Psychologist and psychiatrist appointments would be fully covered by Medicare under a federal election policy being pushed by the Illawarra and Shoalhaven Greens candidates on Monday.
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Gathering with his colleagues in Wollongong the day after the election date was set, Whitlam candidate Jamie Dixon outlined the plan to boost mental health care by $8 billion if the Greens were elected.
The policy would be funded by an extra tax of six per cent on 122 billionaires in Australia which would produce $46 billion of extra government revenue, as well as more tax on corporations, Mr Dixon said.
"A lot of the time if mental health issues can be addressed first, then it stops people presenting at emergency departments and putting extra strain on our already over-strained health system," he said.
"The issue of mental health has become apparent to so much of the population over the last two years, with social isolation, rolling lockdowns forcing all of us to evaluate our own state of our mental health."
He said the Greens would add $4.8 billion to Medicare funding over 10 years to provide no gap mental health appointments, plus $2.6 billion over the next decade to support placement and support services for under 25-year-olds to help them engage and stay in employment.
The Greens policy also includes $714 million for "peer workers", who have a lived experience of mental health and would help support people in the community.
Gilmore candidate Carmel McCallum said mental health was a pressing issue in her electorate, which is set to be a battleground seat over the next six weeks.
"Two and a half years on [from the bushfires] there are people still living under tarpaulins, so their housing is not just stressful, it's unavailable, and a lot of people who went through the trauma of losing their house are still not getting the help they need," she said.
In Wollongong for the campaign start, Albury GP and NSW Senate candidate Dr Amanda Cohn said better funding mental health would take pressure off hospitals.
"Waitlists for public services have just blown out, and while people are waiting for publicly funded care, they get worse and worse, and end up in hospital emergency departments," she said.
"There's a great public awareness for the strain our hospitals are under, and if we can look after people early and provide them with a funded psychologist visit as soon as they turn up and ask about their mental health, we're going to prevent a lot of these people from going to hospital."
With her electorate in focus on the first day of the campaign, Gilmore candidate Carmel McCallum said she believed there was an appetite for change among voters in the southern Illawarra and Shoalhaven.
"There's a lot of people in Gilmore saying 'governments are just not listening to us, they really don't care', so I think people are looking for a change," Gilmore candidate Carmel McCallum said.
"So we can hope for the best, and I'm hoping that as Greens gain more positions in the lower house and upper house and gain the balance of power that we can actually influence whichever party is in government to change the way to do things."
"Having Scott Morrison start the campaign in Gilmore making it look like he's really pinching at straws, and I hope it's the last time we see him there as a politician."
At the last federal election, the Greens received about 10 per cent of the vote in Whitlam and Gilmore, and just over 15 per cent in Cunningham.
The Illawarra Shoalhaven Greens candidates said they were hoping to increase votes across the region, as well as increase the party's Senate representation from nine to 12.
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