Western Victoria Region
Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (12:53): (433) My constituency matter is for the Minister for Small Business, and it relates to the cancellation and drying up of funding for mental health clinicians that are used to support small businesses through chambers of commerce. I particularly note the impact that this has had on my local chamber of commerce in Ballarat, known as Commerce Ballarat. My question is this: can the minister give a commitment to chambers of commerce, particularly my chambers in Western Victoria, that funding will be reinstated to support the mental health of small business owners? There are recommendations from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System that note that businesses should establish mentally healthy workplaces. That is exactly the work that these clinicians were doing. That cannot happen anymore because the funding has dried up. I know many clinicians have since resigned because the fee-for-service model has not worked. I encourage the minister to consider reinstating this funding, because it is doing very good work.