Overview

The Australians Talk Mental Illness survey was conducted over a period of three months in early 2007.

The aim of the project was to get an accurate understanding of how average Australians felt the Federal Government was performing across several key areas affecting people with a mental illness.

Response to the survey has exceeded all expectations with 2,300 Australians from around the country rallying to get their voices heard - both in paper format and online.

The Results

On analysing the results of Australians Talk Mental Illness 2007, we found -

• 87% of respondents said that mental health issues would affect their vote at the next federal election.
• 36.3% of respondents felt that the situation facing people with a mental illness had become worse over the last federal term; 51.2% thought it had stayed exactly the same.
• The Federal Government was ranked by the majority of respondents as performing "poorly" on nine out ten mental health issues.
• The most important federal issues relating to mental health were (in order)
  1. Housing
  2. Employment
  3. Community and family education
  4. Mental health research
  5. Social security

A precis of the survey results can be found here.

The Next Steps

Based on the survey's results, MIFA wrote a submission for Australia's major political parties to consider.

A copy of that submission can be found here.

The submission has now been sent to each of the major political parties and MIFA has invited each party to respond with their intentions on mental health policy ahead of the Federal Election 2007.

We will post each response on this site as we receive them.

Responses to the Australians Talk Mental Illness 2007 survey (click each party's name to read their response):

• Australian Greens
• Australian Democrats (response letter)
• Australian Democrats (policy)
• Coalition
• Australian Labor Party

What You Can Do

You can help encourage our politicians to take your voice seriously.

Let your local MP know that you are passionate about mental health and ask what they are intending to do in response to the Australians Talk Mental Illness 2007 survey.

A good lobbying kit to get started can be found here and the contact details for your local member can be found here.

Media

For members of the media seeking more information about Australians Talk Mental Illness 2007 -

• Click here for the media release.
• Click here for a summary of results.
• Click here for MIFA's recommendations.
• Click here for a snapshot of what people said about the top issues.

Case studies and interviewees are available in all state and across most regions.

For further information, please contact Brett de Hoedt at Hootville Communications on (03) 9510 0848 or brett@hootville.com