Mental healthcare has been a key issue during the election campaign. It's especially prominent in the National Party's most marginal seat in the country.
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00:00Like many regional seats, mental health care has been a big issue here in Cowper on the New South Wales mid-north coast for voters ahead of the May 3 poll.
00:12We spoke to a Coffs Harbour mum who said it took two years for her son to see a child psychologist and that practitioner has now moved 150 kilometres away.
00:22So his ongoing treatment is by telehealth.
00:25My stepdaughter, and this is not a unique story, being 10 years old has been through body shaming and suicidal threats and also I've faced difficulties with my son as well.
00:41He has autism and cost is huge so you can't access the services through the public system because we just don't have them.
00:51Doctors say long waits have become the norm for children on the mid-north coast.
00:56In our local area if you are looking for mental health support for a child you're probably going to wait somewhere between 18 months to 2 years.
01:05Youth mental health has been a key focus in the seat of Cowper which the Nationals hold on a tight margin of 2.4%.
01:13Frontrunners, Nationals MP Pat Conaghan and nurse turned independent Kaz Heiss have touted various policies to address the issue.
01:22Both are promising to double the number of Medicare funded psychology visits from 10 to 20 a year.
01:28But Coffs Harbour clinical psychologist Dr Basha Radlinska says that will only help those people already receiving treatment.
01:36What it means is that you create a bottleneck in terms of who's accessing the services.
01:42It essentially means that the psychologists are now doubling their caseloads in terms of the people that they're providing support for.
01:49Local GP Nicola Holmes has welcomed Labor and the Coalition's promises to invest further in Medicare.
01:56But she says there are better solutions to help GPs to support people with mental health needs.
02:01And what would really help us as GPs is if you would block fund mental health nurses even practice nurses in to enable the general practices to do more holistic care and get more patients seen by working as a team.
02:16For Coffs mum Brooke whoever can deliver mental health reforms will receive her vote.
02:21If I can see anyone that's going to bring that to the party then yeah they would definitely 100% get my vote.
02:26Mental health is often described as a hidden problem.
02:29But for many voters here in Cowper it could be the issue which decides their vote this election.
02:35The next election.
02:36The next election.