Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party in support of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill. I do want to start—because this is a second reading and normally in a second reading we stay focused on the business of the select committee and the discussions there and the amendments. But with your—what's the word I'm looking for?Hon Members: Indulgence.MATT DOOCEY: Indulgence—that's right. It's a big word at this hour of the night. I do want to just touch a bit more on context. I know that is more of a first reading speech but I believe that things have changed since we had the first reading—the context. Why I say that is COVID-19. Because we heard on the Epidemic Response Committee from Sir Peter Gluckman who told us that he was forecasting that there would be of all the people who lose their job or income—and if we're looking at maybe 200000 or 300000 people—10 percent of them are going to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. That is a serious mental illness. So we are looking at tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are going to develop serious mental illness as a result of the impacts—the economic impacts—of COVID-19. You match that up to the context that we spoke about in the first reading of the huge wave we're seeing in demand for mental health services and this reinforces how vital it is that not only Government but Parliament responds to the mental health issues of New Zealanders—not just about treating mental illness but also about promoting mental wellbeing.I stand here tonight as a proud member of the cross-party mental health group and I do hope that that group will be able to look at long-term strategies and solutions—longer than the three-year parliamentary cycle—to address this growing wave of demand that our mental health services are going to receive in the short and medium term. Because what we believe over here in the National Party is that we also need to make sure that we are very clear at what we are trying to achieve. So we are supporting the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. This is a bit Back to the Future because we have been here before. It was disestablished and many in the mental health sector would have agreed with that decision; it was felt that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission had lost its way. I'm confident that we do have a framework here that will make a difference but I think it's important for all members of this House to make sure this framework that we are proposing here tonight will actually deliver a change.When we hear words like influence" that seems awfully passive and over here in the National Party we would like to see words like "targets". The indicative target of the mental health inquiry said we needed to increase access from 7 percent of New Zealanders to 20 percent. So we need to make sure this mental health commission will have the authority to make a difference and make a change. No one wants to see any entity just writing reports that make recommendations that sit on a shelf. So I do hope by the end of this we will have a bill that will be enacted and ultimately result in an independent entity that will be able to hold Government departments and other organisations to account. For us here in the National Party that was a key focus of the select committee process.I think we had a good selection of submissions. We had 99 of them. A range of them were from academics they were from health professionals and most importantly a number of people who were telling their story of lived experience and I would want to thank all those submitters and I think they have supported the changes that we are going to be debating tonight to make this bill a better bill to come back in the second reading.One of the important parts of this bill was to help identify key groups that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission would focus on. The problem is when you start to look at key groups as soon as you want to put one in you feel like you're excluding another. And the list gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But where the committee landed on we were able to put a schedule at the back of this bill where it outlined a number of groups this commission will focus on. One of them was important for us in the National Party and that was our rural communities. The department of health has recently published statistics that show unfortunately in New Zealand our suicide rate has increased in our urban population by 7 percent but unfortunately in our rural population by 17 percent. That is why it is important that we focus yes on a range of groups but equally we make sure rural communities is a group mentioned in this bill and that's what comes to this Parliament tonight.A second key part of the amendments was to ensure that we move the commission from just reporting to actually making recommendations—recommendations that will seek to advocate and to improve the mental health system. Because what we know is that we've got a real challenge. We've got a lot of Government departments working in siloes—if you look at Health Education Justice and Corrections—all having an area of overlap in mental health and what we do hope is that with this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission it will develop a key strategy in making those recommendations that will be cross-Government and whole-of-Government holding those Government departments to account and ensuring that they make a real difference. Because in the end we need this commission to have the authority to hold those entities to account and make sure they respond to the mental health demands in their organisations.Another key amendment that came out of the select committee was changing the numbers of the members of the board. Originally in the bill it was two to five members. That has now been increased from three to seven. A large discussion was around how we ensure we make sure the composite of those members has the range of experience and knowledge and talents that will ultimately form the strategy and the direction of this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission.A key area for us was ensuring that this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission drives research. What we know in the mental health field is that we don't know enough and we need to build the evidence base to know what works. Because unfortunately in mental health what works potentially in another country through an international policy transfer mightn't be appropriate in the cultural context of New Zealand. And we do hope that this Government or successive Governments will ensure that there is the funding for this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission to ensure that there is enough research going on to understand what works in mental health and build that evidence base.It's a real concern for us on this side of the House that we need to ensure that we get real movement on mental health. We have formed the cross-party group and we do hope to get full buy-in from political parties to look at long-term solutions and policy settings over the three-year cycle. But most importantly for us the indicative target said we needed to increase access from 7 percent to 20 percent of New Zealanders and if it's one thing this Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission—if it can be successful in doing that it will have made a real difference to New Zealanders' lives. Thank you Mr Speaker."