01-July-2010
Portfolio Media Releases, Health, The Economy, Community, Funding, Personal
Topics: Coalition’s $1.5 billion mental health package, John Howard and ICC, Labor’s debt and deficit.
E&OE
NEIL MITCHELL:
I said a moment ago I thought that the Opposition, the Federal Opposition strategy on mental health, the announcement on mental health yesterday, was very smart. One – because it is needed, $1.5 billion on mental health. Two – because mental health is developing into an issue for the election campaign.
We’ve had the Government’s chief adviser quit. We’ve had the Australian of the Year, he said to me the day after the budget, the lack of funding for mental health here will kill people, and people will die as a result of what’s going on.
It is an important issue. We know that it touches 20 per cent of Australians. And when you extrapolate that to families and friend and it is massive. It is a massive issue and it is coming out of the closet if you like, it is coming out in public.
Now the Opposition policy puts the Government in a position saying we’ve got to match it, we’ve got to do something, in which case it looks like me too politics. Or else they’ve got to ignore it, in which case they’re ignoring something that matters to a lot of Australians.
In the studio with me is the Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction, Andrew Robb, good morning.
ANDREW ROBB:
Good morning Neil.
NEIL MITCHELL:
I suppose in a sense that you’d be happy if the Government copied this wouldn’t you?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well indeed, I mean it does confer that you know we know what’s needed, and as a first term Opposition you’ve got to establish your credentials, for government.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But it will also mean that no matter who won the election that there will be some money spent on mental health.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well there has got to be. I mean it has been for too long a really underground issue if you like. I think a lot of the stigma that attached to it for years is probably why in my own circumstance I didn’t confront it. You just feel that there’s a sort of character issue associated with it. You know, you are weak. That was the sort of attitude I think.
But as you said it has come out a lot more and I think Jeff Kennett, there is a lot of credit to be given to Jeff on this.
They tell me that about 20 per cent of the population that’s four million people have some sort of depressive condition. But only 65 per cent, so that’s about two and a half, so 65 per cent don’t do anything about it. They live with it.
NEIL MITCHELL:
If you have got 20 per cent of the population touched by it with it, how many people does that affect? Because they have all got friends, families, wives, kids and it’s reaching out everywhere.
I cannot quite understand, I take your point about the stigma, but I can’t quite understand why there has not been until now a more of a focus on it. It’s a health issue. It is a crucial health issue. We’ve got, people like the Australian of the Year going on about it. Why has it taken so long?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, I don’t know, but you know, it is very much the stigma stuff. I mean I can remember the Auntie Joan has got nerves. You know I never heard that any man had nerves right because as men you have got to tough it out, if you have got a problem work your way through it, or otherwise people think that you are not up to responsibility, you are weak.
I think that is a lot of it frankly. It is only if you think back since people started to say well it can be fixed, if you can confront it, you can go on, doing what you are doing in taking on more responsibility and the stigma started to go. It is seen as a general health issue now a lot more than it ever was.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Well as you say you have become a bit of a poster boy for it in a sense, having gone public about the form of depression that you had and having gone through that period taking time off and now back in a very high pressure and high level job. But do you get a bit sick of that? A bit tired of people defining you by that?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, no I’m not. I feel a bit of responsibility in the sense that I was privileged enough when I decided that I had a problem, and for years I just thought I had a morning problem and just wake up to yourself, you know, get on with it, and then my morning problem stretched into 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock and it was really staring to affect me, my wife and I would talk about it and decided to confront it.
It was because I had the privilege of knowing Jeff Kennett, with the jobs that I have had, to pick up the phone and got some decent help. A lot of people aren’t in that position. In fact I have had literally, in the months that I was sort of experimenting and I had literally thousands of e-mails Neil and overwhelmingly people were saying how do I get some help? Where do I go to?
You know I went to a doctor some time ago and sort of thought I would confront it but he told me to forget the medication it doesn’t do any good, right. I went away again thinking wake up to yourself, you know, I’ve got to live with this. So, I feel now that I have punched through it and I have had fourteen weeks now with mornings like I have never had in my life, okay. I am jumping out of my skin and really enjoying what I am doing. So I feel a bit of a responsibility to do what I can to help others, you know take it on.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Have you had any adverse reaction from colleagues or public servants or people you deal with? I’m reminded of, I read a piece by him this week, Neil Cole, the former Labor Attorney General, Shadow Attorney General, member of the Labor front bench in the State Parliament who suffers from bipolar disorder and he was massively undermined by his own party because they said he said a couple of provocative things, people briefing journalists saying he’s mentally ill. That was some years ago admittedly but have you suffered in any way? Have people treated you differently or been a little unsympathetic in some areas?
ANDREW ROBB:
No. When I decided to go public and the only reason was because I was in a relatively high profile position and to deal with the side effects of the medication which was proving very difficult, you just have to work thought that, but I thought the only way I could do this is to get it out on the table.
I did think about it a lot because I thought this could be the end of my political career and in the end I decided well I don’t care, I am on a mission now, they tell me I can fix this thing and I didn’t care in the end what people thought.
But the response was just fantastic, from lots of people I didn’t know, everyone I did know, they were very supportive. When we had the leadership change and I played some role in it, a couple of people said well you know he’s not well to try and explain my intervention.
NEIL MITCHELL:
You gave a pretty passionate speech.
ANDREW ROBB:
Yes, but I was very clear-headed that day but that was the only time anyone sort of used it against me in a political sense, anyway I didn’t care. I really wanted to able to prove if I could that you can get back and even take on higher responsibility that’ll do more good than anything that I can say.
NEIL MITCHELL:
It’s interesting when you talk about that speech where you backed Tony Abbott and spoke about Malcolm Turnbull, a senior Liberal said to me, he’s not well Andrew and they have manipulated him and put him up to that and I thought, you don’t understand depression. If they thought you were going to manipulate somebody with the condition to stand up and do something they didn’t believe in, I think you’re just a drongo.
ANDREW ROBB:
Pathetic. The fact is that it wasn’t against Malcolm, it was against the policy. I mean I had been the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and I knew more about it than anyone else. And I stepped out of the Shadow Cabinet for a few weeks because of this condition, this was a huge policy, this was the biggest structural change that all of my colleagues would be voting on.
I thought the presentation of the negotiations had been quite disingenuous, was quite inaccurate, that it was a dog of a policy and someone had to stand up that knew about it and put the facts on the table. I didn’t tell anyone I was going to do that because I thought I would be headed off at the pass. So no one knew, no one manipulated me, no one knew that I was going to stand up and talk that day so anyway.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But it must’ve been a tough thing to do because you weren’t well?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well okay, my problem has been a morning problem and it just got longer. I’d be depressed for three to four hours because I release chemicals later than anybody else, several hours later that you need. When I get to the right level, I am okay, quite different to a lot of other people but it was becoming debilitating.
When I took leave it was the medication that had all sorts of different effects on you and that’s when you need the space I think just to, if you are having a bad day, that day, I was tired but I was fine, I was clear in the head and I had the adrenalin pumping, that always helps so I was on a mission if you like, and I was in good form.
NEIL MITCHELL:
From what I hear of the speech, you had a very clear head. Hello Maureen, go ahead Maureen.
CALLER:
Hi Andrew, I am probably a bit older than Andrew. When I was a child I had the same symptoms that Andrew had. I’d think I was going to die and going to collapse. No one would listen to me, the family got worried and brought their brother in who was a doctor and the answer I got was ‘go to confession’, you’ll be right, if you die you will go to heaven straightaway.
NEIL MITCHELL:
How are you now?
CALLER:
Well, for years I have had it and never knew what to do with it, hid it from everyone and I just happened to go one day the doctor gave me an anxiety pill. I carry them everywhere and I am fine.
ANDREW ROBB:
See, there you go.
MAUREEN:
I just take them when I need them.
NEIL MITCHELL:
That’s the point isn’t it, treatable. Thanks Maureen, thank you very much. Now, we’ll take a break and come back with more from Andrew Robb. I want the detail of the spending on mental health as outlined by the Opposition yesterday, where it goes from here and some other issues as well.
Andrew Robb, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction, who will be joining us during the election campaign on a regular basis and debate a member of the Government in the lead up.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Andrew Robb, so being Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction, well various things, but the new mental health policy being offered by the Federal Opposition, $1.5 billion, what will it do Andrew Robb? When does it kick in?
ANDREW ROBB:
The focus Neil is very much on young people. What the experts tell us is, of the 4 million people in Australia with some sort of condition, 75 per cent of them, so 3 million of them, would’ve started that condition in the years, sort of 13 to 25.
So they claim, if you can get hold of them early, and get them some treatment and some management tools and all the rest, a lot of them can completely get over it, others can manage it and get on with their lives.
So the focus is the three programs. One is for 60 more Headspace sites. Now this is Patrick McGorry, the Australian of the Year, he’s pioneered this where they’re centres, they be all through metropolitan and regional areas. There are 30 already that he put in place after our last period of office in government. He said they need 90, to really comprehensively cover the country. So we’re offering the other 60.
They’re call in centres which will be staffed by professionals and all the rest. They’ll be well promoted around local areas. It’ll be an opportunity for young people to go in and get the right advice and get headed in the right direction.
The second one is what is called early psychosis prevention centres. A lot of acute and sub-acute cases, you know young people who have bad break downs, and it could be induced by drugs and other things which could exacerbate an underlying problem, or alcohol or whatever. But centres that when people turn up in emergency rooms they can be taken off to these again highly specialised, well staffed. And we’re going to put in 800 new beds for these centres all around the country so that they can be self contained.
NEIL MITCHELL:
It’s interesting isn’t it? We get a report of somebody who’s turned away or is waiting a long time for surgery on a broken leg and there’s outrage. But I get calls from people whose children, I remember one whose child was anorexic, and they couldn’t get her a bed. And she was close to death, and we helped get her a bed.
But it is really difficult to get a mental health bed.
ANDREW ROBB:
That’s correct, extremely difficult. And to get a bed where the proper support is there, that people who know what they’re talking about and can understand what’s going on with this person quickly and do what has to be done and to provide the right support.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Hello Sean, go ahead Sean.
CALLER:
Ah yes, good morning gentlemen. I have been a sufferer of bipolar for 3 years now, just diagnosed. Prior to that, for 15 years, I was up and down like a rollercoaster. I never kept a job, couldn’t keep money, I was always in and out of hospital, and with bad, bad, very severe depression and anxiety.
Now it wasn’t until 3 years ago that I stood there and said to myself, I have no life. I have no social life, no friends, no money, something seriously is wrong with me. And one day my mum went to hospital, she got diagnosed with bipolar and she’s 56 now, it’s taken her 40 years to be diagnosed.
NEIL MITCHELL:
And how are you going Sean? Are you medicated? Are you controlled? How are you going?
CALLER:
I’m controlled, I’m medicated. I had to seriously look at myself and recognise the problems that I had and take control of that, as bipolar takes control of you. You need to catch onto that, manage it and be more self sufficient in the way that you handle your life.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Well it’s true, it’s very true. We talk to several people in the program, we’ve talked about their bipolar condition and it is manageable, like a lot of them.
Now if we could move onto some other issues. Thanks for calling Sean. Julia Gillard, she’s going to be harder to beat isn’t she?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, you know, we had Rudd’s measure. I think there’s no doubt about that. And Julia, you get a new person in, you get the honeymoon. She’s a clever politician and she’s more personable than Kevin Rudd so we’ve got to get through that. But in the end, the way we look at it, you know, they’ve changed jockeys but the horse it still the same and if we can focus the campaign on that I think we’re still in with a strong show.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Okay, when do you think the election will be? When are you ready for it?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, we’re ready now actually because we thought Kevin Rudd might go as early as he could if he got the conditions right which obviously he didn’t. But, I think Julia Gillard will seek to go, and take advantage, rely on the sort of superficial wave of support that’s coming from her entry into it and before she really has to grapple with too many issues.
Of course, she’s been the person sitting behind Kevin for two and half years and nodding furiously in agreement with everything he’s had to say. But, still there’ll be a honeymoon and they’ll try and separate that.
But it’s our job to nail them on the $100 billion debt which Julia’s had a big part in.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Do you think what’s happened to John Howard with the International Cricket Council is an insult to Australia?
ANDREW ROBB:
Yes I do. Yes I do. I think it’s very much, and we had a chat about it earlier, I agree with you, I think it’s very much a case of India thinking that he was too strong of an individual, and that they would have less influence than they wished in the years ahead. I mean they do pride themselves now on being now the cricketing nation and I think it’s a big insult really.
NEIL MITCHELL:
When you start cutting debt, are we going to hurt?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well the fact of matter is people are already hurting. You see if you’ve a $100 billion debt, every day the Government is borrowing $100 million. That’s $700 million a week. And the budget predicted that that would occur for the next two years.
Now someone has to pay for it, and everyone understands that. And I think July 1 today you see rates up, car rego up, power bills will be up, electricity, gas, all of these things. Now people I think will start to understand why the cost of living is going up because these things have to be paid, that’s why they go after the mining tax, all of these things flow into the cost of living.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Could I convince you to build a light rail from the airport to the city of Melbourne?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, there are a lot of things you could convince me to do, or us to do. But the bottom line is we’ve got to get some prudence back. The problem is this Government has thought that the solution to every problem is to spend more money. And they did it before the global financial crisis that was their solution. During the financial crisis that was the solution. And it’s again the solution. And with what’s happening in Europe, we could well have a second, a double, dip and the resilience of our economy has to be restored.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Thanks you for your time. Look forward to talking to you during the election campaign.
ANDREW ROBB:
My pleasure Neil, thank you.