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Poverty is not just an economic issue, it is a mental health issue
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
14 September 2026
AAMHP Supports ACOSS Call to Lift Working-Age Centrelink Payments
The Australian Association of Mental Health Practitioners (AAMHP) supports calls from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) for a substantial structural increase to working-age Centrelink payments, warning that poverty, food insecurity and housing stress carry serious consequences for mental health and wellbeing.
ACOSS has released new research showing that many people receiving working-age income support are struggling to afford food, rent and essential costs, with its Raise the Rate survey reporting that 95% of respondents were struggling to cover grocery costs and 90% said living on income support had left them socially isolated. ACOSS is calling for JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, Parenting Payment and related income supports to be lifted to parity with the pension and pension supplement, at least $600 per week on current rates.
AAMHP Chair Shane Warren said inadequate income support should be understood not only through the lens of household budgets, but through the lens of mental health, family stability and community wellbeing.
“When people cannot afford food, rent, transport, medication or a basic social life, we should not be surprised when distress increases. Poverty narrows a person’s world. It isolates people, exhausts families, increases shame and makes recovery harder. Income support that does not meet basic living costs is not simply an economic failure; it is a public health and mental health failure.” [Shane Warren]
AAMHP recognises the argument that routine indexation alone is not enough when payments remain structurally inadequate. The Department of Social Services confirms social security payments are indexed regularly, but ACOSS has argued that indexation only adjusts rates and does not correct the deeper gap between current payment levels and the real cost of living.
“As mental health practitioners, we see the human consequences of financial distress every day. People present with anxiety, depression, relationship strain, hopelessness and exhaustion, but beneath that distress there is often a very practical reality: they do not have enough money to live with dignity. You cannot counsel someone out of poverty while the system keeps pushing them back into it.” [Shane Warren]
AAMHP recognises that broadly trained mental health practitioners, counsellors, peer workers, community workers and frontline support workers often meet people at the point where financial hardship has become emotional crisis. Stronger income support would reduce preventable distress, strengthen families, and allow people to participate more fully in work, study, community and recovery.
“A decent safety net is one of the most practical mental health interventions a country can provide. If we are serious about prevention and early intervention, then lifting people out of poverty must be part of the conversation. Mental health policy cannot stop at services and waitlists; it must also address the living conditions that create and sustain distress.” [Shane Warren]
AAMHP calls on the Federal Government to listen to ACOSS, community organisations, people with lived experience of poverty, and the workers supporting them. No Australian should be forced to choose between food, housing, medicine and connection.
A healthier Australia begins with a fairer safety net.
Media Contact:
Shane Warren, Chair
Susan Sandy, Secretary
Philip Armstrong, CEO
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