Australia Launches First-Ever National LGBTIQA+ Health & Wellbeing Action Plan

The federal government has today launched Australia’s first-ever national action plan for the specific health and wellbeing challenges and discrepancies faced by the LGBTQIA+ community in Australia.

The National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ People 2025-2035 is a ten-year action plan, which covers an enormous amount – physical health, mental health, and how things like stigma, discrimination, and lack of knowledge about LGBTQIA+ people can affect our community’s health and access to health services.

It was launched today in Melbourne, by Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler and Assistant Minister to Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney, along with a host of guests, including many community members who were a part of the Expert Advisory Group that worked on the Action Plan.

In the forward of the document, Kearney declared that, “this Action Plan… outlines a pathway for government to work in partnership with LGBTIQA+ communities to drive real change and chart a course to better health and wellbeing outcomes.”

At the launch event, which was held at Your Community Health in Reservoir, it was also announced that an additional $15.5 million will be dedicated to LGBTQIA+ health and support services.

The National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ People

The National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ People outlines some of the key stats about LGBTQIA+ health, and how much more likely we are to face health issues, particularly in the spaces of mental health, alcohol and drug use, and family and sexual violence. Such as:

• Almost 3 in 4 (73.2%) LGBTQA+ adults reported having ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point in their lives.
• Almost 3 in 5 (57.2%) LGBTQA+ experienced high or very high psychological distress.
• 2 in 5 (39.0%) LGBTQA+ young people identified as having a disability or long-term health condition (inclusive of mental health conditions).
• Almost 2 in 3 (62.1%) LGBTQA+ young people reported having ever self-harmed, and 2 in 5 (40.1%) had self-harmed in the past 12 months.
• Almost 3 in 4 (74.8%) LGBTQA+ people reported having ever considered attempting suicide at some point during their lives.
• Around 2 in 5 (41.9%) LGBTQA+ people reported that they had considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months
• Almost half of (48.6%) LGBTQA+ people indicated having ever experienced sexual assault.
• Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people were 1.2 times as likely as heterosexual people to consume alcohol at risky levels.
• Almost half (44.4%) of LGBTQA+ people reported using one or more drugs for non-medical purposes in the past 6 months.
• 2 in 3 (64.9%) respondents had experienced family violence, not including intimate partner violence.

The Action Plan lays out five areas of focus to make system-wide change in the health care system, to help lessen the discrepencies experienced by the LGBTQIA+ community.

The key areas of focus will be:

• building system-wide leadership and cultural change
• strengthening preventive health and building health literacy
• enhancing accessibility, availability and safety of health care services
• ensuring workforce capability and capacity across both mainstream and LGBTIQA+ led services, and
• improving research, data and evaluation.

Ged Kearney says she is ‘so proud’ of LGBTQIA+ community for coming together to contribute

Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney — who worked as a nurse during the HIV/AIDS crisis, and spearheaded the LGBTIQA+ Health & Wellbeing Action Plan, conveyed her excitement to Star Observer at the launch.

Congratulations – an enormous amount of work went into this. How are feeling now this report has finally been launched?

“I’m feeling really excited, a bit of relief that we’re finally there. I think the most important thing that we have this plan, and I’m really excited for the future and what we’re going to do with it.”

Is there anything in particular in the plan that you are most proud of?

“I’m incredibly proud the largest consultation with the LGBTIQA+ community that’s ever really happened for one project.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people were consulted, almost every single organisation was consulted. And I am really confident the plan address as much as their concerns as we possibly could; it’s very comprehensive.

“I’m really proud of the outreach, I’m so proud that everyone wanted to contribute, and that connection has made me closer to the communities but also confident we’ve got a great plan.”

In terms of mental wellbeing: we saw a 700% spike in calls to LGBTQIA+ hotlines when Trump was elected. With the political effects on our community, was that something that was considered in the long-term in this plan?

“We absolutely acknowledge that mental health issues are profoundly spread right throughout the community, for all sorts of reasons: stigma, isolation, discrimination, all those reasons. When you personally are turned into a political football, we know it has even deeper impacts; even the most robust of people feel it.

“We have really built into this plan a pathway to address the barriers people feel in accessing mental health care, but also, I think we’re building into this a robustness in the health system that can help support and buttress people from the LGBTIQA+ community, so when they enter the health system, all of that stigma and discrimination, those barriers are swept away. And I can’t promise that tomorrow, it’s a long-term thing.

“But this is the plan, so when those political issues do happen, there’s somewhere for the community to go where they feel supported and trusted, and where their mental health is a primary issue for health care professionals.”

This the first ever plan of this kind for the community — in 2024. Does that surprise you?

“It doesn’t surprise me, but it does disappoint me greatly that this is the first one.

“We mentioned we had Jamie Gardiner OAM here today, who has been campaigning for the health of the LGBTIQA+ community since the 70s. There’s a lot of people that have been fighting for this for a long, long time. It was one of the first things raised with me when I picked up this portfolio — we NEED a health care plan.

“So yes, it’s disappointing that it’s taken this long, but hey — it’s here! And we’re going to build on it, and work really hard to get every single thing in there implemented.”

You can see the full National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ People here.