Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last month, I led a team of local leaders from the Peel region to meet with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health about the alarming rate of youth suicides in our community. The team of local leaders came from all levels of government, including representatives from health, local schools and law enforcement. In attendance were the Mayor of Mandurah, Marina Vergone; the CEO of the City of Mandurah, Mark Newman; the state Liberal member for Dawesville, Dr Kim Hames; the state Labor member for Mandurah, David Templeman; the Young Western Australian of the Year, Rhys Williams; the Peel Youth Medical Service team of Eleanor Britton, Dr Rupert Backhouse and Amanda Poller; two students from Halls Head College, Paige Rosenberg and Matthew Read; and Sergeant Paul Trimble of the Western Australia Police.

Our team seeks better support services in Canning to address mental health, drugs, alcohol and other social issues. We have a local solution in the form of the PYMS Health Hub. The PYMS Health Hub is a vision for a unique regional facility that will deliver a comprehensive approach to the health needs of the youth in the Peel region, specifically for high-risk 12- to 24-year-olds. On behalf of the group, I thank the Prime Minister and the health minister for hearing local concerns on this issue direct from our local leadership in the Peel region. We sincerely hope that our vision for the health hub will be realised with funding from the federal government.