Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Mental health

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (09:50): Recently we marked three years from the final report into the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, a landmark and multiyear agenda that will support the mental health and wellbeing of our communities into the future. This government has accepted all 74 recommendations – the nine interim recommendations and 65 recommendations. This is about laying bare the challenges that we face and building a new and inclusive mental health system. We know that mental ill health touches so many people and so many in our communities have a lived experience or know someone who has been impacted during that time. But still today we see that up to three out of five people are lost to mental ill health. They do not connect with a mental health service, so before we have even had the opportunity to connect and support them, they are lost to us to mental ill health.

This government, rather than just observing the problem, has put $6 billion into investment in and transformation of our mental health system. I want to give a big shout-out to the mental health workforce, who do so much in our community to care for and support and nurture those living with mental ill health. To the people with lived experience who are so critical in the stories and journeys – and the thousand submissions that underpin that and the workforce that they will be a part of in the future – thank you for the work that you do. And our clinicians, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists – we need more in Victoria as we transform this system for the future. Three years on, we have got so much work to do, but we are making massive inroads in support for the mental health and wellbeing of all Victorians.