Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing. How is the government delivering on its commitment to make mental health reform a second-term priority?

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Mental Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Oxley for his question. This year's budget delivers on the Prime Minister's commitment to make mental health reform a priority for this term of government. The budget delivers the largest mental health package ever, with $2.2 billion in new measures.

Mr Laming interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman is warned.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Mental Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The package recognises the diverse impact that mental illness has across the life span. It will build resilient kids. It will support teenagers experiencing mental illness at such an important time in their life. It will improve access to primary care, particularly for hard-to-reach groups in the community. And it will provide intensive and integrated support for those Australians who live with severe and chronic mental illness.

We are moving quickly to implement these reforms. From 1 July, just next week, a number of new measures will start to flow. I will name just a few. Divisions of general practice will start to receive funds to provide crisis counselling within 24 hours for people at risk of suicide referred by their GP or an emergency department. Divisions will also receive a substantial increase in their base level funding for psychological services targeted at people on low incomes and in regional and rural locations.

Funding has already started to flow to support up to 1,700 primary schools, expanding the KidsMatter program that helps kids in primary schools build coping skills and build resilience at such a critical age. Lifeline and Beyondblue will also receive additional funding—Lifeline to be able to increase its call capacity from 450,000 calls per year to around 700,000, as well as to be able to take calls from mobiles toll free, and Beyondblue to vastly expand its services for men, including its workplace program, its men's helpline and its stigma campaigns.

From 1 July Headspace will qualify for huge increases in its core funding, enabling it to expand its services, like outreach to schools and outreach to homeless youth. Having recently announced providers for 10 new services, we will be seeking expressions of interest for the next tranche of 15 new Headspace services in the second half of this calendar year.

I have already begun discussions with states about ways in which we can work together on implementing our mental health reforms. The next COAG meeting intends to discuss mental health, and we are taking more than $200 million to that meeting to help drive reform in state managed areas like hospital emergency departments and accommodation support. By 1 January we will also have established the first ever National Mental Health Commission to ensure better transparency and better accountability in the system. It will report not to any particular department but to the Prime Minister and to this parliament, reflecting the Prime Minister's strong ownership of this reform package.

This reform package is comprehensive, it is balanced, it is targeted across the life span and it will make a real difference to those many, many Australians living with mental illness and to their families.