ABC Afternoon Briefing with Greg Jennet

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

Greg Jennett: More than $2 billion in funds are soon to start flowing into mental health programs now that the national mental health and suicide prevention agreement is in force – that started on Friday. Some states are already locked into agreements, others soon will be. So to check how this is going, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention David Coleman joins us now. David welcome to Afternoon Briefing. Just bring us up to speed on where the agreement is, now that it’s in force. Who is next to fall into line and when will the full suite of funding be available for these programs?

David Coleman: Sure Greg, good to be with you. The national agreement came into force on Friday afternoon and basically what the national agreement does is say, here’s a whole lot of areas where the states and the Commonwealth can cooperate better to help people more. Because at the end of the day people want a mental health system that works. They don’t really care whether it is the commonwealth or the states who are providing particular services, they want it to work. So that’s been put in place as of Friday. Most states and territories have signed the agreement already and New South Wales and South Australia have also signed bilateral agreements under which there are very specific investments into those states. A $400 million agreement with New South Wales was announced last Wednesday and $128 million with South Australia on Thursday. We’ll have more to say about other states in the very near future, but it’s good the national agreement has come into place and common sense frankly for all governments to cooperate more in mental health to help more people.

Greg Jennett: As you say it’s going to vary from state to state. So I might get you to generalise necessarily, what is it that people will notice is better or different once this full patchwork is stitched together?

David Coleman: I’ll give you a couple of examples Greg. At the moment the Productivity Commission found there are more than 15,000 Australians who are discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt each year who don’t get follow-up care in the community. Now that’s wrong, it shouldn’t be the case. Everyone in that situation should get follow-up care in the community. That’s a key part of what we’ve proposed to the states because that’s obviously a very high risk group. New South Wales has signed onto that and that means every person in New South Wales will get that care in the future. Another really important area, Greg, is what is often called the missing middle. So this is people who perhaps fall between the Commonwealth system and the state system. So what we’ve done there is we’ve committed half a billion dollars to opening a new network of mental health centres around the country, free for people to use. Some of the early ones have already opened. There will be at least 18 in New South Wales, at least five in South Australia, and many more in other states. A bit like the way headspace provides services for young people, Head 2 Health will provide services for adults and in a team-based environment where it’s not all about a medical or clinical experience – it’s about getting the clinical support but also getting that support from people with lived experience of mental illness, social workers and others. So really important initiatives.

Greg Jennett: When we embark on these big national programs, whether they be the NDIS, they are major investments, what sort of benchmarks would you expect or should the nation expect for the collective improvement of our mental health if we want to measure it in four years’ time or eight years’ time? What do we get do you think as far as noticeable measurable improvements?

David Coleman: One of the big focuses is driving the rate of suicide down towards zero. That’s obviously a very ambitious goal, but that is our goal. You’ll recall at the start of COVID there were great fears that the rate of suicide would rise very substantially. That hasn’t happened. Suicide actually dropped by 5% in 2020, about the same in 2021.That’s still 3,000 people too many. But we want to keep driving that rate down. We believe that these initiatives will do that. And we want to also ensure that, in particular, people in rural and regional Australia get better care than they do now. Rural and regional Australia has much higher rates of suicide than metropolitan Australia. We need to address that. This plan involves significant investment into rural and regional Australia. But it’s not just investment, Greg, it’s also about that practical cooperation which might not be glamorous but is really important. It’s about the back offices of the Commonwealth services and of the state services, talking to each other, cooperating, working together with one goal – help more people, give them better services. That’s what it’s all about.

Greg Jennett: It goes without saying that that suicide prevention goal is a worthy metric, even if you never got anywhere close to your target. Thank you very much for that overview. David, just because you’re a senior member of the government, we’re talking so much about pre-budget initiatives around cost of living, your own thoughts on the need for some relief at the bowser. Is that something you pick up strongly in your own electorate?

David Coleman: No doubt cost of living is a really significant issue, particularly petrol prices. Everyone is noticing that. But you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’m not going to get into budget speculation. I’ll leave those matters to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. And I know the PM’s had a bit to say about that today.

Greg Jennett: No fair enough he has in that usual guarded pre-budget mode we have come to expect. David Coleman, thanks so much for that overview of this very important initiative and we might ourselves stay in touch on that in the months and years ahead.

David Coleman: Thanks Greg.

Greg Jennett: That’s the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.

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