Taimi Allan full-time South Australian mental health commissioner from 2023; Unmet Needs Study released
Taimi Allan was appointed to the reinstated position of full-time South Australian mental health commissioner in 2023. That year also brought the Unmet Needs Study into the state's mental health services. Calls to release the report became a newspaper advertisement campaign (at right) by the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia.
The South Australian government appointed Taimi Allan to the reinstated position of full-time mental health commissioner in 2023 that also saw the release of the Unmet Needs Study reporting that psychosocial support services in the state were underfunded by $125 million, leaving 19,000 people without the help they needed.
South Australia went from having one full-time dedicated mental health commissioner to three part-time commissioners – John Mannion, Heather Nowak and David Kelly – under the Steven Marshall Liberal government in 2019. Bringing back a full-time commissioner was a key recommendation by John Mannion.
Originally from Adelaide where she benefited from the state’s mental health system in her teens and twenties, new commissioner Taimi Allan was previously in New Zealand as director of Ember Innovations mental health organisation, a member of the mental health and wellbeing commission and the mental health advisor to the Aotearoa royal commission on abuse in state care.
Announcing her appointment, South Australian government health minister Chris Picton praised Ms Allan as “an incredible South Australian, renowned globally for her work in mental health”. Allan would lead South Australia’s mental health commission working with people experience mental illness, their families and carers, as well as mental health providers, the premier’s advocate for suicide prevention Nadia Clancy, charities and national mental health bodies to help improve mental health pathways.
Her appointment added to the state government’s $294 million investment into mental health. Improvements included 100 new mental health beds, increasing capacity at Modbury, Noarlunga, Queen Elizabeth, Mount Gambier, Mount Barker and the new women’s and children’s hospitals.
The Unmet Needs Study – an Australian first hailed as a “watershed moment in the history of mental health” – detailed how psychosocial support services in South Australia were underfunded by $125 million, leaving 19,000 people without the help they needed. This was up from 11,000 people revealed in a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into the state’s mental health services.
The study also revealed “two contradictory outcomes”: spending on psychosocial support services in South Australia exceeded funding estimates by $34 million with most going towards NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) participants – a smaller group with more expensive requirements. Minister Picton said the state government hadn’t been able securing the funding from the federal government to fill the $125 million hole in the psychosocial services, although there was “enough money out there” but it was “just all going to the NDIS”. The report recommended that both the federal and state governments were responsible for paying for the services.
Calls for release of the Unmet Needs Report became an attack on Picton by the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia with advertisements in The Advertiser and InDaily publications. The coalition, with a mission to influence mental health services, included groups such as Anglicare, GROW SA, Baptist Care, SYC (HYPA), Sonder, Skylight Mental Health, Carers SA, Life Without Barriers, STTARS (Survivors of Torture and Trauma Assistance), Centacare Catholic Family Services, MIND SA office, The Station community mental health centre, Wallaroo; Mission Australia, Uniting Communities, Country and Outback Health, Neami National, Diamond House Clubhouse SA, Port Adelaide; OARS community transitions, Relationships Australia, South Australia; Uniting Care Wesley Bowden, UnitingSA and Flourish Australia.
