Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week we celebrated Mental Health Week and this week we celebrate Carers Week. However, mental health must be addressed every day of every week of every year to ensure global mental health education awareness and advocacy. The World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organisation with members and contacts in more than 150 countries, is focused on the task of mental health awareness, education and stigma reduction. Today I am talking about a group of men and women who deserve timely, accessible and appropriate mental health support services. I am speaking of our veterans, ex-service men and women, their families and our serving defence personnel. These men and women continue to give and have given selflessly of their lives to secure our country's freedom.

Townsville is home to the largest population of defence personnel in Australia and Townsville is also home to a large number of veterans, ex-service men and women, and their families. It is therefore important for me as the member for Herbert to listen to our defence community and to hear their needs in order to ensure they have a strong voice here in Canberra. I am proud to say that I am hosting the Townsville Defence Community Reference Group, which is made up of approximately 25 people from a range of defence and community organisations. These organisations are represented by their leaders, who are experts in their fields and have been doing excellent work in our community. The Townsville Defence Community Reference Group has been formed to discuss and address relevant policy to ensure that the Townsville defence community needs are heard loudly and clearly here in Canberra.

The Townsville Defence Community Reference Group includes organisations such as Mates4Mates, Legacy, Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia, Townsville RSL, Australian Defence Force Organisation, Women's Veteran Network, TPI, Australian Peacekeeper, local mental health organisations and representatives from Lavarack Barracks and the RAAF. The group meets monthly, but we may meet more frequently in the lead-up to the National Mental Health Commission's review into suicide prevention for veterans and their families. We had our second meetings on Thursday, 6 October 2016 and we have already identified a number of concerns relating to the review, including the fact that there does not seem to be family representation on the review panel and the very short time frame for this critical suicide prevention review.

On 9 September 2016, I wrote to the Prime Minister to advise him of the Townsville Defence Community Reference Group and to request a meeting to discuss our concerns and to plan how we can work collaboratively to ensure the Townsville defence community's voice is included in the review process, especially as our city has been named in the trial.