Drought Assistance

Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. What further mental health funding will the government provide as part of any additional package to support the mental health of farmers experiencing this drought?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:00): I thank the member for Frome for her important question, and it is an important question in terms of the mental health impacts from this drought event. We know that those impacts will be going for a long time and potentially a lot further past the actual drought itself. Just yesterday or the day before, I met with the Premier's Advocate for Suicide Prevention, the member for Elder, with the Chief Psychiatrist, Dr John Brayley, the Department for Health and Wellbeing, and the Mental Health Commissioner, Taimi Allan, for my regular mental health meeting.

One of the issues we talked about was the drought response. They are working together between the Mental Health Commissioner and the department with advice from Dr Brayley in terms of what additional responses we can have in terms of mental health. Sir, as you know particularly well from the response in terms of the fires on Kangaroo Island, this will need to be a long-term response. It will not be a quick action that will need to take place. There will need to be work in communities for a long period of time, in terms of addressing our response.

One of the things that we will be looking at in terms of that work is the response that we made in terms of mental health for the Riverland flood event as well. The government invested additional funding put into both state and non-government services in the Riverland region to address mental health impacts from the flood. One of the things that we will be doing in our assessment is looking at what worked well and what didn't work as well from that Riverland event, and where we can stand up services more quickly as opposed to the development of services taking months or years down the track.

So that work is ongoing. I know the member is aware that we did make an announcement last week in terms of the funding that the state government has made available for Lifeline for services in both Clare and Port Pirie as well. I know the member for Stuart particularly strongly advocates in terms of Port Pirie services, and I know the member for Frome as well as the member for Light advocated in terms of the Clare services. So we have been able to continue those services with $250,000 from the state government that will be made available for that service over the course of the next 18 months, and those services have been very well received in those communities.

There are drop-in services enabling people to come forward to speak to volunteers but also trained counsellors in those services, and also referral to other appropriate services. When I was at the centre in Clare last week, I was speaking to the team about what the impacts had been so far from the drought. They are starting to see some mental health impacts in relation to that, and they have been able to work with other services. Of course, there are some services that exist already through PIRSA where they have been able to work with people in terms of PIRSA's wellbeing team. But we know that that need is going to increase, particularly as the extent of this becomes more apparent and as the impacts become more apparent over coming months and years, and that is why we are doing this very important work.