Senate debates

Monday, 1 December 2014

Adjournment

Sydney Walking Trails

10:00 pm

Photo of John FaulknerJohn Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Near the beginning of last century, Henry Lawson penned The Bonny Port of Sydney, which begins:

The lovely Port of Sydney

Lies laughing to the sky,

The bonny Port of Sydney,

Where the ships of nations lie.

You shall never see such beauty,

Though you sail the wide world o'er,

As the sunny Port of Sydney,

As we see it from the Shore.

Tonight I want to speak about the greatest natural asset of the city in which I live—Sydney Harbour—and a modest public works project that will ensure the public can experience all the beauty that Lawson wrote of. The harbour has always been the heart of Sydney. However, while a ferry ride to Manly is an essential for any visitor, the harbour lacks a defining experience that would enable everyone—whether they are from across the world or from down the street, whether rich or poor—to enjoy all it has to offer.

So tonight I want to propose a very modest public works project that will enhance the amenity of the harbour—a way marked walking track uniting two of Australia's most famous icons, Bondi and Manly beaches. This 'Bondi to Manly' track would connect these two world-famous beaches by following the shoreline of Sydney Harbour. It would pass the Sydney Opera House and cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge—perhaps our country's best-known international landmarks. I am confident a walking track from Bondi to Manly, if promoted and supported by all levels of government, has the potential to quickly become one of the great urban trails of the world. But what's more, this walking route already exists—it just remains hidden from the public.

Setting out from Bondi Beach the route heads up to South Head, then across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finally along the northern edge of the outer harbour to Manly Beach. The walk is nearly 70 kilometres in length, much of it on existing bush tracks running along the edge of the harbour through the Sydney Harbour National Park. In parts, walkers need to follow roads and paths in built-up areas, behind houses with harbour or ocean frontages, but for the vast majority of its length the walk follows the water's edge.

To those not fortunate enough to have spent any time in Sydney Harbour's parks or walking on its tracks, it comes as a surprise to learn that you can bushwalk, right now, from Sydney's most beautiful and famous southern beach to Sydney's most beautiful and famous northern beach and, along the way, have a front-row view of one of the world's most extraordinary coastlines and beautiful harbours. It is all there, just waiting to be formally presented to the world.

I am certain that, once completed, this walking track could not be bettered anywhere in the world. It would become a 'must do' for walkers everywhere—a truly world-class walk that would sit comfortably in the company of the Thames Path in London, the Dragons Back Trail in Hong Kong, Vancouver's Sea Wall, the Berlin Wall Trail, and the walk in the Tijuca Forest in Rio de Janeiro. These walks are not only important cultural and recreational experiences, they are also important generators of tourist revenue. All these walks are great attractions in the city where they are found. They are all different, all spectacular, all worth a visit. They are fun, educational, good for health and wellbeing—and there is just no better way to experience and explore a great city than on foot.

Sydney is also a great city—I believe a city of unsurpassed natural beauty. Surely it is time to take some small steps to showcase it to walkers from around the world? While the costs would be small, the benefits—cultural and economic—would be great. Way markers, maps and signage are all that is required. The potential of this walk to focus the attention of the world on the spectacular natural beauty of Sydney Harbour and the thousands of acres of national park along its shoreline is huge.

Why this walk? Sydney Harbour has played a central role in our national life—our history, geography, economy and culture. It is the birthplace of modern Australia, but its importance goes well beyond marking the place where black and white Australia first really met. Local Indigenous communities, who made up the Eora nation, had been living around the shores of Sydney Harbour for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years, before the harbour first came to the notice of Europeans.

From that day, in 1770, when Captain James Cook first sailed past the rocky headlands then known to the local Aboriginals as Car-Rang-Gel and now known as South and North Head, Sydney Harbour has captivated millions. Cook named the harbour Port Jackson, after Sir George Jackson, the Judge Advocate of the British Fleet. By noting its value as a 'safe anchorage' in the Endeavour's ships log, Cook became the first European to record the virtues of Sydney Harbour. He was the first of a long, long line.

Fast-forward to the present day, and Sydney, now a sprawling international metropolis, has changed beyond recognition from convict days, but the majesty of the harbour is undiminished. It only takes an afternoon's stroll along one of the countless winding bush tracks that ring the outer harbour's southern and northern edges for anyone with an eye for beauty or a love of nature and the outdoors to be spellbound.

For generations Sydney Harbour has been a drawcard. It has been a place to live, to enjoy, to work, to fish, to play, to swim, to relax, to sail, to marry, to celebrate or to contemplate. It has been a place to walk. Whether it is from the deck of a ferry or on a harbourside beach, millions of Sydneysiders and visitors to Sydney have flocked to the harbour and seen its majesty and sheer natural beauty.

Of course it is not just the scenery that makes Sydney Harbour such an important part of Australian national life

Australia's two best known man-made landmarks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, grace the shores of Port Jackson, and are in turn graced by it. Together they are the quintessential Australian postcard, recognised around the world.

But despite all this beauty and all the joy Sydney Harbour has given the city of Sydney and its residents over the years, many Sydneysiders and visitors to Sydney still have an ambiguous relationship with the harbour. We love it, but unless you are fortunate enough to be one of the lucky few who lives on it, or near it, the harbour is still a quixotic place, perhaps even a little mysterious and intimidating to some. For many, its place in the life of modern Sydney, is limited to looking fabulous or occasionally filling us with wonder as the backdrop to a night of fireworks.

It is my hope that by clearly and simply way-marking a walking track between Sydney's two most famous surf beaches—a walking track that allows walkers to enjoy all the secret nooks and crannies of the outer harbour, all of its intimate bays and secluded inlets, all of its hidden beaches and secret pathways, we can build an unsurpassed public experience on public land around the world's greatest natural harbour.

Over the past seven years, my friend Lachlan Harris and I have spent many hours exploring and investigating alternative routes to find the best options for the Bondi-to-Manly walk. I would like to acknowledge that, without his help and enthusiasm, this project would still be in its infancy.

From Bondi to Watsons Bay, most of the track runs along the bluffs of Dover Heights and Diamond Bay through a series of cliff-side reserves. From Watsons Bay to Rose Bay the track follows the Hermitage Reserve trail. From Woolloomooloo you follow the shoreline of Farm Cove and Sydney Cove through the Botanical Gardens around Circular Quay to the Rocks. Once you cross the Harbour Bridge and make it to Cremorne Point, almost the entire walk around Mosman Bay, past Taronga Zoo, around Bradleys Head and Middle Head is a bush walk through sections of the Sydney Harbour National Park. Apart from a small stretch along suburban roads from Balmoral to the Spit Bridge, almost the entire walk to Manly then trails through National Park on the northern edge of Middle and North Harbour.

The views are stunning. It is an unforgettable experience. All the raw materials for a truly majestic walk around Sydney Harbour are already there. They have been for countless centuries. The vision of early New South Wales governments, who locked up much of the harbour-side land for public use, has left us with an incredible legacy of harbour-side walking tracks. But still missing is a simple, compelling, and exciting plan to pull all these wonderful walking tracks together. And that is where Sydney's two most famous beaches—Bondi and Manly—come in. They become the start and finish of a walking track that winds around the entire outer harbour. A walk that is not only visually beautiful, but has the logic, the starting place, the finishing place, and that indefinable 'X"] factor that all great walks really need.

Walking all the way from Bondi Beach to Manly is a challenge. But it is worth it. It will take most people at least two, if not three or four days to complete the walk. But it is predominantly a bush walk, along almost the entire shoreline of the main part of the world's most beautiful harbour—at the centre of a city of 4.8 million people. There is no doubt that the Bondi-to-Manly walk could be the greatest urban walk in the world. Making it happen would cost very little. I hope some vision and commitment, along with modest financial support, will make the Bondi-to-Manly walk not only a reality but an international icon.

10:10 pm

Photo of Penny WrightPenny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Those who have followed my contributions in this chamber and in the community would know I have an abiding interest in rural mental health. I have travelled widely across Australia, talking to people about the challenges of getting mental health support in the bush and what mental health services should—or could—look like for people who live outside city limits. We know that people in the country have unique pressures on their mental health and often do not have a psychologist or mental health nurse around the corner who can provide support. Even getting to a GP for primary care—or a referral—can mean a three-hour car trip and a great deal of stress. Too often people in the country are forgotten and fall victim to a crisis centred system where they cannot get access to mental health services until they are experiencing a crisis and then face being transferred away from their community for treatment.

One of my goals for my time in parliament is to keep a focus on mental health, and particularly rural mental health simply because, for those who live in country Australia, it can be a matter of life and death. Country Australians are losing people fathers, sisters, friends and children to suicide, and it shatters entire communities. During Mental Health Week in October, I conducted a survey to follow up on my rural mental health consultation. Technically my consultation concluded in 2013, but in many ways it has never really ended. The survey results were damning and dispiriting: of those who responded only six per cent of people working in the mental health sector felt their region had sufficient mental health services for the needs of their community and only seven per cent of people thought that those in their community were able to access care before reaching a crisis stage.

Poor access to sub-acute services—that is, services before a crisis hit—and the need for better community based care were two issues identified as key areas for improvement in the survey. This is consistent with the findings of my rural mental health consultation, where I was told that people wanted a 'mental health safety net—not an ambulance'. An overwhelming number of people said it was difficult to attract staff to work in rural areas. Again, this is one of the key issues which mental health workers in rural and remote areas have raised with me. They talk in terms of culturally appropriate care and the need to 'grow your own' workers so that workers understand the unique aspects of rural communities and will stay.

We need a rural mental health workforce plan to address the alarming shortage of rural mental health workers who are willing to go to country areas. A lack of training and support for mental health workers in rural areas was also identified by survey respondents as a significant issue in need of attention. Sixty-seven per cent of rural mental health workers said that rural mental health did not receive a lot of media attention. We saw during Mental Health Week, thanks to the ABC, what a difference it makes when the national conversation turns to mental health and we get to hear powerful stories of mental health challenges and recovery. It reinforces the reality that we all experience mental health peaks and troughs in our lifetime—and that is okay. The survey results provided a damning report card for the Abbott government when it comes to mental health. When asked to rank the Abbott government's performance on rural mental health to date, almost half gave the government the lowest possible score and 80 per cent gave an unfavourable ranking. Eighty-nine per cent of mental health workers who responded said there should be a dedicated federal mental health minister. When it came to respondents who have lived experience of mental ill-health, they rated stigma as one of the most significant issues faced by people in country areas.

People have said that the distress of the stigma they have experienced as a result of their mental ill health often stays with them long after they have recovered from the mental ill-health condition. Stigma is something that we, as a country, must address seriously. We are one of only two OECD countries without a national anti-stigma program. I will continue to put pressure on the government to take stigma seriously. I am not just talking about a glossy, temporary advertising campaign but a consistent, evidence-based education campaign that starts with young people and is informed by the experience of those who live with mental ill-health. Stigma is often acutely felt by young people in the country, many of whom turn to the Kids Helpline or online services—like the wonderful ReachOut.com website—for support in the privacy of their own homes.

Just last week the National Children's Commissioner handed down her Children's rights report 2014, which focuses on self-harm and suicide among young people.    This is yet another distressing report which details the extent of mental distress experienced by people as young as nine or 10 years old and, tragically, sometimes even younger. In her report, the commissioner identifies children and young people in rural areas as being disproportionately affected by intentional self-harm and suicide. Ratios for death due to intentional self-harm among young men are particularly high, with some estimates finding that it occurs at almost twice the rate as in metropolitan areas.

The National Children's Commissioner cites Suicide Prevention Australia, who suggest that factors like underemployment; lack of infrastructure, including health and education services; restricted social and career opportunities; drought; and cultural stoicism may contribute to the distress of young people in rural Australia. Children and young people with mental ill health also often experience a lack of services and access to information in rural Australia.

The data in the Children's rights report 2014 makes for bleak and confronting reading. It is clear we have a serious, serious problem in Australia. It shows that each week one child dies by suicide in Australia and between 50 and 60 are hospitalised for attempting to suicide. The data also shows that children from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background aged four to nine are twice as likely to suicide as others the same age—yes, I said four to nine. It shows that the suicide rate among Aboriginal teenagers is five times higher than for other teens. It also highlights other particularly vulnerable groups: rural youth, as I mentioned; children and young people who have a disability; those who are in out-of-home care; those from a CALD, a culturally and linguistically diverse background; and those who are sexuality or gender diverse.

What the data does not show is what it is that is leading our young people to harm or kill themselves in increasing numbers or why a generation of young people is apparently losing hope. This is the conversation we must have, the research we must do and the exploration we must pursue. The National Children's Commissioner has made some very practical and detailed recommendations to the government which indicate how this alarming loss of life and of hope can be addressed. These include a national research agenda and better, more consistent standardised data, reporting and surveillance from across the states and territories. I look forward to seeing the government's response to this comprehensive report so that we can work together in this parliament towards solutions to get our precious young people the support they need before it is too late.

I am concerned that since 2010, when mental health was a word on everybody's lips, mental health has gone off the federal government's radar. It is clear to me that we need a dedicated federal mental health minister to halt the decline, to show the Australian community that the federal government takes mental health seriously, to have national leadership and to ensure that mental health gets attention and funding commensurate with its impact and the burden of disease and lost productivity it brings with it. It affects all of us.

In the course of my rural mental health survey, it emerged that only eight per cent of mental health workers felt that mental health was a priority for their local parliamentarian. At a time when more teenagers are dying by suicide than in car accidents and given that nearly half of us will experience mental ill health at some point in our lifetime, mental health should be a priority for every parliamentarian across Australia. This is about the heart of our nation's wellbeing. I urge my colleagues here and in the other place to make it a priority.

Senate adjourned at 22 : 20