Parliamentary Keynote Address
AUSTRALIAN MUSIC THERAPY ASSOCIATION
50TH NATIONAL CONFERENCE, MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
FRIDAY 17 OCTOBER 2025
Music has always been central to the world's oldest living culture. And I too would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we're gathered, the Wurundjeri, Woi-wurrung and Bunurong of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are part of this wonderful group today.
I'm so pleased to join you to celebrate the 50th National Conference of the Australian Music Therapy Association. I know you as people whose lives are dedicated to improving wellbeing, capacity and connection through music, including where it involves singing to talk.
I bring warm regards from the Federal Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing, Mark Butler, who's asked me to convey to you his deep respect and appreciation for the vital work that that you do.
I have a profound admiration for the work you do because I've seen it firsthand. It started long before any mainstream people knew about the term music therapy. And I'm not going to pretend that my mother was a music therapist, but she was a high school music teacher in her 20s, left teaching. However, in her 50s, the principal of a specialist school in Lakemba in Sydney's West called Wangee Park Public tempted her back to teaching because of her musical skills to work with complex kids with profound intellectual and physical support needs.
Through her, I saw the power of, in her case, the piano and voice, which could change the mood in her small classroom, engage students who may not have smiled all day and inspire vocalising from kids who are otherwise nonverbal. Without naming it as music therapy, I clocked the therapeutic powers of music.
A decade or two later, I was fortunate to be asked to do pro bono work in my business with the CEO of quite a new organisation in Penrith called Nordoff-Robbins. And that collaboration deepened my understanding of the science, of the rigor of the process and the skill of music therapists, not to mention the impact of the work on clients.
At a very personal level, I instinctively, used music to improve my own wellbeing when my Blue Mountains home burned down in a bushfire. And I would not normally get emotional about it now, twelve years on, but it was twelve years to this day. After the fire, I head up the Great Western Highway and any of you from Sydney will know the Great Western Highway as it goes up the Blue Mountains. I had to pass my own turn off and keep driving another twenty minutes or so to my rental property for about four years. And in the early years of recovery in particular and at anniversaries, that turn off was hard to drive past. So I put on one of two CDs, Meatloaf or Queen, that dated me, and sing my way up the highway. And twenty minutes later as I drove into my rental driveway, I was experiencing the healing power of making music.
I think it's also well known that on a Tuesday night in parliamentary sittings, the Arts Minister Tony Burke leads his band in music making. And each of us involved in that band appreciates the lift that we get from being part of it. So my fundamental belief is that music as a therapeutic tool in so many different circumstances runs deep and is continually being reinforced. During a session of the Guitars for Veterans program in my electorate, which is just on the edge of Sydney, one veteran with PTSD and anxiety told me that attending the group was the only time in the week that he went out on his own. He said his wife loved the program.
In aged care homes, I see residents with dementia respond to music from their youth. In preschools, I see toddlers learning and their behaviour enhanced by music. And while this is therapeutic, it's actually the development of your sector as professional music therapists with qualifications underpinned by evidence driven academic learning with registration and regulation and agreed ethical standards that provides a key for your clients to unlock the door to connection and communication. You do more than provide comfort. You restore speech, enable movement, regulate emotion and you rebuild memory.
It's hard to believe that over fifty years ago, music therapy was just beginning in Australia as a small pioneering movement. Today, you are respected allied health professionals delivering evidence-based therapies across health care, disability, education, mental health and aged care.
The expansion of your role and the broadening recognition of it is due in no small part to the ongoing advocacy and organising capacity of the Australian Music Therapy Association. In the future, I believe you will be even more deeply integrated into our systems of care. So this conference is not just a celebration, it is a testament to the persistence, activism and belief in the healing power of music and optimism for the future.
At the Commonwealth level, we are focused on delivering a health system that is person centred, preventative and holistic. Music therapy speaks powerfully to all three things. Whether in paediatric hospitals, stroke rehabilitation, dementia care or palliative services, music therapy offers something few other interventions can, connection through emotion, creativity, memory and identity.
When the Albanese Labor government came to office, our ambition was to put creativity back at the heart of our national life after a decade in which many in the art sector felt neglected. In January 2023, we launched Revive, a national cultural policy designed to renew momentum in creative practice and broad access to the benefits that it provides. At the core of Revise is the conviction that the benefits of access to creativity extend far beyond cultural expression and that there's a wealth of benefits in areas like education, mental health, community well-being, inclusion and social cohesion. One example of that is the investment of $4.3 million in pilot programs to support access to art and music therapy programs through Nordoff-Robbins and Primary Health Networks.
This measure signals that we see music therapy not only as a clinical intervention, but as a bridge between health, wellbeing and culture.
The pilot initiatives funded through Revive include data collection and evaluation to review their effectiveness, and that will inform future policy.
I cannot emphasise how important it is to strengthen and communicate the evidence base for the efficacy of the services you provide. And I know from last night that you're very aware of that. The successful national campaign to ensure music therapy remains recognised in the NDIS as a therapeutic support demonstrated just how crucial that is. That outcome was not guaranteed. It required robust evidence, powerful storytelling and united advocacy from clinicians, researchers, families and participants.
As Special Envoy for the Arts, I was proud to fight for you to have the opportunity to articulate your case on quality and efficacy of the therapeutic services that you provide. I realise that the uncertainty you experienced during the review was extremely challenging, but the Independent Review of Art and Music Therapy by Dr Stephen Duckett has now entrenched several important principles.
It affirmed what you've always known: that art and music therapies deliver measurable, life-changing outcomes when delivered by accredited professionals. It endorsed AMTA's standards and confirmed that music therapies have a rightful place in the NDIS.
In 2023-24, the Government invested $16.3 million in music therapy support. This was delivered by more than 1,400 providers and supported more than 7,200 NDIS participants.
Everyone in this room understands the value of that support, and we must not take it for granted.
I know we all agree on the need to focus on the best outcomes for NDIS participants and invest in support which have a robust evidence, base as well as ensure that providers are appropriately qualified to deliver these supports.
As recommended by the Duckett review, the newly established NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee will assess the evidence base for music and art therapy interventions for specific groups.
There will be public consultation to inform that process, and I know it will have your continued engagement as the evidence base grows and evolves.
Looking ahead, the question is not if music therapy has a place, but how far can it be integrated into the health system.
My ask to you is this, continue to build strong evidence, rigorous standards and clear outcome reporting. Keep engaging with decision makers, governments, departments, NDIS planners, your local federal members of parliament so that they see your impact in human stories, not just in numbers. Work collectively to advocate for fairness, sustainability, quality assurance and equitable access. And that word – equitable - came up last night, Emma, too.
We continue to see research demonstrating such significant improvements in speech and communication, emotional regulation and mental health, motor recovery after neurological injury and cognitive engagement.
Behind every peer reviewed journal is a real human story, a nonverbal child singing for the first time, an anxious patient calming before surgery, a person with dementia reconnecting through a familiar melody.
These are powerful stories to tell and to keep telling. Share the journeys of participants, families, communities and how music therapy changed their lives.
I can tell you the Commonwealth Government is committed to listening, to ensuring that national regulations, funding frameworks and workforce recognition reflect the full value of your profession.
I also encourage you to use the consultation process that will begin next year on the next cultural policy, which I hope will be about thriving, not just reviving. And it's an action plan for the whole of government, not just the arts portfolio. Your practical ideas and advocacy can play an important role in ensuring that it goes deeper in mobilising effort across all policy portfolios, like health disability, aged care and mental health. We need your contribution to achieve that.
As you reflect on the past five decades, I hope you feel a sense of pride. Your profession has changed the way Australia understands health and healing.
I also hope you feel a sense of hope about what lies ahead, music therapy being fully integrated, fully valued and fully embraced.
I believe that in a few years, music therapy will be considered even more mainstream, more respected and more effectively funded as part of health, well-being, inclusion and culture.
If we believe that all Australians should have the opportunity to engage, to flourish and to contribute, then therapies like yours are essential. I look forward to us continuing that journey together.
On behalf of the Albanese government, thank you for everything that you do.
Thank you for your clinical expertise, your compassion, your persistent advocacy and your belief in the transformative power of music.
Congratulations on this historic milestone and best wishes for a conference that will inspire change for the next generation. Thank you.
ENDS
