Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion because it's something I deeply care about, and I think every member in this place deeply cares about the mental health and wellbeing of their community and across our nation. This comes from my time as a member on the board of Latrobe Regional Hospital, looking at how stretched and strapped our public health facilities are in dealing with mental health crises in our community, right through to my time as a member on the board of Lifeline Gippsland. Across Gippsland we would take calls on that 131114 number from right around Australia. Since my time on that board the need for Lifeline and their services has not diminished. Last year they had about 1.4 million contacts, from phone calls to text messages, and over a million phone calls to that phone line. They do a tremendous job, and in speaking on this motion I want to acknowledge the tireless efforts of many of those volunteer telephone counsellors, who take very difficult and challenging phone calls from all over Australia every day.

We've got a youth mental health crisis in my community. It's something where we need all hands on deck and all resources available. I want to commend a forum that I attended in Warragul recently, at the Village Mental Health Clinic. There was some really good coverage in the Warragul Gazette by journalist Bonnie Collings, who has taken this issue very seriously. I want to commend the Village Health practitioners and the parents and caregivers who turned up and talked really candidly and honestly about some of the things they're grappling with—wait lists, availability and visibility. When a parent is dealing with a child in crisis, knowing where to go for help in an emergency is a big challenge. I listened to stories of parents sleeping on the floor of their children's bedroom, such was their concern about their child making it safely through the night. It was a very sobering discussion that I attended with my state Liberal colleague the member for Narracan, Wayne Farnham. I know both of us will continue to do everything we can to support what is coming out of those discussions at a local level.

For me, that's calling for a new headspace facility in West Gippsland. Many young people live in more remote parts of my electorate and cannot get to the headspace facilities, as fantastic as they are, across Bass Coast and in the Latrobe Valley. We desperately need those additional resources.

I was absolutely dismayed to see the Albanese Labor government cut, from 20 to 10, the number of Medicare subsidised mental health sessions. That has really impacted people in my community, across the board, who desperately need those facilities. At the last election, the coalition committed to bringing those back up to the full 20 psychology sessions and to having them subsidised on a permanent basis because that has been a very, very important part of supporting people experiencing mental health challenges in our community. But it's not the only part, and that means making sure that we've got the proper resources and resourcing for people in my area.

One in four young Australians experience a mental health condition in any given year, and that is particularly so for people in regional Australia. I note the comments from the National Rural Health Alliance that said in August that mental health is at a crisis level in regional areas on a per capita basis. They have spoken of that being twice as high as what it is in city areas, and chronic underfunding is a big part of that. I know all members approach this issue in a very genuine way across this parliament, no matter what part of Australia we come from. But, as I always say, your postcode shouldn't determine your potential, and in this instance I really worry for regional Australians and their capacity to access the mental health support they need under this government. I urge the federal government to revisit its approach on this issue.

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