Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to speak on Australia's youth in the Commonwealth's Year of Youth. I want to begin my remarks by congratulating my friend the shadow minister for youth and member for Moncrieff for her impassioned speech yesterday in the House on this topic, and I thank her for sharing her story with the parliament again. It is an inspiration to the many young people who were watching on from the galleries yesterday. Of course, I also want to thank the Minister for Youth, the honourable member for Cowan, for her words in the House, for the dedication she has to the youth of our country and for her work within the government in this key policy space.

Throughout the toughest times of COVID, particularly the lengthy lockdowns faced by Western Sydney and Melbourne, there was a big focus on businesses and economic recovery—rightly so, given that, without this adequate support, more livelihoods, and lives, could have been lost. But I thought, this year being the Commonwealth Year of Youth, it gives the King's realms and the Commonwealth of nations a chance to reflect on how COVID has impacted our young people and on the additional support they still need to fully recover.

In my role as the shadow assistant minister for mental health and suicide prevention, I speak with many young people when I attend headspaces and I speak to many youth mental health organisations, and I want to make a special mention of Youth Insearch for the incredible work that they do to support young people across our country. Youth Insearch has a terrific peer-worker model which assists many young people who find that the usual mental health system does not fit their needs. I've had young people from Youth Insearch come to my office a couple of times now, and I'm so impressed with their passion and the work they do for other young people when it comes to mental health. Many young people who attend Youth Insearch are referred to the program by their school as an avenue to speak with other kids and youths about similar struggles and issues they may have gone through or continue to go through. This may include trauma or difficulties with mental health.

I met with Youth Insearch here in parliament and I was so pleased to speak at a breakfast held here in Parliament House, where we heard some amazing stories of resilience and recovery. The peer workers have lived experience, and sometimes this can impact them. However, Youth Insearch has protocols in place to ensure they are supported when they need additional assistance. I've asked how young people who have gone through their own issues have resilience when they speak to other young people, and I'm really impressed with the model that Youth Insearch has to ensure that young people are protected in the space. I want to give a big shout-out to Courtney, Kate, Marlie, Nelani and Telly, who have all signed my End Youth Suicide T-shirt that proudly hangs in the foyer of my parliament office.

We must end the stigma that comes with mental health to ensure that those who feel embarrassed, particularly young men, feel supported to come forward and speak with their general practitioner or school counsellor, and get the help they need from a psychologist or a psychiatrist or be referred to a program like Youth Insearch. I emphasise that young people went through so much during COVID. I hear stories. I know this from personal experience; my son was in year 12 during the lockdowns. Kids are still going through the after-effects of those lockdowns, with the lack of connection they had with their peers during that time.

A few days ago the Minister for Youth released the net round of youth advisory panels. There is a mental health and suicide prevention youth advisory panel. I want to thank Arsh, Ipshita, Isabelle, Jessica, Katherine, Sankara, Saul and Troy for putting up their hands to be members of this very important body. I want to let you know that your work really matters. Keep fighting for what you believe in and what you think needs to happen in the mental health space across our country. I extend an open invitation to the government, to the Minister for Health and Aged Care and the assistant minister for mental health, to meet with myself and the shadow minister for health and this youth advisory group, to work on bipartisan solutions to reduce suicide in young people across Australia. As we always say, mental health should not be political; we should all be in there together trying to achieve the same outcomes.

In parliament I recently met with members of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, who shared with me that the cost of living is a top issue for young people; this is what is most on their minds. They're getting smashed by rising power bills and the cost of rent. I met with Luke, who is a peer worker from Lindsay's headspace at Penrith, who told me that he is speaking with those as young as 16 who are being faced with a choice between putting food on the table and accessing psychology sessions. MindFlare, a psychology practice in Glenmore Park in Lindsay, has told me that, due to the cost-of-living crisis hitting Western Sydney, people are now making the decision not to have psychology sessions. They are experiencing mass cancellations of psychology sessions.

This comes at a time when Suicide Prevention Australia has just released its latest quarterly Community Tracker, which found that half of those surveyed, including young people, experienced elevated cost of living and personal debt distress. The figure rose by five per cent this quarter. I raise this because many young people are supported by their parents or carers. These cost-of-living pressures are impacting younger youth as their parents struggle to pay for the mental health sessions they need after the government cut them in half.

Young people are still struggling from COVID, with social anxiety figures very high amongst those who are in later high school or their early years of university. These young people missed out on key milestones like attending a formal, going out in their first year of university and TAFE interactions, which we all know are so important. Recently I met with Hayley, who has started a petition asking the government to return the psychology sessions that were cut from 20 to 10 this year. She has 42½ thousand signatures on her petition. Hayley is from Western Sydney. She's 19 years old, and her peers are telling her that they really need the psychology sessions back. I want to congratulate Hayley for her tenacity, for her passion and for her drive to keep going.

I want to see more action in this space from the government. After all, recommendation 12 of the Better Access evaluation report said the additional 10 sessions should continue. They should have continued until the government had a plan to replace them with a service it deemed more worthy, not just cut them away without anything to improve the system and access to psychology sessions across this country. Instead, with the cost of living slamming young people right now, and it being their No. 1 concern, they are now faced with not having access to these sessions. This is a disgrace. I join with Hayley and the thousands of other people across our country who are pleading with this government to return those sessions.

I want to see more jobs in Western Sydney for local young people, to keep our youth local and ensure that they don't have to leave our beautiful community for work. They can stay, they can live and they can work in Western Sydney. This includes advanced manufacturing jobs. I thank the previous federal and New South Wales coalition governments for getting on with Western Sydney airport, which will allow more locals to live and work in Western Sydney. This amazing piece of infrastructure will unlock so much potential for jobs and investment in Lindsay and our region. I cannot wait to see the new jobs that will happen in and around the airport and that will ensure jobs for young people in Western Sydney for many years to come. I think of the superexcited faces of those young schoolchildren when they come to parliament in years 5 and 6, and I think, 'When you're finishing high school, the airport will be built and you'll have all these wonderful opportunities.' I have to say that I do ask if any of them want to be a politician; not many raise their hands. But so many raise their hands when I say, 'Who wants to work in the space industry?' That is what is coming to Western Sydney, with the international airport, brand-new industries and jobs in areas that we haven't even thought of yet. The future is so bright for young people in Western Sydney if we keep going along the trajectory of making this investment happen.

To conclude, I want to thank the work done by amazing teachers across every school in Lindsay; there are too many to name. I also want to thank Western Sydney University campuses at Kingswood and Werrington and the TAFE campus at Kingswood for their work with young people, providing quality tertiary education to Lindsay students and those across Western Sydney.

Australia is known as the lucky country. I believe in our youth and their aspirations for themselves and for our nation. Education and adequate mental health support is vital for our young people right now. They should have the best start for the future. I wish them all the best for the year ahead.

See this speech in context