Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a privilege to rise on behalf of the National Party in support of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill a bill that seeks to amend the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 or quite simply called the mental health Act.I do want to start if I can by acknowledging this is Mental Health Awareness Week. Isn't it great in New Zealand we have this week to talk about an issue that I think is important to most New Zealanders—I'd probably say all New Zealanders—irrespective of their political colours. I think mental health is an issue that we need to ensure we take a bipartisan approach to. I'm very proud to be a founding member of Parliament's cross-party mental health group that seeks to work collaboratively to make a change. I think it's great that in Mental Health Awareness Week we are having these conversations. Who would've thought years ago you would have had farmers turning up to a woolshed to talk about their own mental health?I know that you'll know the National Party is doing their bit. We held our first suicide prevention seminar at our annual conference where we heard from guest speakers like Jason Herrick who's attempted suicide himself because of the pressures of farming and rural life. He's gone on to set up a mental health advocacy Ag Proud. Of course we also heard from Grace Curtis who tragically found her father who had committed suicide. Grace has gone on to set up Cool Change NZ a young person's mental health advocacy group. So through great tragedy and hardship in New Zealand we see the green shoots of people wanting to take responsibility and promoting better mental health in New Zealand. I'm sure that's supported the whole way round the House.This bill as the Minister outlined is a fairly technical bill. It seeks to end indefinite treatment orders specifically orders that had no end date and weren't to be reviewed by the courts. Now under this bill the orders will be reviewed every 12 months. Sadly for some people with severe and lifelong enduring mental illness they will be under some order or care for a large part of their life. But I think it's quite right to review every 12 months to understand how we can do better to supporting people to stay well. We do know now with the recovery model that if we put a person with lifelong and severe mental illness at the centre of their care they do know what can keep them well. It is up to us to support them with the resources they need to keep them well and carry on being productive members of an inclusive society.The second part of this bill seeks to allow transport management plans for restraint for mental health patients. It also seeks to use technology. This is a second reading debate so this bill has been to a select committee. We had a number of submissions no wholesale change just some amendments primarily around the use of audiovisual links (AVL). So it's important we use technology and under this bill we can have friends and family who can be part of assessment as well. Also under the COVID orders we allowed AVL to be used for assessment of patients under treatment orders as well. This bill will allow that AVL use to continue. But there was quite a theme coming through the submitters which was that we wouldn't want the use of audiovisual to be the default setting of assessing people in their time of need for what specialist care they might need. Of course it should be face to face and at all times we should be looking to include friends and family in that as well. But as COVID has taught us it's not always practicable to be able to do that in person and I think it's a great step forward to be able to use technology such as AVL to ensure that people get timely access to care.One change that has been made is to ensure that through the guidelines and the guidance that will go with this new bill once it's enacted into legislation practitioners will be required to record whether AVL has been used and their reasons for it and that will actually be reported up to the Director of Mental Health who then will be reporting at a macro level around the use of technology in people's care. Quite rightly we want to use technology to support people's care but equally we don't want to overstep and have a default where technology and AVL is used to the detriment of the person's care and treatment.What was very interesting that also came out from submitters was this reference—and the Minister did say—that this is part of a wider programme. Of course the Government kicked off the mental health inquiry over three years ago. There were 40 recommendations; the Government accepted 38 of them. One of them was around repealing and replacing the mental health Act. Sadly we are still no closer to that. We did put some wording in the select committee commentary report which hopefully reflects the concern of the submitters who are concerned about the pace of the repeal and replacement of the mental health Act because when we asked the officials they told us that when they're looking at the timing of the work the preliminary consultation is under way and formal consultation is expected to begin by the end of 2021. I mean we are now going to be three 3½—next year will be four years since those recommendations were accepted by the Government and to say that this bill is the start of a process of repeal and replacing something that even the Minister's officials have accepted has not formally started is I think a long bow.We have seen that—because of course last week the Government announced their 10-year strategy—parts of these changes will feed into the strategy around the recovery model and using technology but really disappointing with their own independent review. Of course it was an interesting choice of words to call it an independent review but the health Minister gave it to his colleague the Deputy Prime Minister to review in his implementation unit and they came out with words like strong progress" and "initiatives are on track". Well we clearly see by the comments of submitters in this bill that after three years of promising to repeal and replace the mental health Act the work hasn't even started. I think Shaun Robinson who's been very outspoken as he should be as the CE of the Mental Health Foundation—he speaks on behalf of people with lived experience—called the comments of "strong progress" and "initiatives on track" as spin. And I think we should probably call it for what it is.The reality is that this bill although it's well timed for Mental Health Awareness Week—you know it starts to say the right things a few more slogans and starting the work around replacing and repairing the mental health Act but the reality is that things are very slow. It's a stocking filler. It's a nice-to-have bill but it's very small it's very technical it's very perfunctory and the reality is I think very clear from my colleagues across the House whether it be Chlöe Swarbrick in the Greens that we would have liked to be here today debating the replacement of the mental health Act as promised by the Government when it accepted that recommendation over 3½ years ago because the time has come to take a more person-centred approach to mental health and that should also be in the compulsory treatment Act. And that's why I would encourage the Government to bring to the House the repeal and replacement of the mental health Act that they promised those thousands of New Zealanders who turned up to their mental health inquiry often telling very personal and traumatic stories that ended up in those 38 recommendations which we now know many aren't in progress and aren't on track. Thank you Madam Speaker.Dr Liz Craig: Madam Speaker?"