Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is R U OK? day, a day to check in on your mates and a day to remind us that mental health matters. Mental health support is something that I am passionate about because I know how important it is to our community. Mental health in regional and rural areas is always more acute than in the cities. Among a range of reasons driving this is that traditionally we have less access to services or more difficult access to services. That's why I have been working hard for years to improve access to mental health services in my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast. Dealing with drought, then record-breaking bushfires, a pandemic and flood after flood has been particularly tough on the mental health of our community. And young people have been hit hard by this.

Before the 2019 election, I committed to a full headspace for Batemans Bay. I've had years of seeing the amazing difference the Nowra headspace makes to the lives of young people in the Shoalhaven, so I've been a big champion of this service. In the wake of the 2019-20 bushfires, I pushed the former government to bring that funding forward, with an interim service opening soon after in Batemans Bay. I was delighted to officially open the full Batemans Bay headspace in April last year, and I regularly visit to see how things are going. I'm really proud of it, and I know it is making a big difference to the lives of local young people.

The last time I was there, I took the new Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention along with $1.2 million to help reduce wait times. I thank the assistant minister for her support of the service. I'd also like to thank all of the wonderful headspace support workers on the ground helping young people in need. Your work is invaluable; thank you. My passion for improving mental health services for local young people hasn't stopped. At the last election, I promised another headspace for the Kiama community. Kiama is a beautiful regional town in the north of my electorate, which has devastatingly seen a string of local youth suicides during COVID. It's heartbreaking. We need to be stepping up support for young people in this community.

Since the election, I've been meeting with the health minister and the CEO of headspace to make sure that this commitment for a headspace in Kiama stays front of mind. It takes some time for these centres to get up and running, so I'm working closely with the minister to ensure the funding is released as soon as possible. And I'm really pleased to say that that is progressing. I thank the minister for that. Thank you also to everyone in the community who has advocated for this service and has worked with me to secure this commitment. I'm looking forward to delivering a headspace for Kiama this term.

I mentioned the floods earlier. My electorate has been hit hard by successive natural disasters over the last few years. We've had two disaster-declared floods this year alone, in March and in June, and we are still cleaning up from these. Many local communities still don't have full road access to their homes, with landslides across the South Coast doing serious damage to our road network, and it's taking time to get that fixed. I'm working closely with the councils on that, and the Australian government is providing funding support for this as well. But the impact is still being felt, and it is yet another drain on the mental health of our community.

I was really delighted that the Albanese government is delivering a further $450,000 to the South Eastern New South Wales Primary Health Network to support the mental health and wellbeing of our community. Funding will go towards an emergency response coordinator who will work with primary and mental healthcare providers and relevant agencies to make sure local people have access to support services. The PHN will also pleasingly deliver small community connectedness and recovery grants of up to $10,000 to build resilience and social connectedness.

On R U OK? day, as with every day, supporting the mental health of the South Coast community is front of my mind. I will keep working closely with the relevant ministers to continue improving our mental health services and recover from our seemingly never-ending string of natural disasters. And I encourage everyone to ask your mates today, 'R U OK?' Sometimes, just knowing a friend is there can make all the difference.