Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): E hika mā e hui mai nei i tēnei rā tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.[To everyone gathered here today greetings to all.]An extended family member a friend a work colleague and a school mate; they're the people that I've lost to suicide. Every person in this room will have their stories. Every person listening and watching from their houses and other places around New Zealand will also have their stories of being bereaved by suicide. The suicide statistics in New Zealand are confronting. Sadly we lost provisionally 654 Kiwis last year. What's confronting is the statistics that sit behind that: 150000 Kiwis every year think about taking their life 50000 Kiwis make a suicide plan 20000 Kiwis attempt to take their own life. These are the harsh truths behind suicide in New Zealand yet there is no reason why New Zealand can't have one of the lowest suicide rates in the world. There's no reason why we can't have one of the highest rates of mental wellbeing in the world. One of those contributing factors to that solution will be political will and that's what we are debating here today.I stand here today as the National Party's first mental health spokesperson and recently I've become National's first suicide prevention spokesperson. I want to acknowledge our National Party leader the Hon Judith Collins who asked me to take that spokesperson role. I want to acknowledge all the MPs here today people in the gallery specifically Greg Gent Nick Astwick Terry Moore Jo McCauley and Jo Mahon. They are from Southern Cross. Through their philanthropic funding they funded the Zero Suicide Aotearoa report that we are debating today and funded the launch that we are hosting today after the debate and I want to thank them for that. I also want to thank all of those who have tuned in from around New Zealand. I thank you for taking an interest and being on this journey with us. Can I thank Platform Trust who have been the secretariat for the mental health cross-party group Barbara Disley and formerly Marion Blake and just to acknowledge the huge work of Marion Blake in driving this report forward. The researcher Phillipa Gaines—I still remember our first Zoom call with the cross-party group. Fair to say we were chaotic we argued we talked over each other we all had different views and somehow Phillipa turned that into a report. That's hugely welcome and thank you very much for that.Can I also acknowledge Mark Wilson from the Mental Health Foundation and also Shaun Robinson the lead in their team. Mark Wilson sent through last night a guide to talking about suicide for politicians which I think was very important for us. Language is important in this debate. It says Know your stats; don't speculate. Remind your audience that suicide is complex; there's no single cause of suicide. Give people hope; talk about suicide prevention. Remind people that suicide is preventable. Talk about what puts people at risk and how we can address those risks. Talk about Māori suicide using a Te Ao Māori approach. Remember the people; they're not statistics they are people we love and have value." Thank you very much for that Mark.I want to acknowledge the cross-party members of this group. I have worked hard for this group not to be political. We want to take a bipartisan view on this cross-party group but what I think is absolutely disgusting is Labour blocked Louisa Wall from taking a call in this debate. Louisa Wall is a founding member of the cross-party mental health group. She championed this report and worked hard on it. She has been blocked from taking a call on this debate so National has given Louisa one of their calls—one of our calls—because it's important that Louisa has a call in this debate. The Labour Party is emblematic at the moment of blocking things: the inquiry at the Health Committee yesterday bullying commentators that speak out—this has to stop. They promised vulnerable New Zealanders they would make a change and I'll leave it at that thank you. I'd like to acknowledge Louisa; Chlöe Swarbrick; formerly David Seymour and now Brooke van Velden for ACT; our former colleague Jenny Marcroft who is here today—welcome Jenny.For me the importance of this cross-party group is that what we have uniquely is that we can come together we can discuss the issues and talk about positions and then uniquely we can go back into each of our caucuses and advocate for that position. I believe New Zealanders want us to take a long-term policy setting when dealing with the challenges for mental health and we don't want the three-year parliamentary cycle changing things. We need to take long-term policy settings. So where we have the Zero Suicide Aotearoa report I'm quite proud the National Party adopted this report as its suicide prevention policy for the last election. I don't say that in a partisan way but why I say it is I challenge the other parties to do the same. How good would it be in 2023 if we turn up and our policies around suicide prevention are harmonised and whoever gets into Government whatever colour there'll be the certainty and assurance of policy that will be long term and make a big difference and not get caught up in the three-year parliamentary cycle.I want to take a moment to talk about the zero-suicide approach because people get stuck on the term "zero suicide". This approach is less about the target and more what sits behind it. It's a continuous quality improvement process where we look to see what works in each of the sectors. This is bigger than health. It needs to be rolled out across all of Government because what will work for suicide prevention for a 60-year-old dairy farmer in North Canterbury is different to what will work for suicide prevention for a young teenager in South Auckland and this is the value in a zero-suicide approach—a continuous quality improvement approach that is not a one-size-fits-all. It looks to look at all the differentiations on how it can make a difference and we know it works. It was launched in 2012 in the United States it's been adopted in the US the UK and Australia. This will work but what it's going to take is political will and what we're talking about here today we have representatives from each of the parties is to debate how we are going to come together and we are going to endorse a zero-suicide approach. We're not going to play politics and say "Well you set a target you didn't meet it you're not good enough." It's about what sits behind it: the process and the policy because I firmly believe in the 53rd Parliament New Zealanders have spoken. They want us to work together. They want us to make a difference. They want us to put politics aside and to agree on policy that has a long-term setting.So my challenge is to all the parties here today: what are we going to be doing in 2023? What are we going to be talking about for suicide prevention? How good would it be in 2023 if all the parties agreed on such an important issue like zero suicide? We would have a harmonised suicide prevention policy that we would all agree on we would all resource and we would give New Zealanders comfort certainty and assurance. Thank you Madam Speaker."