A statement by Mind Australia CEO Gill Callister
Mind Australia congratulates the Australian Labor Party on winning the 2025 election.
Australia’s crisis in mental health was a major focus of the 2025 campaign and both parties made significant commitments to addressing it.
This reflects the enormous personal struggles ever greater numbers of people in the Australian community are facing with their mental health – or in supporting someone they care about.
Too often clinical services are the default setting for funding, but there is broad recognition across the Australian community that hospitals, emergency departments and psychologists alone are not the solution. A truly community-centred mental health system is the way forward – for prevention, early intervention and for healing.
Now that the election is over the work begins: we hope to see that mental health reform remains central to the government’s priorities.
Four key mental health priorities for Australia 2025-2028
- People don’t just want emergency, crisis responses to mental health—government funding and policy reform must ensure people can get support where they are, in community.
- It’s time for governments and policy makers to act on the evidence and insight of lived experience to enable a more effective and humane mental health system—and then demonstrate this in policy directions and funding.
- NDIS support must remain accessible and fair for people with a psychosocial disability.
- We need a funded plan to meet the significant unmet needs for psychosocial support for people outside of the NDIS.