Ryall Tony: Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Ryall Tony: Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:10999] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The National Party is of the view that the membership of the Mental Health Commission should not be rolled over for as long as is being proposed in this legislation and we think its performance needs to remain under the close scrutiny of the Government and of Parliament. 
As we travel around the country it is becoming clear to us that all is not well in the provision of mental health services for families and those in need of mental health care. Even though the Government is spending $1 billion a year on mental health many of those people are hard-pressed to tell us that the services for them their family and their family member with a mental health issue are any better at all. It strikes us that in many parts of the mental health sector there is not the drive to improve the services for families and individuals that we would like to see. 
We think that so much more could be done for mental health in primary care. International survey after international survey has found that New Zealand general practitioners consider themselves among the least prepared to deal with mental health issues at a community primary-care level. We think that so much could be done with the huge resources we have in the health sector to get those services improved so that people know they can go to their family health centre and get mental health issues and addiction issues dealt with well by general practitioners and their staff who feel confident to provide that service for them. The reliance on services provided by hospitals is failing many of the communities and many of the families and individuals who face mental health issues every day. 
 It is not just the person with a mental health issue who is vitally interested in mental health services. As we travel around the country we see that it is in fact the family members—the mums and dads the brothers and sisters and the people who try to care for those suffering from mental health issues—who feel incredible frustration with the services being provided in mental health. It would be fair to say that there are those who believe that the Mental Health Commission has done a good job in presenting and advocating for those with mental illness. There are those who would say that the Government has made some effort in its recent media campaigns to raise the awareness of mental illness and what can be done. But raising awareness is only one part of the equation. 
The future of quality mental health services in New Zealand rests in primary care. It rests with an integrated service that brings together not only the health care but also the social care that can be provided in our community to the sufferers of mental illness. The drive to bring those services into primary care which Dr Jonathan Coleman and Jo Goodhew will expand on in their contributions to this debate will deliver a quality-improved service for New Zealand families. People should not have to rely on the remoteness of so many hospital-based services to get the care and support that they need. Our general practitioners and our nurses should feel that they are being properly supported and trusted to provide mental health services much closer to home and much closer to the needs of the community. 
That really is where this bill and this Government are so lacking: there is no sense of vision purpose or future direction for mental health services in New Zealand. It is great to have endless vision hui and plans as this Government has for everything. But equipping trusting and valuing our health professionals to provide an improved quality service for mental health at a primary-care level much closer to home integrated with social care is where the future lies. In the next few months New Zealanders will see a much better plan for mental health services which will integrate and bring together health and social care for New Zealanders at a community level. That will provide a much more exciting vision for mental health services in New Zealand. Members will be seeing that in the next few months. 
So the National Party is very clear. We think the Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill should not extend the life of the commission as far as is proposed. We have some issues about how that collaboration might work and many people have expressed that to the select committee. We will be continuing to monitor the performance of the Mental Health Commission. But more important rather than talk about how much money has gone into the system or how much money is being spent on an advertising campaign we will continue in our efforts to put the focus on what is being done to future-proof mental health services to get them down into the community at the primary-care level thereby integrating them with social care so that we can leverage off the resources that we are spending on our health services in order to provide a much better future for those with mental illness and very importantly a much better future for the families of those with mental illness who are the people who carry most of the care responsibility for these people.