Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to join the member for Jagajaga in highlighting the great work being done by headspace across this country, and particularly in my electorate of Lalor, where the headspace facility opened under the Gillard government and is doing fantastic early intervention work with young people in a community where we truly do understand the debilitating impacts of mental health. It is Mental Health Week this week, and it is right for us to raise the issues and the impacts that mental health issues are having not just on the broad community, but particularly on our young people. I would mention in particular the impact that psychosis is having in my electorate of Lalor as a result of aberrant drug use. What a tragedy it is to see young people's lives derailed in those processes! But with supports like headspace and other specific psychosis support available across the western suburbs of Melbourne, young people are getting their lives back on track. I cannot say this clearly or loudly enough: in this debate about mental health, there are solutions. If people have been sidetracked through ice use, in particular, into psychosis, there are solutions; they can find their way back.