Verrall AyeshaHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I'd like to commend that last member who's just resumed his seat's remarks and really perhaps the House could join in some reflection on what a bipartisan approach to mental health would mean. And perhaps those members who campaigned on the idea of where did the $1.9 billion in mental health spending go think if they want to newly embrace bipartisanship on this issue they could take some time to use the resources that they have as parliamentarians to educate themselves on it.Now I'm not going to try to persuade you on my view on that but members could educate themselves on where that money went and they could educate themselves on the Access and Choice programme that has served over a million people around the country and realising that when they were representing to the public that nothing had come out of those funds they were actually undermining a service that is hugely important. Often there's no wait to get into these services around the country. They're your first port of call. You can walk in when you're at your general practice's office. There are specific services for Māori Pacific and young people. Now if we're to take a bipartisan approach I would hope that a service that has been stood up during a pandemic and tremendous challenge for the health system could be respected and treasured by the Government rather than having its standing diminished.This bill is about implementing a statutory strategy. We as my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick has already mentioned have a strategy but not a statutory strategy on mental health and addiction. That strategy is called Kia Manawanui. I'd like the debate on this bill to answer some questions about why a statutory strategy is required or not—perhaps the Government would like to focus some of their remarks on that. And why this strategy and not others? Why not a cancer strategy? Why not the elderly? Why not a child health strategy? Strong cases can be made for all of these as well. How long would we like the Pae Ora bill to get?But I think what I suspect with the statutory strategy is that some of the members opposite had no idea that we have a strategy and therefore didn't focus their remarks on why we needed a statutory strategy instead. I think we can all agree that a strategy is fine but I wonder if we haven't made a case for why a statutory strategy needs to be in place in the arguments that we've heard so far. Why spend the extra money and time if the existing one isn't good enough? I'd like to hear from the Government what their strategy might be. What is the sequence of actions they would take to change the situation they're in? Do they think targets will change the situation? I'd like to hear their logic for that. Would they like to focus on the complex needs that people with severe mental illness have? How to crack the difficult nut of their housing and challenges and interactions with the justice system? I'd like to know if they thought we got it wrong when we accepted the review in the last Government that said that we needed to focus on early intervention because that's why we set up Access and Choice. What is the strategy that you have in mind?But in particular my view as a former medical practitioner is that we have to look at the cause of mental illness. We need to look at the early life experiences that really make people much more likely to have mental illness. We need to particularly look at experiences of violence and abuse experiences of poverty and addiction experiences of marginalisation. Those are all factors that contribute to mental illness. So I have questions about what the Government's mental health strategy will be and I have questions about why they're passing this bill on a day when they drove 7000 more children into poverty. I have questions about how you are promoting mental health when you're now creating excuses for why the police don't need to attend family violence. I have questions about how you'll promote the mental health of Māori if you're no longer letting their children hear their reo in their school and in public life and how you think that in their schools they shouldn't hear the true history of this country. This divisive Government will do more to split the haves and the have-nots Māori and non-Māori and they will show hypocrisy when it comes to mental health.