Ms BURKE (5:25 PM) —I rise today to decry the lack of funding for mental health services in our country. According to the Mental Health Council report Investing in Australia’s future: the personal, social and economic benefits of good mental health, my seat of Chisholm is home to nearly 5,000 people suffering from depression and more than 6,500 people suffering from substance abuse. The report estimates that 424 of my constituents are affected by bipolar disorder and 169 people are suffering from schizophrenia. These figures are startling—actually, they are alarming. They are even more startling given that highly respected former federal Human Rights Commissioner Brian Burdekin said over the weekend that the plight of some people with mental illness had become progressively worse over the past decade. Mr Burdekin said that many people had been de-institutionalised only to be re-institutionalised within prisons and immigration detention centres serving as de facto asylums. Mr Burdekin said:

Even Minister for Health and Ageing Tony Abbott, in an amazing display of candour, admitted last month that Australia’s mental health system was ‘an absolute disaster’. The Mental Health Council report notes that by OECD standards Australia underinvests in providing mental health services or promoting good mental health. Alarmingly, it points out that, on last available estimates, we spend only half as much per capita on mental health services as New Zealand does. The report goes on to state:

How true that is. In all the forums I hold and all the mobile offices I conduct, it is alarming that mental health is an issue that comes up time and time again. It is an issue that walks through the doors of all our electorate offices. When I held a community health forum last year with shadow health minister Julia Gillard mental health was the No. 1 issue of the day. One constituent spoke of the need for more post-natal care for new mothers, while another raised concerns about the lack of early response services available to teenagers in crisis. This only echoes, as I say, the numerous reports and concerns I get from parents, carers and sufferers about the absolute lack of services available to them, particularly when they need them—when they are in crisis.

I consider my seat to be in a better position than many others in terms of the provision of quality mental health services. Upton House, which adjoins Box Hill hospital and is run by Eastern Health, offers excellent services to care for those who require voluntary or involuntary short-term care. Koonung and Waverley community mental health services, also part of Eastern Health, provide a whole range of community based non-urgent psychiatric services to individuals who have a mental illness. On behalf of my staff, I would like to express my thanks for the wonderful support we get from these services when we need to refer people to them.

While these services exist, accessing them is another issue. The Mental Health Council’s report provided a summary of mental health services in the adjoining seat of Deakin, which I think holds true for Chisholm as well. The report stated:

As Allan Fels—the parent of a daughter with schizophrenia—has said:

Dr Fels said that treatment should include access to good medications and psychological treatments, improved community based supported accommodation, rehabilitation and recreation programs, help for families and other carers, and an end to stigma. I think that is most important of all, remembering that mental health issues are about health, not about befuddled individuals.

Given this desperate need for more mental health services, I was pleased to read an Age newspaper report yesterday that the Victorian government is considering increasing its mental health budget by $600 million as part of its May budget. The report said the money would be used to make prevention programs for young people more available; to create more acute beds, particularly in the outer east; and to develop strategies to cut the number of mentally ill people going to hospital emergency departments. This is a welcome thing. This is a major step in the right direction, and on behalf of my community I call upon the Victorian government to ensure that this much-needed boost for mental health services makes it through the budget process.

I also desperately hope that the upcoming Senate inquiry will lead to Commonwealth and state cooperation on mental health. The last thing sufferers of mental illness and their families need is for the inquiry to turn into a farce, serving only as an opportunity for the federal government to scapegoat state governments. As the Mental Health Council notes in its report:

Just this morning I received an email from Dr Judith Burstyner, who was inspired by the shameful treatment of Cornelia Rau to call for a fair go for the mentally ill. Dr Burstyner wrote:

Dr Burstyner, a Victorian dental surgeon, bemoaned that only seven per cent of our health budget is allocated to mental health, although mental health constitutes 20 per cent of our health burden. Currently, it is estimated that one in five Australian citizens is suffering from some form of mental health disease. It is predicted that in the future the largest cost to the health budget will be depression related illnesses. We are not doing enough about these. Dr Burstyner wrote:

Of course, Cornelia Rau’s case highlighted the inadequate care within Australia’s detention centres provided for detainees suffering from a mental illness. Human Rights Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski said in November last year that we do not know how many detainees suffer from a mental illness. He went on to say:

I will be fascinated to hear from members opposite who have also been to Baxter recently what their opinion is of the current state of individuals suffering from mental illnesses in those institutions.

A Just Australia estimates that there are 187 people in our detention centres who have been there for more than three years. What mental toll must it take on them to be locked away, out of sight? We must put resources into resolving their cases as a priority. We do ourselves great shame when we continue to treat these people inhumanely. We do ourselves great shame when we continue not to provide them with adequate mental care when they are in these centres. It is incumbent upon all levels of government to be doing more for people suffering from mental illnesses within our prison environment. Many individuals are ending up in a prison environment, as Cornelia Rau did, when they should be within the jurisdiction of a mental health facility. Too often these people are being locked away in prisons. More needs to be done. I hope that the current Senate inquiry is not just a witch-hunt of shifting blame and that we finally get down to treating this issue as seriously as it should be treated.