Posted: May 21, 2005

Unemployment and mental health

On the ABC news site late today was a story about the Prime Minister John Howard and Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson expressing concern about the mental health of Australians. This is a topic that is of great interest to me and it is the first time I have actually heard the PM and DPM raising the topic on the same platform. And after all this is a Government that imprisons the mentally ill without adequate health care, even locking Australians in detention camps. So this seemed like really something. I read on. The story filed by Louise Yaxley for the ABC radio program AM said:

Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson is warning Australia's farmers against trying to tough out the psychological impact of the drought without assistance.
...
Mr Anderson has warned farmers to take care of their mental health. "I really do encourage farmers to be aware of the signs of depression... cutting off communications, not coping," he said. "I really do encourage farmers to be aware of the signs of depression... cutting off communications, not coping," he said.
...
"[They should] not to be proud to seek a bit of help, if they hit that stage.
"That's terribly important. You've got to keep yourselves together and your families together if you're going to be any good to anyone."
...
Mr Howard added: "I want to echo what John has said.
"There is a personal dimension to this, and I think his exhortation to the men of the land in particular is well made, and I support it very strongly."

Well first of all I support government intervention of any type that brings the issue of mental health arising from economic hardship to the public eye and then spends money on support structures to ensure it does not become a chronic issue. I support families being helped by government through economic hardship.

But this sort of rhetoric once again demonstrates how the Government (and the public) are not consistent in the way they construct public policy problems. Suddenly, mental health is an issue - well at least as long as the drought lasts and only, it seems, for a select cohort of Australians.

This is a Government in tandem with their State government accomplices that has allowed the state of mental health care in Australia to plummet to unacceptable levels. Chronically underfunded and forgotten.

This is a Government that conducts its macroeconomic policy in such a way that 1.8 million Australians cannot find any or enough work.

This is a Government that has recently changed the structure of welfare support which will lower the benefits of those on disability support (many who are mentally disabled) and are forcing them into activity tests (into the labour market) when they no there are no jobs available. We note there are hundreds of thousands of community development jobs are ready to perform if the Federal Government would fund them.

For 30 years of so, unemployment has been persistently high in Australia. There is a strong relationship between unemployment and mental disability. Unemployment exacerbates pre-existing conditions in addition to generating new mental problems in the victims of erroneous government policy. I cannot recall such empathy being expressed for the hundreds of thousands of Australians who the Government has forced to bear the brunt of unemployment and who have manifest mental issues as a consequence.

If you want to read a little about unemployment and mental health then a good starting point is a 1995 article from our NZ friends who produce the Jobs Letter. You might also like to read our recent paper on mental health and unemployment and our Submission to the Australian Senate Select Committe on Mental Health, which outlines our proposal to provide structured public sector employment opportunities to workers who are suffering from mental disability and struggle to maintain labour market attachment.

What Australia needs is a consistent expression of public policy. Mental health problems often accompany economic hardship. The unemployed have been bearing the brunt of this type of causality for 30 years or more. The plight of the farmers is real and requires public policy attention. But please do not forget our fellow citizens who are 'experts' at being ignored.

Blog entry posted by bill