About Mental Health
The Greens believe that access to quality health care, including mental health care, is a basic human right. With approximately twenty percent of Australians experiencing mental health issues in any given year, mental health policy goes to the heart of our nation’s wellbeing and touches all of us. It is therefore vital that adequate funding and attention is given to all aspects of mental health in Australia.
We’ve announced a fully costed $547.4 million mental health plan to care for some of our most vulnerable Australians and ensure that people living with mental illness can live full, healthy lives This is on top of our $552.6 million investment into rural mental health, bringing the Greens’ total mental health commitments to $1.1 billion. Our announcement into rural mental health is the result of extensive consultation with frontline rural mental health workers, service providers, consumers and their families.
Our three key priority areas are:
- Responding to the unique mental health issues faced by regional, rural and remote Australia;
- Increasing access to appropriate services, improving the quality of such services, and expanding community-based support programs and agencies to enable people experiencing mental illness to live in and participate more fully in their communities; and
- Adequate support and improvement of preventative models and approaches to mental health care.