Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:03): (1406) My question is to the Minister for Mental Health. Yesterday in the Parliament you said:

… I have a deep respect for Professor McGorry …

And:

… I regularly engage with Professor McGorry.

You said:

He is an eminent expert in youth mental health in our state … He has a deep understanding of mental health priorities.

In today’s Age Professor McGorry accuses your government of ‘gaslighting’ Victorians on mental health reform, ‘undermining of watchdog and accountability mechanisms’, ‘shrinkage and weakening of the mental health commission’ and a ‘dramatic reduction in funding for the peak body, Mental Health Victoria’. The mental health levy raises more than $1 billion a year from the business sector. Why is access to mental health services getting harder and outcomes getting worse under Labor when there is $1 billion being spent from the mental health levy?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Special Minister of State) (12:04): I thank Ms Crozier for her question. As I indicated yesterday, I have enormous respect for Professor McGorry, and he is entitled to express his view. On these matters, however, I respectfully take a different view. The view that I hold is on the importance of our job to continue to roll out the important mental health reforms that have been clearly outlined in a 10-year reform pathway set out for us by the royal commission’s final report.

If I can just take up Ms Crozier’s attempt to explain the mental health levy, this is a significant commitment that the government made. It was about recognising that we needed to lift the level of investment in mental health across the state, recognising and acknowledging the evidence that was put before the royal commission about the state of the mental health system. Can I say that the mental health levy, under our legislation, is required to be expended on mental health services and reform. It is a requirement of the legislation that that occur. It is estimated that for the 2026–27 financial year the levy will collect more than $1.2 billion. That will give our state the ability to invest more than all other states combined in mental health supports. In fact the performance statement in the budget papers indicates that our investments in mental health are over $3.25 billion, so we are more than doubling what we are collecting in the form of the levy for the critical services that we know Victorians rely on.

If I can, I will just take the next minute of time that I have left to give you a snapshot of the services and the improvements to the system that we have delivered. Our government are absolutely proud to be able to support our workforce, and we have increased the workforce by over 30 per cent in the mental health sector. We have increased the number of acute beds available across the system. We have delivered modern, fit-for-purpose services across the state, including at the Thomas Embling Hospital and including at youth prevention and recovery care centres in every region in the state. We are continuing to roll out locals in local communities – the missing middle in our system. We have rolled out 22 locals in 24 locations, and this is helping thousands and thousands of Victorians, including in regional Victoria, which you profess to care so much about. We are delivering the services that the royal commission called on us to do, and I know that the hardworking people in our sector are doing the very best job they can.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:07): I note the minister’s response, and she was very keen to talk up the tax that she is applying to hardworking Victorians, but the facts are that the outcomes are getting worse under Labor. You do not seem to take any notice of what is being written about your government, your administration and your leadership. Professor Patrick McGorry has also written that your government is only ‘entrusting departmental officials’ who have been ‘stubbornly immune to advice from experts’. So I ask: why has the government ignored expert advice?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Special Minister of State) (12:08): I think that the way that Ms Crozier has asked that question really exposes the lack of understanding of those opposite.

Georgie Crozier: On a point of order, President, it is not an opportunity for the minister to attack the opposition. I am asking a very important question around what Professor McGorry has said in today’s paper, and I would ask you to bring the minister back to answering the question.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Georgie Crozier: It is an excellent question, Ms Shing. You got the boot and so should she.

The PRESIDENT: That sort of amplifies what I was going to say, Ms Crozier, insofar as questions are not supposed to be asked to provoke a response. I will uphold the point of order insofar as it is not an opportunity for the government to attack the opposition. But in saying that, I would also ask you to keep in mind when asking questions that questions are not are supposed to be designed to provoke a response.

Ingrid STITT: I appreciate the opportunity to answer this in the way that I see fit because, frankly, we are not going to be lectured by those opposite, who did not even support the mental health levy when we introduced that legislation to the Parliament. We have taken the expert advice. You cannot get more expert advice than a far-reaching royal commission into the mental health and wellbeing system. We have also embedded lived experience in all of the reforms that we are driving, and I take very seriously the importance of continuing to listen carefully to the sector. It is why I have two ministerial advisory committees – I might add Professor McGorry is a member of one of them – to advise the government on the most effective way to roll out these reforms, and we will continue to listen to the experts.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:10): I move:

That the minister’s answers to be taken into consideration on the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to.