Tuesday, 18 February 2025

Responses

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (18:25): There were 20 adjournment matters to 12 separate ministers, and written responses will be sought in accordance with the standing orders. There were three to me.

One question was from Mr Galea to me in my capacity as Minister for Multicultural Affairs about open mosque day, and I will acquit that now. I thank Mr Galea for his support of multicultural communities right across the south-east region of Melbourne, and of course that includes our proud Muslim community. As I said earlier today, open mosque day is a very important and symbolic day for the Muslim community – but not just that community, the whole community, because it is an opportunity for all of us to learn more about the Islamic faith. I think there has never been a more important time for use to show unity across the community and show support for the work that the Muslim community does right across Victoria. Upsettingly, for many people in the Muslim community open mosque day has been somewhat marred by some very Islamophobic behaviour online on the open mosque day website. But also we saw some disturbing incidents, which are currently being investigated by the police, in Epping a couple of days ago, and I just want to extend my thoughts to the people who were caught up in that incident, offer the government’s support and reiterate our view that there is no place for Islamophobic behaviour or any form of racism or hate speech in our state. I can confirm for Mr Galea that 34 mosques across Victoria participated in open mosque day this year. The government has provided $400,000 over four years for this important event. Open mosque day has been running since 2017 and is an important day on our busy multicultural calendar.

I also received an adjournment matter from Dr Mansfield in relation to the mental health enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations, and obviously I have a bit to say about that. Given the hour, I will try and be brief, but there is a little bit of detail that I want to correct because some of the contentions contained in Dr Mansfield’s adjournment are not right. Our efforts to grow, support and retain Victoria’s mental health workforce have been guided by our Victorian mental health workforce strategy, and the strategy’s modelling showed us that we needed to add an additional 2500 workers to the system to stabilise the system and to meet those reform priorities that were contained in the royal commission final report. Those roles have been coming into the system steadily. Some of those roles are still to come, but the majority have already been implemented.

Since 2021 the government has invested $600 million in dedicated mental health workforce initiatives, which goes directly to the point contained in Dr Mansfield’s adjournment. These initiatives are all around retention and attraction and making sure that we have the skills that we need across the mental health system. It reflects the largest investment in the mental health workforce in Victoria’s history. While there is always more work to do on that front, I am pleased that between 2021 and 2024 we were able to grow our public sector mental health workforce by 25 per cent, or 2126 FTEs. That is almost 2½ times historic growth rates. Now, with regard to the roles that are specifically covered by the enterprise agreement that Dr Mansfield is raising, there has been an increase of 1646 FTE mental health workers. That is more than double the commitment that was made to the unions for an additional 800 FTE as outlined in the MOU. Of particular note, 570 FTE are nursing roles, 400 are allied health roles and 200 are lived-experience roles. We are very proud of that investment. We will continue to work closely with our mental health workforce, and bargaining will continue in good faith.

The third item, President, was from Mr Mulholland, and as you quite rightly pointed out, there are about three actions in Mr Mulholland’s adjournment, a couple of them matters for the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party and not matters that are appropriate for me to go to. What I will say is that my focus as Minister for Multicultural Affairs has been about continuing to ensure that Victorians, no matter what their background and no matter what their faith, are able to participate fully in our society free from vilification and free from the kinds of behaviours that sadly we have seen increasing. On this side of the house we have a very long and proud history of supporting a Victoria that is fair, that is inclusive and that is safe for everyone, including anyone from our culturally diverse communities. If Mr Mulholland is genuine in his concerns, then I look forward to the opposition supporting the anti-vilification and social cohesion bill when it makes its way to this chamber. I will say that we will never seek to divide communities over these issues. It is not the right approach. We will continue to stand up for our multicultural communities, and it is something we feel very strongly about.

The PRESIDENT: The house stands adjourned.

House adjourned 6:33 pm.