Suicide is the #1 cause of death for Australians under 45. The current system treats breakdown — MMP builds wellbeing. Green Zones, prevention in schools, free psychology, 200 new psychiatry positions, addiction treated as health not crime.
The current system is built around pharmaceutical management and clinical therapy. Both have value. Neither is sufficient. The conditions that produce mental illness — loneliness, purposelessness, housing stress, financial precarity, dislocation — are barely addressed because they sit outside the health portfolio. The downstream cost is paid in lives.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians under 45. More Australians die by suicide than in road accidents. The male rate is three times the female rate. In regional Australia the rates are higher than the national average. Aboriginal Australians die at twice the national rate. We respond to road deaths with billions in infrastructure. The suicide response is, by comparison, a brochure.
Chronic loneliness carries health risks comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It drives depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, and early death. Spreading fastest among young people — the most digitally connected generation in history is also the most socially isolated. No policy has acknowledged loneliness as a structural problem requiring a structural response. MMP does.
Every community gets a Green Zone — a permanent funded space designed around connection, purpose, and belonging. Not a clinic. Not a government office. A place where people go for sport, food, conversation, and community. The primary instrument of loneliness policy. 10 pilots first term — one per state and territory — then national rollout.
Meditation, mindfulness, and mental health literacy taught in every school from primary level — core curriculum alongside literacy and numeracy. School-based mental health practitioners in every secondary school, federally funded. Children who learn to manage their mental states at 10 have a fundamentally different life at 40.
10 sessions of psychology per year — fully funded, zero gap. The arbitrary limit that leaves people mid-treatment is ended. 200 additional public psychiatry positions nationally. Mental illness requiring a specialist should not be treated with a waiting list. Every new parent screened for postnatal depression.
Regional and rural Australia has the highest mental health need and the lowest service availability. MMP funds a national telehealth mental health workforce — properly paid, properly supervised. Regional Green Zones with on-site practitioners. Specialist consults available within a week, not six months.
Addiction is a health condition driven by social conditions, not a criminal one. The Rat Park experiment showed that rats given full lives don't get addicted; rats given empty lives do. Australian drug policy treats the symptom and ignores the structural cause. MMP redirects drug enforcement spending to treatment, social inclusion, and the conditions that prevent addiction in the first place. Possession decriminalised for personal use. Supply chains policed seriously.
The male suicide rate is three times the female rate. Men access mental health services at half the rate of women. MMP funds men's mental health programs that meet men where they are — workplaces, sports clubs, Men's Sheds, trades. Tradies' Mental Health Programme. Veterans' transition support fully resourced. Family-court men's wellbeing accounted for in the Family Law review.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians die by suicide at twice the national rate. The drivers are structural — dispossession, intergenerational trauma, community fragmentation. MMP funds community-controlled mental health services. Cultural healing recognised as legitimate care. SBC corridor connectivity ends the isolation of remote communities.
Insecure housing and income precarity are mental health crises waiting to happen. MMP treats housing affordability, the welfare floor at 65% of minimum wage, and rent caps as mental health policy. The link between housing stress and suicide is established. The policy response follows the evidence.
No memos pinned to this policy yet. When an MMP memo on this topic is published, it will appear here with a short summary. The full memo index is at moralmajority.com.au/memos.html.