Media Releases

This World Suicide Prevention Day, Mental Health Australia is calling on governments across the country to focus on preventing suicide as an integral part of a national mental health reform agenda. “More people die by suicide than on our roads. Despite this, suicide prevention does not attract anywhere near the same level of public attention or funding,” Mental Health Australia CEO Frank Quinlan said. “Suicide can be prevented, it just takes leadership and careful investment to make a meaningful change.”

Media release (embargo) - Ahead of the COAG Leaders Retreat, the mental health sector has written to the Prime Minister and First Ministers calling for urgent action on reforms COAG agreed to in 2012. “In 2012 COAG agreed to adopt clear targets and indicators for improving mental health and to develop a fully funded national agreement on mental health reform, and yet we are still waiting for action,” said Mental Health Australia CEO Frank Quinlan.

Mental Health Australia has renewed its call for a decade of mental health reform, commencing immediately, following the release of the 2015 Federal Budget. “If we are to fix our ailing mental health system, we need a long-term, systematic approach to reform that reaches beyond annual budgets, partisan politics and short-term electoral cycles,” Mental Health Australia CEO Frank Quinlan said.

Mental Health Australia is concerned that low income Australians are under pressure from housing affordability stress resulting in negative impacts on mental health, following the release of Anglicare Australia’s Rental Affordability Snapshot . “Poor housing and housing stress, together with other life stresses, reduces psychological wellbeing and exacerbates mental illness,” CEO of Mental Health Australia Frank Quinlan said.