Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Raise Our Voice Australia helps young diverse voices join the public policymaking process. Their Youth Voice in Parliament initiative invites young students to write a speech and have it read in parliament. This year the theme is 'Where I want Australia to be in 20 Years'. A young woman from Reid has written of her firsthand experience of Australia's mental health system. I will protect her privacy, as she is under 18. She writes:

I am 17 years old and I go to school in the Reid electorate. RUOK? Day has come and gone and it has made me realise something about the country which I live in. Everyone is all for mental health advocacy until it means having to pay for more services. It is easier to ask the question 'RUOK?' than to cough up extra dollars.

My young constituent goes on to state that she is someone who has been in hospital several times due to suicide attempts and that the mental health system has failed so many people. She says that every politician, regardless of party, needs to be doing more. She says that she was discharged from the public mental health system when she was still at risk, because her time to get better had expired. She says that they couldn't afford to treat her anymore and she felt like they had given up. She says:

It's people who are most disadvantaged that need mental health services, yet they are the ones denied it.

I would like to thank my young constituent for sharing her personal experience and powerful message of change. I hope to instil hope in her, as her member, as a psychologist and as the chair of the House Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, that I will be able to create the change that's needed in Australia to improve our mental health system.