Thursday, 24 February 2022

The Crossing

Ms HALFPENNY: I rise in support of the work of the Victorian trade union movement to establish Victoria’s first worker-led drug and alcohol rehabilitation outpatient outreach service called The Crossing. Unions are well recognised for organising to achieve better wages, conditions and health and safety on the job, but unions are less known for the critical work they do to support members facing crises in life and looking out for their welfare. Too often unions and employers find it difficult to navigate an overwhelmed system to provide support for workers with addiction and mental ill health, watching helplessly as their lives spin out of control and they ultimately lose their jobs. But unions are not used to standing on the sidelines and helplessly watching on—they act and organise. The Crossing will enable unions, employers and service providers to come together to provide critical onsite education, outreach support and harm reduction training for health and safety reps, delegates and employers. There are plans to build a rehabilitation facility to refer workers and to provide support for families. This project is about providing mentally healthy workplaces with early intervention and innovation, a project that fits exactly with our government’s royal commission— (Time expired)