I move:

That this House:

(1) notes with dismay that suicide is the leading cause of death among Australians aged 15 to 24 years;

(2) recognises that young people's decision to access mental health care is fragile, and if they do not have a positive experience they may not make another attempt to seek help;

(3) further notes that youth-friendly mental health services are not available uniformly to young people; and

(4) calls on the Government to:

(a) increase access to effective mental health services and supports for young people across all stages of mental ill-health; and

(b) build a youth mental health workforce to meet the current and future needs.

I have been compelled to move this motion as a desperate plea to the Morrison government to provide a headspace for the Hawkesbury. We've needed one for years. I committed to one at the last election and we've seen the benefit of the bipartisan commitment to one in Katoomba, even though that's just a smaller, satellite headspace. It has made a real difference. But I have been urging since 2013 that the Hawkesbury needs its own dedicated space for young people to seek help with their mental health.

The Hawkesbury has seen a number of recent tragic suicides by young men and boys. These highlight the really desperate need for there to be ready access to mental health services at an early stage, and then able to support people as they have their journey, hopefully, to good mental health. One of the things I've done is to issue a petition inviting people to share their comments and views about why they think we need a headspace in the Hawkesbury. I want to share some of the comments from those people—already, hundreds of people have signed the petition and given their reasons why.

These are some of the things that people say, and I want to start with comments made by people who are practitioners in this area. I'll start with a comment from the manager of the headspace in Katoomba, who is very much encouraging and supporting the establishment of one in the Hawkesbury. They said: 'Katoomba headspace has been blown away by the demand that it's faced, and that's not a good thing. We always knew there was an unreported demand in the Blue Mountains, but it has come through and the same is going to happen in the Hawkesbury, where I'm confident that we will get a headspace.' Really, this motion is saying to the government: 'Please do it because it's the right thing to do. Please don't make this about politics. Please do this now, when it is so urgently needed.'

Here is an example of the sorts of comments that educators give me. I will just call this person Kristin. She's an educator and she deals on a daily basis with families in distress with no local support services to turn to when they have children experiencing a range of mental health issues. She says: 'Waiting lists for psychologists are months long. The impact on both children and parents is dramatic and long term. The increase in mental health issues over the past two years is phenomenal, and our community is in desperate need of immediate help.' You might wonder why that is so in the past two years. Obviously, drought affected many parts of the Hawkesbury. We had bushfires beyond the scale that anyone has seen. We then had flood, then COVID, and then a second flood—the largest we've had in 30 years. These are some of the reasons why people are really at the end of their tether.

Another person who signed the petition said: 'My wife works in mental health for Nepean and Blue Mountains and said this is really, really needed. You've got to listen to the people at the coalface.' Another said: 'I work at Hawkesbury hospital and agree. We really need a headspace in the area.' A chaplain from a local high school said: 'I work at a high school as a chaplain and do various other youth work. This is a necessity for the area.' Another person commented: 'As someone who has worked with young people for over 15 years, I'm well aware of the difficulties the current generation is facing. I work with adolescents in the Hawkesbury and see their struggles on a daily basis, particularly over the last 18 months. It's absolutely vital that this community receives support and that intervention is put in place to assist in making a positive difference for our children in the Hawkesbury. It is absolutely long overdue and a necessity for current and future generations.' I have comments from psychologists and from people involved in the consumer side of the hospital. I have dozens of comments from parents, saying things like, 'I've been looking for something like this for my 16-year-old,'; 'I have a daughter fighting every day to feel normal in a world that feels so strange'; 'My son had PTSD and struggled with depression'; and 'We desperately need a local headspace. The closest one is in Penrith which is so hard to get to.'