Thursday 24 December 2020

Australia ends 2020 as it began - with Scott Morrison refusing to act on mental health policy and program reform


The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 2020:


At the end of one of the most challenging years we have ever faced in Australia in terms of our collective mental health, and following Prime Minister Morrison’s impassioned release of the long-awaited Productivity Commission report, many have asked what’s the government’s plan of actions for 2021?


Well, it turns out that the answer is yet another inquiry! The terms of reference for this new “Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention” were tabled quietly in the Federal Parliament last Thursday, just before it closed. They state that an interim report is required by April 15, and a final report by November 1, 2021. The Labor spokesperson, Chris Bowen, made it clear the Opposition was not consulted.


No, this is not a repeat episode of Yes, Minister or its sequel Yes, Prime Minister. This committee’s deliberations will sit alongside a range of other reports still being prepared by the National Mental Health Commission (Vision 2030) and the Prime Minister’s special advisor on suicide prevention, Christine Morgan.


At this point, I’d suggest that Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot may now be essential Christmas reading for those who as a consequence of where they live, their family income or the severity of their illness are locked out of essential mental health services. For many others, only limited primary care responses were available pre-COVID-19. 

 

The mental health sector is often criticised by political leaders, and other social commentators, for not being more united in its advocacy or focused in its key "asks" of government. Consequently, it is easy for governments to argue that it is still necessary to hold more stakeholder consultations, parliamentary enquiries, inter-governmental meetings, royal commissions or human rights investigations. 


Frankly, in 2020, these delaying tactics are no longer acceptable. In late October, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its annual cause of death data for 2019 . In terms of productive years of life lost, suicide dwarfed all other causes. It accounted for 115,000 years lost annually, with heart disease a distant second (78,000 years lost prematurely). In the COVID-19 era, many expect a worsening mental health toll, particularly among younger people. 


Prior to the October 2020 budget, a broad cross section of the mental health sector presented the Morrison government with a four-year $3.7 billion proposal to implement immediately a range of widely agreed priorities. The sector assumes that the states and territories will also commit funds, workforces and infrastructure to deliver a regionally focused program of work..... [my yellow highlighting]


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