The area outside the mental health wing of the Bendigo Base Hospital is filled with reporters as showstealer1829 walks out to make a statement

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm sorry to keep you all waiting but my visit and talk to the doctors here about the treatment they give to so many in not only the greater Bendigo area but the Loddon Mallee region and what is need to improve things took longer than I expected.

Before I begin, may I take a moment to acknowledge and thank not only the mental health doctors here at Bendigo Base Hospital, but mental health doctors all over the electorate of Nicholls and indeed, the entirety of Australia for their tireless work in order to help those struggling with mental health get back on their or get the treatment they need. As someone who has had their own battles with mental health, I know full well what people who come to these places are feeling and what they are going through and the courage it takes to put your hand and admit you need some help.

Mental Health is one of the top treatable problems in this country, in Nicholls, nearly one in every 3 people will suffer some sort of mental health episode in their lives. For many, with the support of their friends, loved ones and both mental and medical health professionals, they will never need worry other than the occasional down day. These people are the lucky ones.

Sadly, there are those that are not so lucky, these are the ones that do need ongoing care, whether that be regular appointments with a psychiatrist or psychologist, regular social work and group therapies or stays in hospital to protect them when they are feeling their absolute lowest. They will require the care of places like the Bendigo Base Hospital.

For many though this is still a problem, just like the rural GP crisis I highlighted during my last full term as the member for Nicholls. Rural Australia is now facing a mental health crisis as pressures on families and pressures on livelihoods grow ever deeper.

In the past three years alone we have lived through some of the most devastating bushfires of a generation, a once in a generation flood of the Murray River that effected countless communities not only in Nicholls but across the Murray-Darling region and lets not forget the global pandemic that brought so much hardship to the world, these matters on top of rising costs for our farmers without support of the government, many farmers going further into debt to survive during the drought, cost of living pressures increasing. It is easy to see why so many get driven to the wall and need support.

For many communities though, the support is simply not there, a person living in Nicholls today with a mental health condition is almost twice as likely to end up in hospital than a person living in one of our major cities and when you're talking about 1 in 4 people having a problem at some point in their lives, that is a lot of extra hospital admissions.

So why is this number so skewed? Because just like the GP crisis was effecting general health, a lack of support and organisation is effecting mental health. thanks to the GP commission we have more than doubled the number of GPs available to rural Australians but Psychiatrists and mental health professionals are in worse state than GP's were when we intervened.

For every ten thousand people living in a rural community today, there are 5 psychiatrists......Five and they're mostly in major centres that as with the GPs before can be hours away. In remote areas, for every fifty thousand people, there is ONE psychiatrist. Compare that to the GP crisis, when we intervened, those numbers were double what the rate is now, meaning there were double the number of GPs and that we called a crisis.

That is why we need an expansion to the GP commission, to incentivise mental health workers to practice in Rural Areas. We are a nation of battlers, that much is true but we need to be able to battle without one hand tied proverbially behind our backs. We need a full and open talk. A president's commission on Mental Health, to find those problem areas and to get the help needed there for people to access. And that is what I will be fighting for if I am once again given the honor of being the member for Nicholls.