Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to second the motion and this private member's bill—the Banking Amendment (Rural Finance Reform) Bill 2018. I support and acknowledge the work of my colleague the member for Mayo and particularly bring to the attention of the House the shocking figures about suicide in rural areas and the number of farming families who suffer through suicide and mental illness. I note that the minister at the table, the has a particular interest in the impact of mental illness in rural and regional areas.

I put out a call for all members of parliament to start paying particular attention not only to the suicides, because that's the end of the spectrum, but to the large number of people in rural and regional Australia who suffer from mental illness, to the huge problem we have in providing services that are relevant and timely, and to the failure of the government to provide a holistic plan for meeting the needs of people in rural and regional Australia for timely care when they suffer from a mental illness. I know the primary health networks have been given this responsibility. In many areas they are really struggling to provide a coordinated service.

I bring this to the attention of the House and support what the member for Mayo has said. We are facing a crisis in rural and regional Australia. Sure it's among farming families but in my electorate it is much wider than that. We have a huge number of people suffering mental illness. We can't meet the need. We lack coordination of services and we really lack a national approach to how rural and regional Australia can deal with this problem.

I acknowledge the work the member for Mayo and my colleagues are doing, particularly with this specific piece of legislation that refers to loans, but I bring to the House that it's a much wider problem that we are dealing with and we really need a coordinated approach to make sure that people in rural and regional Australia have access to the services they need in a timely and coordinated way.

The answer is not using the NBN. We have heard from the member for Denison about the problems with getting the NBN working in country areas. To say that everyone should go on their mobile phone and use broadband to access internet services is not the answer. We need boots on the ground and we need a national strategy.

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