Doocey Matt; Dean JacquiMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in this Address in Reply debate today and to come after that former speaker Aupito William Sio who I always enjoy listening to. He's got those calming soothing tones of a storyteller a bit like a parent who's calming a young child to sleep with a lovely fairy tale. But unfortunately what we know at the end of the day is that that young person grows up to realise that fairy tales in reality are not real. It's interesting. We've heard from a Minister and then another Minister and three or four Labour callers today who actually didn't even refer to the Speech from the Throne that we are debating today because they know that it is a fairy tale. I will be pointing out some of the key issues that we on this side of the House think this Government is not delivering on that were outlined in the address from the throne because of course this Government has a track record in failing to deliver. It was a failed socialist experiment that put up ideas and didn't deliver them. But what I want to do first off in the first opportunity I've had in the House since the election is to acknowledge the good people of Waimakariri—very humbling to be re-elected in my third term. I want to thank them for all their support and I give them my commitment that I will be working hard for all in the Waimakariri to the best of my ability because we do know that in the Waimak" "Waimak" people reward hard work. You can go back to Jim Gerard Mike Moore Clayton Cosgrove and Kate Wilkinson. They know that if MPs go out and talk about the real issues they will reward them and unfortunately last term what we had in Waimakariri was that the Prime Minister did not visit Waimakariri once. What was worse was we didn't even have one Minister come into that electorate. We have a small town in Waimakariri called Woodend. It's a small rural town that's got a State highway running through the middle of it. Mums and dads take their kids across that State highway to school every day. Car movements in the last three years have risen from 16000 to 20000 car movements a day and why that three-year measurement is important is it was three years ago that the Labour Government came in and cancelled the Woodend bypass. No Prime Minister to come and explain no Ministers no transport Minister and that community waits. They're put at risk. Here we have the address from the throne and the fairy tale but the reality is not real and true. Can I also say while I think of it that this is a special day for me. My youngest son James starts school today at St Joseph's primary school in Rangiora so I want to wish him all the best. While we are talking about family I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Rt Hon David Carter. Many will know that David is my uncle and I want to acknowledge his knighthood in the Queen's honours over new year. I wish him well and well deserved. What I want to talk about in my call today is mental health. Remember mental health? The Government made it a big issue in 2017—one of their top priorities. But—Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki: It still is. MATT DOOCEY: Oh so we hear from a Government MP that it still is. So explain to me then if mental health is still a big issue why in the address from the throne it commanded two sentences out of 13 pages? Two sentences and it said "It will roll out mental health support to all primary and intermediate school age students and continue to roll out nurses in secondary schools." Interesting—number one priority or one of the top priorities apparently for this Government but two sentences out of 13 pages. Why not talk about the flagship $455 million new front-line mental health service that was trumpeted in Budget 2019? Flagship—that was going to change the way that we responded to mental health services. Well I'll tell you why you won't find it in the address from the throne and you won't find it being spoken about by any Government Minister or any Government MP: because that $455 million flagship front-line mental health service—so far the Government's spent $56 million of it. How many GP practices currently are now delivering this service in just under two years? Eleven percent. Hon Scott Simpson: How many? MATT DOOCEY: In two years they have rolled it out to 11 percent of GP practices and have only spent $56 million of the funding. What's even worse is that under written parliamentary questions when we asked how many people are employed by this new front-line mental health service in July it was 232 full-time equivalents and in October it was 195. They had lost a quarter of their workforce. People are leaving the roll-out is stalled and when I asked probably the most pertinent question of a new service—a flagship front-line mental health service being rolled out. Going to change the face of mental health in New Zealand—that's what New Zealand was promised in 2019. When I asked how many people had been seen by this new front-line mental health service—because let's remember it was promised it would be scaled up to see 345000 people a year—the answer was "We don't know because we're not gathering the data." When you set up something would you not be interested to know how many customers you have? What we all know and on this side of the House we know is that that's code for another Government failure. They're embarrassed to tell us that they're actually not seeing a fraction of those 345000 people and that's disappointing because that's not the level of service promised to New Zealanders. But let's listen to some of the professionals. Irene Begg who's a trauma counsellor based in Whakatāne with of course White Island. A new flagship front-line mental health service—why would you not prioritise it for that region after that disaster? Why not prioritise it for Canterbury after March 15? There's no plan to and this professional says "It's all very vague. The Government says it's going to roll out this and that but we haven't seen it in the provinces." "This and that" "very vague" "we haven't seen it"—what an embarrassment. How about "Mental Health Foundation chief executive … said the 'appalling' lack of access to mental health services for children and youth across New Zealand had worsened since the Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction which reported to the Government in November 2018."—over two years ago. This Government came in spent $6.5 million held hundreds of meetings and encouraged thousands of people to make submissions and what's happened? Hon Member: Nothing. MATT DOOCEY: Nothing. In fact they're saying it's got worse. They raised expectations and haven't delivered. Then we have the retiring Mental Health Commissioner who retired yesterday and in his final report—a scathing report—said that there is considerable and growing concern about the lack of transparent action plan to implement He Ara Oranga and provide a long-term plan to promote mental wellbeing. Basically there's no plan. The inquiry put out around 50 recommendations and there's no plan for delivering them and that's a problem with a Labour Government. They'll tell you what you want to hear to get into Government—"Put us in. We'll change things. We'll make a difference."—and they get in and they fail and they don't have a plan. What's really disappointing is I supported a petition from a young girl to Parliament. She's attempted suicide tragically a number of times and when I spoke to the medical professionals working with her they said "We are yet to see evidence that the large amount of funding that's been promised is flowing into the system." We were promised $1.9 billion into mental health. We were promised services at the front line. We were promised a Government that was going to get in and implement a plan and they've failed to deliver. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): For a five-minute call I call Rino Tirikatene."