Promises to keep on mental health reform in the Victorian Budget

They say trust is the ultimate commodity in politics. Governments work hard to earn it and fight for their lives to keep it. Occasionally, it gets sacrificed in small amounts to trade out of political trouble. Without it, no government can survive for long.

Making and keeping promises is at the core of the trust business. That’s why we’ve heard so much of phrases like ‘We say what we do and we do what we say’ and talk of promised delivered.

I remember a very important day just over three years ago when the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System handed down its final report, which was also a promise.

The audience for that special sitting of Parliament at the Royal Exhibition Building was filled with passionate people who shared a desire to make our mental health system a safe place for everyone to seek and receive help.

I had tears in my eyes and a range of mixed feelings about this historic process. There were flaws of course, but on that day, I also held hope for a promised a new future for Victorians using mental health services.

The Royal Commission told a story that featured a great deal of harm and abuse towards people using mental health services. It spoke about the lack of consumer voices and authority within the system and how this contributes to poor system design, unresponsive services, and serious harm.

We must never forget the many thousands of people who have lived, suffered and in some cases died due to the failures of the former system.

We must not forget that many of the issues and practices highlighted by the Royal Commission continue today – including the use of force, restraint and coercion .

That happens when you don’t have lived experience at the heart of systems change – broadening the conversation, describing a new path, showing what is possible if we all work together as equals.

Quickly, the Victorian Government announced it would implement all 74 recommendations and deliver the Royal Commission’s vision in full and without delay.

The Victorian Government promised that transforming the mental health system was possible and that consumer leadership needed to be at the heart of reform.

Of those Royal Commission recommendations, a new Lived Experience Agency shone bright. That agency would provide training to our growing lived experience workforce to become future leaders of the system.

It would be a hub for innovation, translating the decades of grassroots support that our community members have provided into systems-learning, to operate at scale.

Over the past three years we have heard this promise repeated many times. The Royal Commission said the consumer leadership agency was needed in the first 18 months of the process - and we are still waiting.

To continue to promise something and not deliver it goes against the political playbook of the Allan Government.

It would send the message that our voices are not necessary for a strong, safe and effective mental health system – that we are less-than.

It would mean repeating the mistakes of the past.

The actual budget ask to deliver this recommendation is almost insignificant in the context of the $900 million being generated by the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy .

There has been funding for a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, and new carer support services. Hundreds of millions have been spent on a range of services and initiatives, including announcements this week ahead of the Victorian budget.

We estimate it would cost less than $3 million to establish the Consumer Leadership Agency in the first year, with strategic planning and scaling up as needed to follow.

The Victorian Government has done its best work when it walks together with lived and living experience. Examples include the Treaty process, the elimination of harmful conversion practices used against LGBTIQ+ Victorians, and in leading the nation to prevent gender-based violence.

Mental health system transformation should be on that list of highlights, but it won’t be until mental health consumers are brought in from the cold and given the same level of respect that was afforded by the Royal Commission.

Holding onto hope like a lifeline, I still hold onto this promise for a different and better system with lived experience at its heart.

That hope will face its most serious test yet when the next Victorian Budget is handed down on 7 May 2024.

Simon Katterl

Chair of VMIAC and future Chair of VMIAC's Human Rights, Strategic Advocacy and Research Subcommittee