Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Mental health

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:52): Recently we acknowledged World Mental Health Day, and it is important to reflect on Victoria’s journey in creating a fairer and more inclusive mental health system. Around three out of five people in our community who we lose to mental ill health have never interacted with a mental health service before. Three out of four people that we lose to mental ill health are men or boys. We have to keep destigmatising and raising the profile of mental ill health to make a more fair and more inclusive supportive service. It is one thing to have that ambition, but it is another to fund and invest in that.

The Andrews–Allan Labor governments have invested some $5.7 billion in reforming our mental health system, responding to the 74 recommendations of the royal commission. This looks at things like establishing the mental health locals, which will be so transformational – 50 across our state and a further nine were announced recently, including at Dandenong; they are the front-door service for people who are struggling with mental ill health – all the way through to skilling up a substantive workforce. I give a big shout-out to our clinicians and our lived-experience workforce. We know that a big part of the royal commission’s work was based on the lived experience of people who have suffered during that time. We need to scale up and support our mental health workforce. It was great to connect recently with Tandem and the lived-experience community workforce, who do an extraordinary job in this space. The Allan Labor government is transforming mental health for all Victorians in our community.