Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to update the House on a number of important issues relating to mental health and ageing, part of my shadow portfolios. Firstly, I would like to talk about the suicide prevention trial site in my home state of Tasmania. Labor welcomes the trial sites, because we did have the same election policy prior to the last election. Sadly, Tasmania was the only state that didn't record a decrease in suicides in the latest ABS statistics on cause of death, and this is of great concern to me and my Tasmanian Labor colleagues.

I was very pleased to hold a roundtable on this matter with my colleague the member for Bass in August this year. It was a great opportunity to listen to the views of the mental health stakeholders about how we could work together as a community to reduce these heartbreaking rates of suicide. I was also very pleased to welcome Primary Health Tasmania's announcement regarding the population groups and the target locations that would be the focus of this trial site in Tasmania—that is, men aged 40 to 64, and men and women over the age of 65. The trial site is currently scheduled to run until 30 June 2019.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the excellent work the PHNs and the steering committee are undertaking. However, Tasmania is one of 12 suicide prevention trial sites that are now 18 months into a three-year trial, and I'm concerned there won't be enough time for on-ground activities and to learn the difference being made from these on-ground activities. I think it will impact the evaluation. I understand that the member for Bass has written to the minister, as I have previously, to consider extending these trial sites, because we seriously do not that believe 18 months of on-ground activities is going to be enough to look at that work and see if it is making a difference and to do a proper evaluation.

I also want to talk a bit about ageing. I have been holding forums and expos around the country and visiting many electorates. It was a real pleasure to have an expo on ageing in my electorate of Franklin in Seniors Week in October. The feedback I hear from older Australians and their carers and loved ones is that Labor's Living Longer Living Better reforms have worked—people are staying at home longer—but that has put stress on the home care packages and on the system. A lot of issues have arisen from the current government's cuts to aged care and residential care. It was revealed in supplementary estimates in October that the government was yet to respond to a majority of inquiries, reviews, reports, studies and strategies in the aged-care portfolio. I call on the government to respond to and act on these really important reports, because we need more aged-care reform and we need it now. Older Australians cannot wait.