This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Coalition has pledged a further $42m on mental health initiatives for young and Indigenous Australians, on top of $461m in the budget for mental health and suicide prevention.

Of the new funding, $22.5m will be spent on research grants to help find better treatments for mental health problems and $19.6m on the Indigenous advancement strategy to prevent suicide, particularly in the Kimberley.

In the first three months of this year, there were at least 35 suicides among Indigenous people, three of whom were only 12 years old.

The findings of an inquest into 13 suicides among young Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, handed down in February, found that crushing intergenerational trauma and poverty, including from the harmful effect of colonisation and loss of culture, were to blame.

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The Morrison government has made “securing essential services” central to its re-election pitch, using its projection of a surplus in 2019-20 and perceived strength of economic management to pre-empt Labor attacks that it is not spending enough on health and other social causes.

Labor is promising to not only build bigger budget surpluses but also outspend the Coalition in health, beginning with its $2.3bn cancer package that it announced in the budget reply.

On Saturday, the opposition will add a further $8.6m to work with Cancer Council Australia to relaunch a sun protection awareness campaign.

In a joint statement, Bill Shorten and the shadow health minister, Catherine King, said Australia was the world’s skin cancer capital.

“At least two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by age 70, and more than 2,200 people die from the disease each year,” they said. “We need to keep getting the message out – there’s no such thing as a healthy tan.”

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The research component of the Coalition’s mental health package has been allocated to a series of grants, including about emergency department management of acute mental health crises and culturally appropriate mental healthcare for Indigenous Australians.

In a statement, Scott Morrison said he would do “whatever it takes and whatever we can to break the curse of youth suicide in our country and ensure young people get the support they need”.

The Indigenous health minister, Ken Wyatt, said young Indigenous people “face many barriers to accessing healthcare” including finding services “that are safe and tailored to meet their needs”.

“This work will help change the way we deliver general mental health services so they draw on the value of culture, community and country to enrich the care provided to our First Nations people.”