Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I actually want to talk about something relatively serious, which relates to youth mental health—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's talk about youth mental health and young people killing themselves, which happened in a suicide cluster in my area in 2011 and 2012, if you want to talk about something serious.

I'm addressing this particular subject matter, not having been scheduled to speak but I've been given the opportunity to. I do so on the basis of a discussion that I had with a very impressive young person from the Hazaras community—who would probably prefer that I didn't name her—in a really important meeting that I had with her on Friday.

When the suicide cluster happened in 2011 and 2012, one of the things I resolved was to lobby the then Labor government to ensure that we got headspaces in Dandenong and in Narre Warren—and we did get funding for those two headspaces. One of the concerns that I have—and if it keeps going I'll stand up again and talk about it—is in relation to access to these services for kids of multicultural backgrounds. I must flag here in this place at this time that following the discussion—not only that I've had with that very impressive young lady from the Hazaras community, who I spoke to on Friday, but also others within the migrant youth community in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne—I really am concerned about the fact that I don't believe enough young people of migrant background, or NESBs, are being encouraged to access these services. I will probably get up in the next 90 seconds and talk more about that.