Funding for Mental Health Services
Ms Cate Faerhmann: I support the motion of the Hon. Jeremy Buckingham and thank him for bringing it to this place. When I was 10 years old growing up in country Queensland, my brother, who was 15 at the time, pulled a knife on a kid at his local school. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of institutions and hostels and on different types of medication for the rest of his life. Eventually, he took his own life when I was 25. He was 28. That was 30 years ago, and it is heartbreaking to still hear the same stories—30 years ago I thought that surely things would get better, that more funding would be put into mental health services and people would be treated and we would see less suicide. But that is not the case and it is incredibly heartbreaking.
Funding is available. I echo the Hon. Emma Hurst's contribution that the industries that cause harm could be paying for so many more services. I put one on record in the limited time I have available: the ClubGRANTS scheme, which gives more than $100 million annually to communities, but more than $8 billion was lost to poker machines in this State in 2023. Millions and millions of dollars are going to wealthy sports clubs, which has been described as an absolutely massive rort by the likes of the NSW Council of Social Service, Wesley Mission and other organisations. I understand the scheme is up for review at the moment after submissions closed in March.
I call on the Minister for Gaming and Racing, the Hon. David Harris, to really think about this. I also understand that the review into the cashless gambling card for pokies is currently looking at the ClubGRANTS scheme. What better way to get a bit more respect in the community than to put all the proceeds from poker machine losses into frontline services? That is what the scheme is supposed to be for and what it says it is about, but it is not. Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars could be funded from poker machine revenue. I commend the motion to the House.
Full text of the motion:
(1) That this House notes that according to the Australian Government, Institute of Health and Welfare as of July 2023:
(a)suicide was the second leading cause of death in Australia for children aged between five and 17 years at 15.5 per cent of deaths;
(b)suicide was the leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 24 at 36 per cent of deaths;
(c)for people aged 25 to 44, the leading cause of death was suicide at 22 per cent; and
(d)over three-quarters, 75.6 per cent, of people who died by suicide were male.
(2) That this House further notes that according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics:
(a) suicide was the cause of death that accounted for the highest number of years of potential life lost for both males and females, due to the high proportion of suicides that occur within younger age groups;
(b) a person who died by suicide lost on average 35.6 years of life;
(c) almost 85.8 per cent of people who died by suicide had risk factors identified; and
(d) the most recorded suicide risk factors included mood affective disorders, suicide ideation, problems with spousal relationships, and personal history of self-harm.
(3) That this House notes that suicides are potentially avoidable deaths that may have been avoided through individualised care or hospitalisation.
(4) That this House notes that the March 2023 report presented by the New South Wales branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and an alliance of peak health and mental health groups found that:
(a) triage and assessment services are piecemeal, so people often miss out on getting an accurate diagnosis early and, hence, the right management plan;
(b) services that scored poorly on access and equity measures, particularly private psychiatry, and psychology, scored significantly higher on effectiveness;
(c) there are not enough hospital beds;
(d) it is almost impossible to access community follow up for patients who are not on community treatment orders unless they can pay for private providers; and
(e) people with lifetime complex cognitive and mental health impairments who demonstrate aggression, often without acute diagnoses, are channelled into the criminal justice system.
(5) That this House further notes that The Sydney Morning Herald article written by Mary Ward on 11 March 2024 stated that:
(a) long wait times, a shortage of hospital beds and rising demand for adolescent care have left New South Wales mental health services in a "constant state of crisis";
(b) a 2023 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report found mental health issues represented 15 per cent of New South Wales' total burden of disease, yet only 6.5 per cent of the State's total health budget was spent on mental health;
(c) Professor Samuel Harvey, Executive Director of the Black Dog Institute, and member of the NSW Mental Health Alliance said, "The fact is the New South Wales mental health system is critically underfunded and on the brink of collapse";
(d) it was revealed last month that a $7.5 million plan to build a four-bed dedicated adolescent mental health unit at Northern Beaches Hospital had been abandoned, replaced with a $500,000 Safe Haven at Brookvale Community Health Centre;
(e) Sydney is at risk of losing 70 private psychiatric beds as Wesley Mission intends closing hospitals in Ashfield and Kogarah; and
(f) in 2021 a woman waited 27 hours with her suicidal teenager at a major Sydney emergency department and they still did not see a psychiatrist, and there were no mental health beds available in the city that day.
(6) That this House calls on the Government to consider increasing funding for mental health services and suicide prevention programs using:
(a) the current 15 per cent point of consumption tax on gambling and wagering and/or;
(b) a mental health levy, like Victoria and Queensland have implemented:
(i) payroll tax of 0.5 per cent of taxable wages over $10 million; and
(ii) an additional 0.5 per cent of taxable wages over $100 million.