Victoria shelves key mental health pledge, despite royal commission promise

A promise to deliver on a key royal commission recommendation on mental health has been quietly shelved by the Allan government, which is also facing a union backlash for reneging on a vow to create 800 jobs in the sector.

Eight regional boards were meant to be set up by no later than the end of 2023, to advise the Department of Health on mental health and wellbeing – but they have been scrubbed from its website.

A surge in mental health conditions has driven Australia’s chronic ill health to a record high.Credit: Getty Images

The state government now says it will consult over how the health landscape has changed since the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System before deciding what to do.

Mental health advocate Simon Katterl, who assisted the royal commission when the report was drafted, said: “It’s hard to trust that governments keep their promises when they just change what they promised.”

The fourth recommendation of the 2021 royal commission into mental health was that the state set up eight interim regional bodies to advise on mental health and wellbeing in their area.

It said that by the end of 2023, these bodies must be replaced with eight legislated regional mental health and wellbeing boards with powers to commission services and hold providers to account.

But these boards have not been created – despite being spelt out in government legislation – and references have been removed from the Department of Health website. The site instead only refers to the interim bodies, which are not protected by legislation.

In response to questions from The Age, the government said the health landscape had changed over the past three years. It now plans to consult the sector about how governance would work alongside new “health service networks” that the government opted to create when it chose not to pursue hospital amalgamations.

The interim bodies will remain and be consulted about next steps.

“Work is under way on 90 per cent of the royal commission’s recommendations, including to have local voices engaged in the design and planning of mental health and wellbeing services,” a state government spokesperson said.

When the royal commission tabled its final report in 2021, chair Penny Armytage said the system had “catastrophically failed to live up to expectations”.

Then-premier Daniel Andrews said the report revealed “one inescapable truth: we are failing. And it is costing lives.” The Victorian government committed to implement all of its recommendations.

Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council chief executive Vrinda Edan said she feared the state government had quietly delayed the rollout of the boards.

“There’s not been any official information that we’ve been given about what’s been happening, either with the interim boards or the full boards,” she said.

Edan said outcomes for patients were so poor that enshrining the boards in law should be a priority so they are harder to disband.

“We have [almost] a 20-year less lifespan compared to the rest of the population,” she said. “We have really significant housing issues, issues of poverty, discrimination.”

Katterl said the boards were meant to give local communities control of the services they needed.

“These boards were meant to fund services based on human rights standards,” he said.

“That’s because the royal commission showed the government couldn’t be trusted to do that job alone.

“Now we’ll have bureaucrats and politicians deciding what’s needed from Spring Street.”

Mental Health Victoria head of policy and advocacy Bronte Spiteri called on the state government to unveil the timeframes and next steps for the legislated boards as a priority.

“We know that systemic reform takes time to succeed,” she said. “But it also requires consistency and clarity on implementation pathways.”

Meanwhile, the Health and Community Services Union has accused the Allan government of breaking a pledge to create 800 jobs across Victoria’s mental health services.

The union said the $250 million promise was crucial to implementing the royal commission’s findings and part of a memorandum of understanding signed under an enterprise agreement running from 2020 to 2024.

Branch secretary Paul Healey said his members reported that the system was worse than it had been before the commission, with rising occupational violence and aggression.

“The government’s backflip on its promised 800 positions isn’t just a betrayal of workers – it’s a betrayal of every Victorian who relies on our mental health system,” he said.

In response to the union’s criticisms, a spokesperson for the Allan government said it had invested $600 million and had increased the mental health workforce by 17 per cent since 2021.

Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the government had “no excuses to ditch or delay these vital mental health reforms”.

“We know that the money is there, with the mental health tax delivering $1 billion to the government this year alone,” Kealy said.

“Labor must take immediate action to get mental health reforms back on track.”

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