Collins JudithGENERAL DEBATEHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Thank you Mr Speaker. What we saw today was a Prime Minister being asked to answer some questions—[COVID-19 alert notifications sound]Can I please start my time again Mr Speaker?SPEAKER: Yes we'll just wait until that damn noise—first of all wait for David Seymour to tuck his shirt in and then we'll—has it stopped? All right—Judith Collins.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you Mr Speaker. Well today I asked the Prime Minister some questions about mental health and what we saw was a Prime Minister who is very good with words but not very good with answers. For almost every question she just had a whole endless statement to say that had very little to do with the question asked. What we saw was a Prime Minister who had made enormous promises to New Zealanders about mental health and has delivered almost nothing.In the year to June 2019 New Zealand recorded 685 suicides. In that same year we had 342 road deaths—so that was double plus one. It is a shocking statistic and it's a shocking indictment on the fact that mental health has for far too long been kept in the shadows. What we've seen is that we know that one in five people will meet the criteria for a mental health problem in any given year—that is enormous. And around half of all New Zealanders will experience a mental health issue during their lifetimes. This is not about them; this is actually about us. It is something that is dear to the hearts of every parent of every child of every spouse of every friend and of every colleague—it is enormous. For too long we've seen this issue not taken seriously. That's why four years ago this party said we would have a Minister for mental health and that's one of the things you can see from us is taking mental health seriously.Today I heard from the Prime Minister that the Government had not done all these wonderful things that they'd promised but that's because they were starting from ground zero—that's what she said: ground zero. Well what does she think we took over in 2008? Less than ground zero. What we did actually do is we brought in and we supported police to have mental health nurses working with them not only in the watch houses but later in frontline staff going into instances because if you've got a major mental health situation happening who do you call? Obviously not the Ministry of Health you call police. You call people who are working 24/7 who do have the ability to come when you need them and that's what happened.What did Labour do with it? They cancelled both of those projects. Why did they cancel it? Because they weren't theirs. And those weren't just our ideas they were the ideas of the New Zealand Police staff—the frontline people—and they knew it was working. And this Government that says they care about people they stopped that.We've got a situation now where they went out and they said I've got $1.9 billion." In that 2019 year with that largest suicide rate ever they said they were going to help solve it—they'd have $1.9 billion. We had the Prime Minister meeting people and saying how much they cared. And then what did she deliver? Nothing. We've had Shaun Robinson from the Mental Health Foundation castigated by the Minister of Health because he dared to stand up for the people he represents. That's the response from this Government.We brought in mental health workers into our Corrections facilities. We doubled the amount of alcohol and drug rehabilitation in our prisons within the first term of Government and then we went and redoubled it and redoubled it again. That's what we did. When we did that that's what we did. Unfortunately the Government's response has been too little too late. Lots of announcements lots of words almost nothing delivered.In 2017 they politicised mental health in the same way as they politicised Pike River—exactly the same and exactly the same result: big promises big money announced almost nothing delivered except disappointment—disappointment for families and whānau who are asking "Why is it that this Government is so willing to say how much they care?" Why is it that they care so much about everyone else? How about caring about the families who today are suffering and who can't get help for their kids with eating disorders who can't get help for them when they are suicidal? What is happening with a Government so busy to care and never to deliver?"