A commissioning layer between the Commonwealth and the service a person actually walks into, and the body responsible for the design this database most consistently praises.

Medicare Mental Health Centres are free, walk-in, and require no appointment, no referral and no Mental Health Treatment Plan. The government has announced 92 by 2027; 21 locations were operating in New South Wales alone, used by more than 37,000 people and families.

Set that against Better Access, where a person must first obtain a GP appointment, then a Mental Health Treatment Plan, then find a psychologist, then usually pay a gap — or wait six to sixteen weeks for a bulk-billed appointment.

Two Commonwealth mental health programs, running at the same time, built on opposite assumptions about how much a person in distress should have to do before they are seen. This is the same contrast as the child dental benefit against the adult waiting list, and it points the same way. See The better-designed instrument already exists inside the same government.