Tuesday, 29 July 2025

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (19:13): There were 20 adjournment matters this evening to 13 separate ministers, and we will seek written responses in accordance with the standing orders.

Just in relation to Mr McGowan’s matter about important issues around mental health services in his North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, I did want to make a few brief comments about that and acquit that matter for Mr McGowan. I do want to acknowledge the many amazing people in his community who work tirelessly to support people with mental health challenges in the community. I want to acknowledge all of the amazing mental health services and the workforce in that region. It is certainly something that I am particularly focused on in terms of rolling out additional services, and I talked a little bit about that today in my ministers statement. I was proud that the 2025–26 state budget included $34.4 million to not only continue to support the 15 locals we already have across 17 locations but to roll out seven new services, one of which will be in the City of Maroondah. There is planning work that is underway through my department currently. Once we have confirmed through those commissioning processes the provider that will run the service in that particular LGA, we will be able to say more about when the service will be operating. But I am very hopeful that those seven new locals will be up and running later this year.

I do want to just reiterate how important it is to support a strong pipeline of workers for our mental health locals. We want to make sure that we are not pinching mental health workers from other parts of the system but that we are actually building an additional pipeline of workers. Yesterday’s announcement – which is part of our $15.8 million graduate program for our locals – was great because it is another opportunity to build that pipeline. Once we have the three rounds of that graduate program up and running, that will be approximately 100 new specialist mental health workers to add to the fabulous people we already have working in our locals.

I also just want to acknowledge that the federal government is doing some important work and investment in this area, which will complement what we are doing here in Victoria. I think in the North-Eastern Metro Region we are seeing significant increases in services, including the Lilydale and Whittlesea locals. We also have the Box Hill hub, which continues to operate, and the Box Hill Head to Health clinic, which the Commonwealth will upgrade – as was announced during the federal election campaign – to a Medicare mental health centre. We also have the Heidelberg West Head to Health clinic and the Greensborough hub. This is all really important because it means that we are building a strong network of services, many of which work very closely together. I am very happy to, whenever I can, Mr McGowan, update you on the progress of particularly the Maroondah LGA local service, which we will be standing up later this year.

The PRESIDENT: The house stands adjourned.

House adjourned 7:17 pm.