This opinion piece by Mind Australia CEO Gill Callister was originally published in the Herald Sun on 4 April 2025. Thank you to the Herald Sun for permission to republish this opinion piece.
We know cost of living is the big issue right now. People are doing it tough.
But while there are some immediate short-term fixes being promised—relief on tax or electricity or petrol—the long term consequences of the cost-of-living crisis for our mental health are being ignored.
The recent federal budget threw some money at digital mental health and better access to GPs, then said “move on”. Yes, both of these are helpful—but they can’t be the only pillars of the mental health system.
We need investment to support people where they are. Some people can’t get online or see a GP. For them, many fixes create more barriers, rather than removing them.
In Victoria it’s a similar story. Our worry here is that critical mental health programs don’t get funded after this financial year.
Outreach for young people, free mental health support in Victorian communities, suicide prevention programs for the LGBTIQA+ community—these and others are unconfirmed for FY2025-2026.For Mind Australia alone, this amounts to over 1000 people supported and $4 million, every year.
We know the state budget is tight. Savings are needed. We can all get behind difficult decisions. But frontline services in mental health aren’t the place to cut.
I’m worried about the people we support in these programs: young people experiencing major mental health adversity, survivors of suicide, isolated people and families feeling close to rock bottom.
That isolation can turn quickly into mental health decline, increasing distress and even emergency department presentation. That’s a failure on a human level, and a false economy on a financial level.
Sadly, we know that need for mental health support is increasing. Mental Health Australia reminded us just last week that 1 in 5 Australians experience a mental health condition, every year.
Young people’s mental health is in critical decline, and at a younger age. Recent reports in The Lancet and from the UN confirm this.
That’s a call to arms for governments and us working in mental health. We must do better—our future depends on it.
To do better we need long-term commitment, politically and financially.
We can start with visiting the GP, debating social media harms, doing more exercise.
But until we invest in a reformed mental health system, we won’t see proper change. Victoria has started investing in that change. The government needs to keep going, not wind it back.