Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—When I was interrupted during my address in reply in the House of Representatives chamber, I was speaking about how proud I am to be part of a government that is abolishing temporary protection visas. I said that this is a great act of restoring humanity to our refugee and migration program. But also, for many refugees who've been sort of sitting around here on temporary protection visas for more than a decade, it helps unlock the potential and the untapped skills that they have in order to address our broader critical skills shortages and to assist in increasing our economic growth. So, improving our migration settings, when delivered properly, will help support higher productivity and wages. It's good for the economy. It's also good for our community.

I also want to touch on the ever-growing issues of mental health and the affliction of addiction in our community. We've seen the recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which showed that, tragically, issues relating to mental health and wellbeing are the leading cause of death, especially for young people. I want to take the opportunity to commend the efforts of my colleagues the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, and the Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Emma McBride. I'm looking forward to working with both ministers on delivering a range of mental health support measures that are important to my community.

In my community there are strong partnerships which have seen grassroots-led programs that have had an extraordinary impact on the mental health and wellbeing of local people. I want to commend the work of the team at the Muslim Youth, Adult and Families Program, who have built a fantastic model which harnesses the expertise of organisations within the mental health and drug and alcohol sector, along with the resources of the community, to deliver evidence based intervention for members of our community. The program's strength lies in its being led by Islamic community partner MyCentre Multicultural Youth Centre. Funded through the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, it is delivered in partnership with mainstream service providers, including Odyssey House Victoria as the lead agency, the Salvation Army, the Self Help Addiction Resource Centre, and youth support and advocacy services.

Its success rests with the program's ability to engage with families in support of individuals who are experiencing alcohol and drug related issues. Now in its fifth year, the program also includes a medical clinic that is open to the public regardless of faith and background and that specialises in meeting the needs of a community that has traditionally been disengaged from accessing mental health and addiction support services. I want to acknowledge the work of Abu Hamza and the great team at MyCentre in my electorate for their significant work in this area. I want to also acknowledge Abdiaziz Farah and Bryan Ambrosius from Odyssey House, Masi Masiyane from the Salvation Army, and Brad Pearce from the North West Melbourne Primary Health Network.

These grassroots culturally nuanced services are exactly the types of programs we need in order to tackle the real issues out there in our communities related to mental health and addiction disorders. That is why I also stand in strong support of a program called the Crossing, a project proposal for Victoria's first worker-led rehabilitation outpatient and outreach services, led by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's Victorian branch and the Health and Community Services Union. This life-changing project goes to the heart of addressing issues around mental health and addiction in the workforce. I recently met with a delegation of workers here in Canberra who delivered firsthand accounts of the toll that mental health concerns are having in workplaces right across Australia.

The numbers are truly devastating and seem to only ever become apparent once an issue boils over and its severity is increased. Often the impact of addiction and mental health struggles becomes apparent at the acute stages of affliction, which is why both workplace support and early interventions are so critical. Once workers are provided with safe, trusted avenues of support, the inflow of requests for mental health support carries its own momentum. People are willing to seek out help if they don't have to jump through hurdles, which is hard enough for any one of us out there in the community.

When mental health and addiction support services become as accessible to the community as alcohol, drugs and gambling are, then we can truly begin to turn this issue on its head and make some significant progress. That's why the emphasis on worker-led programs is of fundamental importance. It opens avenues and spaces where people spend most of their daily lives—that is, their workplaces—and, importantly, helps alleviate the stress and weight of the challenge being carried by families alone through workmates and communities. They all do it collectively, and it’s a great model for getting results. We've seen the flow-on effects as a result of the absence of such services in my community. I'm sure you have in your own community, Deputy Speaker. The issue of availability of appropriate services is a very serious one. Family domestic violence, unemployment, homelessness and crime are all issues that go to the core of disengagement and distress in our communities.

From purely a cost-benefit analysis, initiatives such as these speak for themselves. But the real impact is the long-term effect on people, on their families and on the community. What starts off as an individual issue easily becomes an intergenerational problem, right down the line and throughout the community. We know this, we've seen it and we need to do something about it. If anyone in this House needs evidence of the proposal's potential, we need look no further than Foundation House in New South Wales with its worker-led rehabilitation, outpatient and outreach service.

I want to commend the work of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Victorian branch, and the Health and Community Services Union for leading this amazing social justice initiative in strong partnership with other trade unions and Odyssey House Victoria. In particular, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the state secretary, Tony Mavromatis, and the assistant state secretary, Tony Piccolo, from the AMWU for their strong commitment and advocacy. Without them, this project would not be getting off the ground.

I want to acknowledge the state secretary of HACSU, Paul Healy, and Stephanie Thuesen, for their tireless efforts and commitment, and Dr Stefan Gruenert, the CEO of Odyssey House Victoria. They are working together because they strongly believe they have a model that will deliver results to the community. I want to thank them for their efforts and thank them for what drives them—that is, their compassion and determination to help others in the community. Working people require such leadership, in this space, and the campaign initiative delivers strongly for workers and communities right across Victoria. I'm determined to help support these projects and assist in their continued advocacy for social justice and see that this project comes to life in my home state of Victoria.

The Albanese Labor government has had a strong start to what is a very strong and bold reform agenda. We've certainly hit the ground running and demonstrated the approach and the values that will shape this government and this 47th Parliament. There's a lot of work to do, we all know this, and I look forward to working with everyone in my community, especially, to raise the issues that impact on their lives and to respond in a way that helps shape and inform strong policies. I do that through my parliamentary roles. I look forward to contributing to the agenda of the 47th Parliament.

I've been in this place for quite a while. I began by saying many thank yous to the wonderful people who have supported me over the years as the federal member for Calwell. I have watched my community grow incredibly in the time that I have been up here. It still largely remains a community that has settled great waves of refugees. We've certainly done that in settling refugees from Iraq and Syria. We have established migrant communities. We have new and emerging communities from the subcontinent. Indeed, we have one of the largest Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani communities in Victoria. It continues to be the great reflection of Australian migration and multiculturalism. Those communities have made a great contribution to this country. They will continue to make a great contribution.

I want to pause for a moment and speak about an event that I attended last Friday night in Broadmeadows. It was a vigil for the earthquake victims in Turkiye and Syria, expected already to have surpassed some 35,000 lives lost. My local Islamic community, Milli Gorus, and their fundraising arm, Hasene, organised a vigil last Friday night. I attended. There were some 1,000 people present. They came to mourn the loss of people in Turkiye and Syria. Some member of my community have lost family there. More importantly, they also came together to make donations, to raise funds, in order to provide—at this time, people just want to help. If they can't help in a physical way, they are generous in their hearts and they contribute financially.

Hasene has raised a lot of money and will continue to raise a lot of money for the people of Turkiye and Syria. It is one of those devastating natural disasters, one that is not often seen but that has an incredible impact, even in our country, because of the diaspora and because of the relationships that they have with family and friends back home. The Australian government has in the first instance given $10 million of humanitarian aid, seven of which will go to Turkiye and three to Syria through the Red Crescent and through the Red Cross. We've also sent technical assistance and emergency services assistance. I'm pretty sure that in the days and weeks and months as this tragedy continues to unfold, our thoughts, our community's thoughts and our country's thoughts will be with the people who went to bed one evening not knowing what was about to happen to them. Within that tragedy, there have been great moments of miracles of babies surviving and the tragedies like the father who held onto his daughter's hand while he waited for her to be removed after she'd been crushed in the earthquake. These are the stories that hit hard.

I thank the emergency services. It's not only our people who have gone over there but also the emergency services of all countries in the entire region rushed to the aid of Turkiye and Syria. What it does show is that, ultimately, when you strip aside who we are, what language we speak, what faith we have and what colour we are, we have a shared humanity. Humanity rises to its best at times of such great disasters. At the moment, we are seeing the best of humanity, and that should inspire us. My condolences go out to all those who have lost family and friends, and I hope to be able to help in any way that I can, through the Australian government, to assist in the days, weeks and months ahead.

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