Subjects: mental health
E&OE................................
Thank you very much Judge Frank Walker, ladies and gentlemen. This is one of those very important local occasions for me, which is not only a local member doing something in his own electorate, but it's also through it, an opportunity to mark the importance of the ongoing sensitive community response to issues of mental health and mental illness.
This building of course has had a long historic association with psychiatric illnesses and mental health for a very long period of time. And it is symbolic in many ways that part of the Federation Grant of $25,000 has been used to create a small library in the period of the 1870s and also to help restore and refurbish a plaque honouring the large number of employees of Gladesville Hospital who served in WWI. And I remarked to Frank Walker as we had a look at it on the way in just how many out of this one organisation - something in the order of 40 - volunteered to serve in WWI. It's a reminder of the large number of people who were employed in stand alone institutions of this kind in the early years of the last century. And that in itself is a reminder of how approaches to mental health, the change away from the large number of stand alone institutions to a more community based approach, how those things have changed over a long period of time.
The Government, indeed all Governments, have been very committed over the years to being as sensitive and helpful to challenges of mental illness and psychiatric illness within our community. And I'm very pleased that the second mental health plan was kept going and resuscitated in 1998 and I'm also happy that in the last Budget it was possible to find some more resources to encourage General Practitioners to get more directly involved in helping their patients in relation to mental illness. So on both a local level and a national community level can I say how very pleased I am to be here today to open the library and to be associated with the other things that have been made possible through the Federation Grant.
I also want to pay tribute to the Schizophrenia Fellowship. Like so many voluntary organisations within our community it brings together people who in some way themselves may have been touched by mental challenges, or even if they haven't been, they know of people who have or they have family members who have. Or even if they haven't had that, they are just public spirited Australians who want to get involved in helping each other. And one of the things we do better than any country in the world with which it is fair to make comparisons, is that we volunteer and do things. We're the greatest volunteer society on earth and we have a record which is second to none. And increasingly we're getting Governments and community organisations and philanthropic individuals and committed people who've got resources out of the business community, getting together and working so very hard. And this city is very warm hearted in that relation.
I was reflecting as I came over here this morning that I'm being associated with this gathering and then tonight I'm attending a dinner to honour the work of the Victor Chang Institute - it being 10 years since his tragic death in 1991. Both of those events are for me a reminder of the great humanity and decency of the Australian people. We often put ourselves down, we often criticise our national psyche, we often despair at this or that. We shouldn't. There is an enormous amount of good and decency in most Australians. And you just tap them and ask them - and even if you don't ask many of them - they volunteer. And your Fellowship is a great example of that. I'm very proud to be associated with this little gathering in my electorate.
I won't keep those in the shade waiting any longer. It's cooler on the 4th of July than it is at other times of the year, but can I simply say that I'm delighted to be amongst you. I congratulate the Fellowship and I hope its work goes from strength to strength. Your aims will always be aims shared by the Federal Government. Your aims will always be aims shared by men and women of goodwill on all sides of politics.