Tony Ryall

By Matthew Backhouse of NZPA

Wellington, July 14 NZPA - The Government is defending cuts of more than $20 million to mental health programmes, saying it is providing more services and pumping more funds into mental health than ever before.

The cuts over four years -- revealed in budget papers released last week -- include $4m from mental health training, $4.2m from the Like Minds Like Mine mental health campaign, $5m from mental health research, and $6m from mental health promotion programmes.

Labour has slammed the cuts, saying the Government does not value community or public health initiatives.

But Health Minister Tony Ryall today defended the Government's track record on mental health, saying it was spending more than Labour ever did.

An extra $174m had been allocated to mental health over the next four years, and the $20m in savings had been made from contracts without sufficient uptake, expired contracts, and uncommitted money that had been reinvested back into health.

The cuts did not pose any risk to frontline services and accounted for less than half of one percent of the $1.2 billion spent on mental health every year, Mr Ryall said.

"The bottom line is that we are spending more on mental health services and providing more services to the public than ever before."

New mental health initiatives had been introduced last year, including $26m for eating disorder services, and "several new and exciting" programmes would be announced shortly, he said.

Labour health spokeswoman Ruth Dyson said the health of New Zealanders would suffer as a result of the cuts.

"Health Minister Tony Ryall can claim all he wants that cuts to programmes like mental health training are going back into frontline services, or there is some kind of health 'switch', but it simply isn't true and the public knows that," she said.

"Under National there have been more than 80 cuts to patient services, and budget documents reveal that the number of cuts will continue to increase.

"It's clear that the National Government doesn't value community or public health initiatives and the health of New Zealanders will suffer as a result."