can be some of the most turbulent years for mental health. We are embedding Medicare mental health centres for adults, ensuring that care is available for anyone at any age.

This approach matters for the north, because we know the barriers our community has faced. Too often services were concentrated in the city, meaning people had to travel for hours or wait for months, too often mental health was treated as an add-on, not a core part of the health system, and too often the stigma around mental health illness kept people from asking for help at all. These reforms change that. They put services closer to home, in the heart of communities like ours. They send a clear message that mental health care is health care and it belongs in Medicare. It also means that, when someone is in crisis, they are met with compassion, not complexity.

I want to acknowledge the many organisations, advocates and health workers in our community who have been calling for change for years and the nurses, the counsellors, the peer support workers and the GPs who have been doing their best to help people within a stretched and underresourced system. Their work has been nothing short of extraordinary, but they have been asking—no, demanding—that governments step up. The Albanese government has listened, and we are delivering. While this is national reform, it is also deeply local because every one of these 91 Medicare mental health centres will serve a community with its own needs, its own challenges and its own strengths.

This is also about prevention because, the earlier we can reach someone, the better their chances are of recovery and the less strain there is on families, on workplaces and on the health system as a whole. This is not just good policy; it is the right thing to do. I will keep working to ensure that the north and communities like ours across the country continue to be front and centre of this work because mental health care should never depend on your postcode, your income or your ability to navigate a complicated system; it should depend only on your need and our shared responsibility to meet it.

The Albanese Labor government is proud to be making this investment, proud to be standing up for better mental health services and proud to be delivering for the people of the northern suburbs of Adelaide.

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