Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Ministers statements: Ngwala Willumbong Aboriginal Corporation

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:13): I rise to update the house on the outstanding work of the Aboriginal community controlled organisation Ngwala Willumbong in supporting the successful rollout of Victoria’s health-led response to public intoxication. Victoria’s previous public drunkenness laws disproportionately and unjustly affected First Nations people, and as we all know, its historic decriminalisation and the establishment of our health-based response followed more than 30 years of advocacy from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Last Friday morning I had the absolute pleasure of visiting Ngwala’s dedicated sobering service in St Kilda to hear firsthand from the team how Ngwala’s services are providing critical access to services for Aboriginal communities across metropolitan and regional Victoria. They told me about how the work of their outreach teams is helping to provide care and support to people who need it but perhaps even more importantly connecting them to the services they need to support their broader wellbeing, whether that is access to addiction treatment, housing support or family violence support. This is what Aboriginal communities told us was needed and that is exactly what Ngwala’s service is doing. Victoria’s public intoxication response has already helped over 5600 Victorians, and I am looking forward to hearing more stories of how these services are helping to change lives right around the state. If anyone in the chamber is interested to learn more and to deepen their understanding of the important, powerful work of these services, I am sure that the team at Ngwala would be very open to providing additional support about their services. There is one catch: you have to actually get out of the car and go and meet with people to do that.