Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a privilege to rise on behalf of the National Party to support the third reading of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill. This is an important day for New Zealand's journey in not only treating mental illness but promoting mental wellbeing in our communities of Aotearoa New Zealand. I will be the only National member of Parliament taking a call in this debate this afternoon and that's because we believe on this side of the House we want to expedite this bill so it is enacted as soon as possible. In fact through the amendments of the select committee we were able to make a change where this bill would be brought in by 9 February 2021 or earlier if the bill was passed. That's why I think it's important today that we make sure under this urgent sitting that this bill is finally passed this afternoon.I do want to acknowledge my colleagues on the Health Committee especially Health Committee chair Louisa Wall and the cross-party mental health group—Chlöe Swarbrick from the Greens Jenny Marcroft from New Zealand First David Seymour for ACT and Louisa Wall for Labour—who are coming together to hopefully take a bipartisan approach to addressing the big issues we've faced in New Zealand around mental health and to take longer term solutions than the parliamentary three-year cycle.I also want to thank the submitters who I think played a big and pivotal role in the bill that's turning up today in its third reading. We had a range of submitters from mental health professionals people with lived experience families and friends of people who have been distressed by their own mental illness advocacy groups and stakeholder groups. I do want to highlight one submitting group and that was the Young Nationals. I know there are other youth wings in other parties that take an active role in making sure the parties that they support are addressing mental health and why that is important for the younger generation is we know our younger generation is highly articulate about mental health. They have the vocabulary to talk about it. They are not fearful to talk about their own mental health issues and they are the ones who are driving us forward and I want to acknowledge them. Specifically I've worked with the Young Nats as the National Party mental health spokesperson over the term. I want to put on the record one of the policies that we will be taking to the general election and that is a contestable fund to roll out psychological first aid training. It was developed in conjunction with our Young Nationals and I think they've done a fantastic job in developing that policy.Of course the Mental Health Commission is not new and it is back to the future in some ways. One of the concerns when the previous Mental Health Commission was disbanded was that people felt that it had lost its teeth its mandate and lost its way. What we really need is an entity that will drive change. In fact we kind of need to get mental health out of health because as we know it is a cross-Government a whole-of-Government issue—responsibilities in education criminal justice health and social development. So I think it's important that we make sure the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission has the mandate and the authority to really drive that change.This side of the House was disappointed that we weren't able to amend the bill for the ability for targets to be included. The reason I point that out and it is with respect to the initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission who are currently in this role is that they've produced a check-in report of where we're at. In some ways it's a good report; it's a bit of a snapshot. But I will be hoping once we have the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission in place that it will be picking out areas that we need to improve on with more voracity than this report.You know we do know after the mental health inquiry that we currently serve only about 5 percent or 6 percent of the population providing mental health services to them. The mental health inquiry indicative target said we needed to get to 20 percent. So we need this independent entity to drive that forward to hold to account the Government of the day the responsible Ministers. I do have a view of my own that I do hope one day in New Zealand's Parliament we will see our first stand-alone mental health Minister. Other jurisdictions across the world have moved to that model states in Australia as well—not necessarily a mental health ministry but a stand-alone mental health Minister that can work across his or her Cabinet across his or her Government and across all the Government agencies to draw the mental health strategy forward and to drive it forward. Because what we listen to and hear every day in our constituents' offices is that time and time again—I even received an email from a lady last night who's been let down by mental health services and that's a criticism of successive Governments. I think now that it's incumbent on us; the time is right for mental health to make a big step change. I hope and I believe that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission will be a key driver of that.Just to finish I just want to reflect on some of the challenges as this bill has gone through the House. One of the things we were faced with on the select committee was how you agree on targeted groups because of course as soon as you start deciding groups you start excluding groups. But I think the select committee was able to work through that very collaboratively and end up with the schedule at the end of this bill that highlights a number of key groups. One thing I think we are proud of on this side of the House was the inclusion of our rural communities. Devastatingly in New Zealand we have a high suicide rate. Thankfully for urban communities that has tracked down 7 percent. But unfortunately and devastatingly for our rural communities that has increased by 17 percent. I do hope that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission will look into that but also to the full range of target groups. In the end we do need to differentiate—what will work for the rural communities of New Zealand will be very different for what needs to be provided for the urban communities that we serve.This is an important bill for New Zealand; I commend it to the House. Godspeed to the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission to make a real change for New Zealanders.