Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Just to address the comments of the speaker before me Simeon Brown I'm also aware that the UN youth envoy—the representative for all youth throughout the world—is 35 years of age. So you've got a while to go mate. Coming to the legislation in front of us tonight that being the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill in its second reading I want to take a moment to commend a few folks who have been deeply involved in the process to get it to this point. One of them is one of our former Green MPs Kevin Hague who campaigned strongly for this while in Opposition and actually now is currently a member of the interim Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. I also want to commend the Health Committee for what I think is actually one of the best reports and least kind of partisan presentations that I have seen in the three years that I've been in Parliament. This really speaks to the importance and the weight I think that our Parliament across all parties is placing on getting this right and on addressing the mental health addiction and substance abuse problems of people in this country ultimately with a focus to receive better wellbeing for all. This is one of the many recommendations—this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission—out of this Government's inquiry into mental health and addiction and I want to speak briefly on that because there are some parallels that came out of the select committee report which are pertinent to this second reading. What we saw in He Ara Oranga the mental health and addiction inquiry was for the first time a mental health inquiry that not only appendaged addiction but also moved away from this medicalising from this pathologising of mental health—of someone's state of being as something that you can look at under a microscope and as disconnected from the social from the economic from the environmental circumstances that that person lives in. That was reflected in the nigh on 100 submissions heard by the select committee the Health Committee that heard—forgive me Mr Speaker; it is past 11 p.m. at night—submissions on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill. It heard that there needed to be greater integration of personal experience of the lived experience that my colleague from New Zealand First Jenny Marcroft spoke to. As we progress this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill with as it seems the support of all parties in this Parliament and therefore consensus on the need for there to be greater oversight on the legislation and policies that Parliament and the Government of the day are progressing with respect to this kind of kaupapa I think it's important to bear in mind that sooner or later we are also going to have to confront the question that the recommendations that come from this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission may not solely be limited to what we are so accustomed to comfortably putting in the box of mental health addiction and wellbeing but they may in fact be the issues that lead to mental ill health and that lead to substance abuse dependency and addiction. Those circumstances are vast and interconnected and they're often the areas that do end up being subject to partisan debate. They are the likes of housing of education and of access to opportunity in employment. I guess what I'm saying to all members in the House tonight is that with the consensus that we have here with the immensely brilliant report that the Health Committee produced here and with the seemingly cross-partisan support for greater movement in the area of mental health addiction and wellbeing are we going to be willing to confront the potential that we may need to change in this Parliament? These are some of the conversations that have already started to emerge in the cross-party mental health addiction and wellbeing group which was referenced by colleagues across the House and I want to commend the contributions that have been made to this debate so far by Jenny Marcroft and by Matt Doocey who are both members along with myself and other members from Parliament of that cross-party group. That first report that we are undertaking into the heavily charged area of suicide is also something which this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is charged with looking into and what we have seen so far in the cross-party work and conversations that we have been having is that there are going to be some challenges. When we are really confronting how we deal with these issues and it starts to move away from the consensus that there's a problem and that perhaps we need to look at changes to our economic or our education or our housing systems then all of a sudden things become a little bit more messy. So I guess with my contribution on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand tonight I just want to celebrate this moment where we've all agreed that there is a problem and that we need greater accountability and I hope that we take that spirit of collaboration moving forward as things do get harder—because they will—the more that we expose about this problem. The Green Party is proud to support this legislation through its second reading.