Australia is in the grip of a mental health "crisis" that is leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands, former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry says.
In a passionate plea to new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Professor McGorry said if the government doubled the amount it spent on the direct care of people with mental illness, it would "be enough" to resolve the crisis. 
Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44, with almost seven people taking their life every day.
The Commonwealth Government currently spends about $10 billion a year on mental health but Professor McGorry said about half of this was spent on welfare payments, which were "the cost of failure, not the cost of direct care". 
It's estimated 50 per cent of Australians suffer mental illness at some point in their lives.
Despite the insidious reach of mental illness, Professor McGorry said it was not an issue that had resonated with politicians and the public until recently.
"There's no political will - it hasn't translated into an issue that politicians think people care about. And maybe we as a [mental health] sector haven't organised ourselves enough ... you can't imagine the cancer sector tolerating that kind of inaction."
Professor McGorry, a psychiatrist who is a professor of youth mental heath at the University of Melbourne and executive director of Oxygen, has lent his support to a new national movement, Australians for Mental Health.
The movement is trying to put mental health on the national agenda and to lobby for mental health to receive as much funding - based on demand - as other health services.
According to Australians for Mental Health, less than seven per cent of health expenditure goes on mental health, despite it accounting for 14 per cent of the country's health burden.
This, Professor McGorry said, was an economic issue as much as a social one.
"We deserve the same level of care for our mental health as our physical health and we are getting nowhere near it."
Minto Felix, one of the campaign's organisers and the co-ordinator of Monash University's mental health program, said the answers to the mental heath crisis were well known in the sector. 
"What we don't have from our government is a bit of effort and leadership to get started. The voices of the experts are not being heard."
The group is calling for equal investment in mental health as physical health, improved access to mental health services, clear pathways for treatment and support, more early intervention and prevention services, and service integration.
     http://www.australiansformentalhealth.org.au/