Submissions

QAMH welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Stage Two Rental Law Reform consultation being led by the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy. While QAMH supports the proposed changes to Queensland’s rental laws, we don’t believe that these reforms go far enough. Strong rental protection laws which address rental affordability and security are needed to redress the balance and make renting a fair arrangement, for both renters and owners.

One of the most persistent problems facing the Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Sector is the lack of available information on workforce numbers, demographics, skill base, educational attainment and geographic distribution. In this submission, we ask the Australian Bureau of Statistics to capture occupations relevant to the Community Mental Health and Wellbeing workforce within the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO).

Queensland invests just 4.7 per cent of its mental health funding in community managed mental health NGOs – the lowest of any state or territory in Australia. QAMH is calling for an increase of at least 48 per cent in funding for the Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Sector, as well as more transparency as to how decisions about mental health funding are made. We also urge the government to continue its resolve to explore social prescribing models and move towards implementing a state-wide trial of social prescribing sites.

In this submission to the Productivity Commission, QAMH highlight that an extended unpaid leave entitlement applied to all carers - not just carers of older Australians - under the National Employment Standards will be a useful option in the mix to help more carers balance caring commitments with remaining in work, especially if used in combination with new flexible working arrangements in the Fair Work Act.

Both here in Australia and internationally, there is a large and rapidly growing body of evidence which demonstrates a strong positive impact of the arts on both mental and physical health, and consequently wellbeing as a whole. Given Australia’s ballooning mental health crisis, we believe that a key opportunity exists to boldly articulate the value of the Arts Sector in creating a Wellbeing Economy to the wider community and position it at the leading edge of cross-sectoral reform and partnerships.

QAMH welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training (the Committee) as part of its Inquiry into the Perceptions and Status of Vocational Education and Training. Our response to this submission explores the challenges and pose some potential solutions in order to attract more students and grow the pipeline into our sector.