I rise today to speak on the Mental Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. As the member for Ripon I am contacted regularly by parents who have lost sleep worrying about their child’s mental health, workers who have lost colleagues and people living with mental ill health who want access to better care closer to home. This bill is for them, creating a safer, fairer and more connected mental health system. It will amend the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022, the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997, the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Health Services Act 1988 to transfer the functions of the forensic leave panel to the Mental Health Tribunal, ensure information-sharing provisions of the act operate as recommended by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and make minor and technical amendments to ensure the act operates as intended.

These amendments will help with the creation of a new statewide electronic mental health and wellbeing record and mental health information and data exchange to facilitate a more connected system. Importantly, legislative safeguards are in place for the electronic health information system under chapter 17 of the act and apply to any new services granted access to the system. At every step of our reforms to the state’s mental health system we have put people’s voices and lived experience first. This bill will strengthen our earlier reforms by removing unnecessary complexity that can get in the way of care. It will also make clearer pathways so that families, carers and the person receiving support can expect a system that meets them where they are. It will streamline processes without diminishing safeguards, give people more control over their care and give clinicians better information to do their jobs.

One of the most practical reforms in this bill is the transfer of the forensic leave panel’s functions to a new forensic division of the Mental Health Tribunal. Clinicians, legal practitioners and families have told government that duplication of quasi-judicial processes wastes time and creates confusion for people already under stress accessing the mental health system. Bringing forensic leave decisions into the tribunal is sensible and evidence informed. The tribunal already has expertise, judicial rigour and the procedural structures needed to conduct hearings and make reasoned decisions. Consolidation will mean decisions are made more consistently and efficiently. It will also maintain protections for the individual and community safety, supported by members with the right forensic expertise. I pay tribute to the members of the forensic leave panel, as I know many other members in this place have done today, and in particular to Justice Rita Incerti, whose service has upheld rights and safety for so many.

Families tell me repeatedly how exhausting and retraumatising it is for a loved one to recount their history every time they present for care. This bill paves the way for the electronic health information system and the mental health and wellbeing record that our system so desperately needs. The existing mental health IT system, known as the client management system operational data store, is a 30-year-old system unable to meet the needs of a reformed and expanded mental health system. Creating a modern integrated system will mean the right information is available to the right clinician at the right time. It will reduce clinical risk at transitions of care and give consumers real ability to see and use their own information, freeing up time for care and making every interaction safer and more meaningful. This is particularly important in our rural and regional areas, where seamless information sharing will make a real difference. When a person moves between local services, emergency departments or specialist clinics, their care should not be fragmented by geography or system boundaries.

Our government committed $64.7 million to deliver a new fit-for-purpose IT system. Once complete, this IT system envisioned by the royal commission will benefit teams across public health services and community mental health services, including mental health and wellbeing locals and preventative and recovery centres. Importantly, though, people will only accept an electronic mental health record if they can truly trust it. That trust must be earned and legislated for, and this bill embeds privacy and governance protections to do just that. We owe it to people who have been the most harmed by our system to get these protections right. A secure, well-governed record will help people feel safer by engaging with services and will ultimately support better clinical outcomes. There are also a number of technical amendments in this bill that matter a great deal on the ground. Clarifying administrative powers, closing legislative gaps and correcting drafting technicalities will prevent confusion for clinicians, administrators and the people using services. These fixes will mean fewer legal disputes and a more seamless experience for people seeking help.

Representing the most rural electorate on this side of the chamber has made me acutely aware of the challenges many country Victorians face in accessing mental health support. Limited options and big distances between care makes having an integrated system and better information even more critical. This bill will help ensure that a farmer in Raglan, a young person in Clunes or an older adult in Bridgewater receives the same continuity of care as someone in Melbourne. It will help make sure that when someone reaches out for help, their story follows them and they do not have to repeat their story time and time again, which risks retraumatising them. It will mean that their loved ones will not have to navigate multiple systems to keep them safe.

I want to thank all those who helped contribute to this bill: the families, the carers, the clinicians, community organisations and legal advocates. Their voices reshaped our thinking and kept us honest about where the system falls short. To the mental health workforce, we know that you are very stretched and often working in difficult conditions, and that is exactly why we want to rebuild the mental health system in this state and why we had the royal commission into the mental health system. This bill is designed to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and give those mental health workers better tools and clearer processes to focus on what matters most: supporting people’s mental health.

Passing this bill is not the end of reform – it is an important step in an ongoing journey to make sure people do not fall through the cracks. We are making progress every single day in fixing a system that was fundamentally broken. By working together we will continue to build a mental health system where every person feels safe, seen and supported. Before I finish my remarks, I do want to just sincerely thank the Minister for Education for all of the work that he has done to embed mental health support into our schools. I know that has had a huge impact on a lot of our rural and regional schools. The mental health menu is providing so many more options across our region to be able to get immediate mental health support for our students. That is really paying dividends. Principals and teachers that I hear from across the 54 schools of Ripon are benefiting from that – it is just phenomenal.

We also have some bespoke ways that we have really supported people and their mental health locally. I want to give a big shout-out to One Red Tree Resource Centre in Ararat, which we have backed with millions of dollars to make sure that provisional psychologists can come into our schools and into our community organisations to provide much more psychological support across not just Ararat but the broader Grampians region. There is still a lot of work to do – we know that – but we are a government of reform, of practical support and of making a difference not just in metropolitan Melbourne but in rural and regional areas. That is why this bill is so important. As I have said, it is a step forward, but there is still a lot of work to do. I commend the bill to the house.