Cracking up? The unsustainability of government mental health policy

In relation to productivity, the government is assuming that lower productivity among youth can be attributed to the rise of mental illness--and thus is depending on Orygen to find the cure. Ironically, it is government's other policies that have blocked youth from entering the workplace. In New South Wales the abolition of the School Certificate has forced youth to stay at school until the end of year 12. The political reality underlying this policy was there were not many jobs available for youth.

More importantly, the rising minimum wage policy has wiped out many lower skilled and lower paid jobs. Many youth are being kept at the doorway of employment if they have little work experience and low education level, thus do not meet the productivity requirements for higher wages. The lower paid jobs are the stepping stone for youth to join the workforce and to receive on-job training, an effective and economical way of increasing youth productivity for a society. They learn skills while making an economic contribution. As the result of minimum wage policy, these people have been forced to go through the same process as others by completing either TAFE or university study. This in fact has created anxiety and desperation for many youth, because many of them do not consider academic study as the only way of improving or learning skills. Academic study is not their preferred choice.

Overall, contrary to government perceived outcomes, government policy and interventions have many drawbacks. Mental health policy has created discrimination. People are discriminated against because of differences in behavior. This policy allows powerful groups to impose their own behavior and way of thinking on others. Government intervention in mental health has disempowered people with mental illness from being responsible for their own lives. They are trapped and becoming more and more dependent. They have little motivation to move quickly or at all out of existing support and benefits.

Government over-investment in a particular organization has created a professional monopoly in mental health. It hijacks the normal process of professional improvement through debate, discussion and competition, and weights one method or idea over others without them being carefully tested and checked. Even worse, neither the government nor the monopoly organization bear effective responsibility for the damage caused. To create a substantial productive society, the government needs to learn itself and encourage other people to:

1. accept diverse behaviors and stop labeling;
2. minimize its intervention in the mental health profession and let a hundred professional flowers boom; and, finally
3. maximize job opportunities so that people have freedom to chose their own way of improving productivity.

People are not broken; they are only seen to be broken as a result of our perceptions and government policy.