Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Labour): It's always a strange day when a Minister comes down from their office to defend a member's bill from one of their backbenchers but none the less here we are.On Boxing Day morning I received a phone call that no family member wants to receive. My niece my twin brother's daughter had taken her own life and I want to mention her name here so it's on the Hansard so that she'll be remembered for ever as she will be in our hearts: Tī Karohia-te-mārama Hēnare. It was mentioned at Rātana and it was mentioned again at Waitangi and I agree with members across the House that talk about mental wellbeing mental health and addiction matters do impact on each and every one of us in this House. I'm no exception. So it's in that vein that we remember those people.We also thank the many kaimahi—workers—who work in the mental wellbeing sector around the country. I've met thousands of them from Kaitāia all the way to the Bluff. In my time as an associate health Minister I'm proud of the work that we did. When I listen to members across the House talk about why this is now a priority and also in the fact that this bill also mentions the Māori Health Authority it's the Māori Health Authority that soon will be on the chopping block. It's the Māori Health Authority that led the work that allowed us to spend $136 million on Access and Choice for Māori communities right up and down this country. I visited 27 Māori health providers and mental wellbeing providers from Kaitāia to the Bluff organisations most people have never even heard of. As the member who's ushering this bill through the House has already mentioned the work that they were doing was to put a fence at the top of the cliff. It wasn't the kind of clinical support that everyone thinks of when they think of mental wellbeing. It was the whānau who sat down with the young men and women the whānau in communities to say We're here to help you." and I had the grand opportunity of meeting them right up and down the country.In fact not only did we fund them we changed the way that we can procure the services that they have because most of the procurement services in the health system—and Minister Doocey will understand this as he comes to grips with his portfolio—are extremely hard to get to the level that the Government requires with respect to sound procurement. Well that's all fair and well because those measures are there for a reason. What that does however is limits the scope and the opportunity to support the whānau that need it the most.It's interesting how across the House many have talked about the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle. Only one or two members that I heard at least in my time listening to the debate mentioned COVID and the compounding effect that COVID had on our communities. In my time meeting with health organisations the Mental Health Commission and so many others here are some statistics that I hope when this legislation passes through this Government will understand when they look towards how they support it: 72 percent of young Māori under the age of 25 are impacted by mental health issues and addiction issues—let that one sink in: 62 percent of Māori under the age of 42 continue to suffer from mental health and addiction challenges. Our colleague Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has already talked about the under-reporting amongst Māori communities for those with a mental illness and addiction struggles. Let the science dictate what we're trying to do here to achieve the kind of support that we've all spoken about in the House here today.My encouragement in the final minute that I have on this part of the bill in the first reading is to say if any of the members on the other side of the House want to look at some really good models and want to look at some really sound science I encourage them to go and see the person who we consider to be the guru on these matters in particular on Māori health and that's Sir Mason Durie the man who built Te Whare Tapa Whā who allowed us to look towards the entirety of a person and their wellbeing to understand their spiritual their physical their mental wellbeing as they progress through this world. It's really important I mention that because it was also Sir Mason Durie who was the architect of Te Aka Whai Ora - Māori Health Authority—yet we know what's about to happen to that. That'll be a debate for another day but it's important that we look towards what this means in terms of outcomes how we can continue to support our communities so that we can be stronger and better placed to support all of them into the future. Kia ora."