Page 3014 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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The Federal Government must reveal its plans for mental health after Opposition Leader Tony Abbott committed $1.5 billion to the under-funded sector, the Mental Health Council of Australia says.
The council has also called on Labor to promise to implement all recommendations in its own health commission reform report.
Under a plan launched today, Mr Abbott promised a $1.5 billion investment in mental health services if the coalition is elected to government.
That includes 60 new headspace youth mental health centres, 20 new Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centres and 800 acute and sub-acute early intervention beds.
“These are significant measures that are desperately needed to address the chronic underfunding and under-resourcing of mental health services across Australia,” MHCA said.
The group said it had been vocal in its disappointment with the Government approach to mental health.
And so on—and the AMA also came in and said it welcomed the coalition’s substantial funding commitment on mental health services. It is quite clear that not only have the federal Labor government let down the mental health sector—and we have seen their own adviser quit and we have seen strong criticism from the Australian of the Year—but the ACT government in this budget has let down the sector. I am sure that the crossbench—Ms Bresnan—will discuss this in more detail as well, and it may be a point of agreement that we have when it comes to this budget.
Another area that I have concerns with is a lack of priority in terms of preventative health. I think there is universal agreement that we need to have a stronger focus on preventative health in the ACT, and across the country, if we are going to prevent everybody simply ending up going to hospital. So where is the expenditure for preventative health in this budget? What is the strategic plan for preventative health? I see no commitment from this government for preventative health.
In summation, Mr Speaker, this is not a good budget for health. It is a budget that is lacking vision. What we have seen is almost $1.1 billion of our money being spent on health. Although I applaud the amount of money that is being invested, when you look at the underlying results, when you look at what we are getting in the territory in terms of value for money, when it comes to the service delivery and the access to health services here in the ACT, quite clearly we are being let down by this government and we are being let down by this minister.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (10.51): The growth in government health budgets has been a topical issue of late, with the previous prime minister’s announcement that the commonwealth would pick up six per cent of state and territory hospital costs. The ACT Greens acknowledge that the ACT health budget is growing at a rate at which the ACT government will not be able to fully resource in coming years. While the federal changes will address this growth, to some extent, particularly in the acute sector, the ACT Greens question whether this really constitutes a reform in health
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