Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of the four million Australians experiencing mental health issues. Due to stigma, many will not seek the treatment they need and, if they do, they may not be able to access the treatment they urgently require. One in five Australians are affected by a mental health issue during their lifetime and the annual cost to our community is estimated to be around $20 billion. Last year, the number of Australians who died by suicide is 2,866 and 15- to 24-year-old suicide accounted for over one-third of those deaths. We need to do more to prevent the tragedy of suicide and the impact on family, friends and the community who are left behind. Sixty-five thousand people attempt to take their own lives every year in Australia, which is about 180 each day. These statistics are just heartbreaking. We need to do more to promote acceptance of mental health issues and encourage people affected by mental health issues to seek treatment and reduce the stigma associated with it.

I welcome the awareness programs that promote mental wellbeing. Last month, I was proud to attend the R U OK? Day hosted by Samuel Terry Public School, a primary school in my electorate—the only primary school to take on such an initiative. I commend principal Mr Lockley and parent Natalie McPherson, who is a mum at the school. They wanted the kids at Samuel Terry to ask their family and friends 'Are you okay?' in a meaningful way, and to let the kids know that it's okay not to be okay and where to go for help when they are not okay. There were great guest speakers, including Julie Graham, the crime prevention officer; Linda Baumgartner, the youth liaison office at Penrith local area command; and Shafee, a student from Cranbrook high school, who composed a song that he rapped to for all the students, along with former NRL player, Joe Galuvao.

World Suicide Prevention Day asked everyone to take a minute to change a life, asking Australians to speak up, to take time and to listen. Headspace Day, which we recently celebrated, supports one in five young Australians and asks us to share what we do when we're not feeling great and to share a tip for a healthy headspace. I am into dancing in my socks in the kitchen—you get a lot of good movement around your kitchen floor in socks—and I listen to loud music or go for a run when my knee is up to it. For anyone looking for tips, I commend those. Headspace operates within my electorate and has a youth early psychosis program. On average, 66 people per month over the last four months have sought treatment and help. This program offers full clinical support, including psychiatric services, and supports 15 per cent of at-risk young people.

There are many worthy community-based organisations, such as beyondblue, the Black Dog Institute and the Butterfly Foundation just to name a few. Proudly, on 28 October, as the member for Fisher alluded to, I will be attending a Butterfly Foundation event to be run by Lilly Joyce that will seek to spread awareness of eating disorders through the 'Walk for Hope' along the Nepean River. Almost one million Australians are battling an eating disorder and 20 per cent of them will end up losing their lives. This is the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and these community-based, awareness-raising events are commendable.

I would like to thank both of the men's sheds operating in my electorate. The men's shed in Orchard Hills, with Tony Hudson at the helm, and the Penrith men's shed in Caddens, with the Reverend Neil Checkley, have a combined membership of about 150 men currently. One of the secrets to the men's sheds is that they are not overt in the way they provide mental health services and supports. Their members attend for a number of reasons, and it's a great way for men to come together with the opportunity to do something, reach out and talk to someone and be distracted from anything that is overwhelming them. Once again, we're seeing community organisations rising to the challenges.

Labor established the National Disability Insurance Scheme, with unprecedented support for people living with serious mental illness, and the National Mental Health Commission and the Primary Health Networks. But mental health is a massively underfunded area of medicine in this country, particularly in Western Sydney, where 575,000 kids are affected by clinically significant mental health problems. Our kids are experiencing mental health disorders such as ADD, anxiety, depression and conduct disorders, and no-one wants these kids to go without being able to access the treatment they need.

I want to go to a story that came across my desk. In my electorate, a young constituent, aged 13, presented to the Nepean emergency department accompanied by one of his parents. He was referred to the mental health unit. His parents sat with him in the waiting room, and he was sat next to somebody in their prison greens and a shifty guy who kept looking at this young man. He'd been brought in there because he'd written a suicide note to his parents. He'd been withdrawing from school for some time. Two months after he first presented to my local hospital, he was still on the waiting list to receive services. We have no clinical psychiatrists for any young people in my electorate, and waiting lists for those that are there are beyond two months. We have a problem in Western Sydney when the doctors are telling people to go to a different hospital. (Time expired)

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