Thank you, Speaker, for your leadership over the last seven days and particularly today. We know the awesome responsibility you bear given what has happened to one of our colleagues. To the member for Mackellar: it is a great honour to follow you. We all have such a high regard for Helen, but I think we all are deeply conscious of the particular bond that you on the crossbench have formed with each other, and we know you're hurting. You're really hurting.

These are tough times to live in, and this is a solemn day. There have been seven solemn days, but there's something particular about coming to this chamber, looking over there, seeing Helen's seat empty and knowing the pain and the struggle that she is experiencing and her family by extension are experiencing as well. Sometimes it is too easy to succumb to despair about the nature of not just our community but communities around the world that seem more filled with rage and more willing to jump to threats of violence and death. But a number of us heard from her beautiful husband, Phil, this morning and took inspiration from that—to put aside despair, to take some leadership from this utterly horrific event and to make our community a little bit better. That is exactly, I'm sure, what Helen would be hoping for. It's what Phil conveyed to us this morning.

We all want you back as soon as possible, Helen. We all wish you the very best during your rehabilitation. We know it is going to be incredibly tough. The member for Mackellar, given her background, would know that better than most. Helen brings leadership in integrity and civility in public discourse. She brings leadership in regional services. As a member for a city electorate, it's not something I understand in the way that Helen does. But she also brings leadership in health. Along with the member for Mackellar, she's part of a growing group of health professionals who are part of this chamber and who make my job a little bit more difficult as health minister but add enormous value to the discussion that we have in this building about one of the most important things for the Australian community. As a nurse, as a midwife, and as a person with a doctorate in public health and with regional experience, Helen brings a particular perspective that I want to see back in this chamber as soon as possible.

As members have said—as the member for Mackellar just said—this horrific event has raised questions about the nature of our public discourse here in Australia. That's the right thing to do. It doesn't mean we're shying away from robust debate, disagreement and sometimes angry disagreement at a time when households are under pressure. But there is a line. There is a line around intimidation and threats of violence against MPs, their families and their staff and against frontline health workers and retail workers, as we've heard about so often today. That debate should play out. I think it's an important one.

But in the very short time I have, I want to address some questions that are also being raised about mental health services. Obviously, we're not going to comment on the particular circumstances of the man who has been charged with this horrific attack. But there is a genuine debate, a legitimate debate, about the adequacy of mental health services in the country broadly and in regional communities in particular, and Helen has been a leader in that debate. There is no question that there are hundreds of thousands of Australians with severe and chronic mental illness who are not getting the support that they need and, in some cases, not getting really any support at all, and we're seeing far too many instances where those people, left to their own devices without support, do awful things in our community.

By coincidence, I met with mental health ministers on Friday, our third meeting for this year. We'll have another in December. We are seized of these issues, and I want Helen back in this chamber to be a part of that debate. We're also really conscious of the mental health needs of the community of Wangaratta and Wodonga in the north-east of Victoria. We've got too much experience of the mental health impacts of these horrific events, whether it's the attack at Bondi, the attack at Bondi Junction a little earlier or the various natural disasters that Australian communities have had to endure. We have some experience about that. We're talking to the Victorian government to make sure that the right supports are in place for that community that must be feeling an enormous amount of shock at what has happened in their beautiful town of Wangaratta. But, to Helen, we send you love. We want to see you back here as soon as possible after the tough rehabilitation journey we know you're going to face.