Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since becoming the member for Kooyong I have been contacted many times by people in my electorate who are caring for somebody struggling with mental ill-health or suffering from mental illness themselves. These constituents and their loved ones are affected by a wide variety of illnesses—addiction, psychosis, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD, trauma and depression. Their ages vary too, from the exhausted and fearful parents of primary school children to people in their 60s and 70s worried for their future care and for the younger generation. The reason they reach out to me, not as their doctor but as their federal representative, is always the same—to decry a chronic lack of access to appropriate care and help.

One constituent wrote to me and said: 'What are you going to do to help people with mental illnesses? There are many of us. Many voices unheard. Many people turning to medications to drown out their pain, especially the most vulnerable—the youth. Many suicides. Children abusing medications and illicit drugs to cope with the cacophony of voices causing them to distance themselves from reality. Our public mental health wards are overcrowded and understaffed, underfinanced, staff harried and working under severe stress. There are not enough mental health professionals working in the field. We as a society have left people from all corners of our population without adult care.' To this constituent and to every other resident of Kooyong who has the same questions, let me say this: I am listening. I will do what I can to make access to mental health care better. There are serious and fundamental issues with the healthcare system which reflect a lack of long-term planning. It's a system where successive governments have moved from election to election and promise to promise without properly addressing holistic mental healthcare delivery. The understaffing and underfunding of mental healthcare services is in crisis. There is a chronic shortage of beds available for adolescents in mental health wards. This is an urgent priority that we have to address.

Another constituent wrote to me and told me, 'I need to hear something to keep me hopeful, for myself and for the many other people who find themselves in my desperate position.' To that constituent and to the others in Kooyong, I say: I hope you hear me today. We will improve Australia's mental healthcare system, we will make it more accessible and we will deliver more comprehensive long-term care.