Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:41): (1446) My constituency question is for the Minister for Mental Health. A young constituent in Bacchus Marsh recently wrote to me and other members in this place, concerned about the devastating broken mental health system that this government has presided over. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System noted that:

People living in rural and regional communities already require more, and more accessible, mental health services than those living in central Melbourne.

This is due to the well-established divide in availability of mental health services between rural and metropolitan areas. I was recently informed about the severe scarcity of available mental health services and practitioners in my electorate. So I ask the minister: outside of Geelong and Ballarat, exactly how many mental health services and practitioners are there available in Western Victoria Region?