Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Daniel Hadson is a second-year social work student at Newcastle university and is in Canberra with me this week. He wrote this speech—these are his words, his thoughts. This week, 8 to 14 October, is an important week in our nation. It is National Mental Health Week. There are many worthwhile national health campaign initiatives and events taking place across the nation, especially in my electorate of Shortland and indeed in the greater Hunter and Central Coast area. There can be no question that we live in an age of constant change. It is an age of rapid technology, instantaneous communication, fast food, long working hours, congested traffic, political instability, media saturation and social pressure. We settle for familiarity over variety, exploitation over exploration and hype over heart.

This year’s health week theme is ‘Relationships at Work and Play’, which is a timely one with a strong emphasis on stress management and self-care. This week people in the Hunter and Central Coast are taking advantage of, among others things, ‘stress less’ days, Tai Chi demonstrations, relaxing morning teas and stress management workshops.

Awabakal and Hunter New England Health Service also held a traditional games day on Tuesday. It is not all fun and games, however. Mental Health Week is all about education. It is a time of elevated public awareness of the facts and realities of mental health. It is no secret that we live in an era where one in five people will experience mental illness during their life. I applaud the many proactive campaigns taking place this week that seek to facilitate the fostering of mental health. These programs that prevent the development of foreseeable mental health issues are imperative. Even as we sit here today, our communities are being enriched through education forums, preventive workshops and information stalls. The strength of the members of our community who are consumers of mental health services is being highlighted through, among many other events, arts displays, theatre presentations, movie screenings and the launching of poetry books written by people living with mental illness.

I urge that we be proactive in dispelling ignorant myths and squeeze the very life out of cruel and unfair stereotypes that are compounded by government legislation and policies that serve only to discriminate against these members of the community. People with mental health issues are not dirty, contagious or incapable, and they are certainly not crazy, yet these stigmas hang as dark tempestuous clouds over the heads of many people who suffer from mental health issues. This is why occasions such as the Destigmatise Mental Illness March, to be held in Newcastle on Saturday, are of great significance. I congratulate ARAFMI for their work in organising this event and wish them a highly successful day. Anne Frank once wrote:

We all live with the objective of being happy—our lives are all different and yet the same.

She makes a crucial point about the human experience that we so often miss, so often discard, in our judgements, in our labels, in our dropping of people into boxes. It is this difference that makes the National Mental Health Week so vitally important for our nation. (Time expired)