(Community Recognition Statement, Legislative Assembly, NSW Parliament)

On behalf of the Sydney electorate, I congratulate all involved with this year's Mental Health Month, which I helped launch in NSW on Friday 1 October. The Resilience and Recovery theme is apt. For many years, Mental Health Month has been a strong platform to advocate for awareness and reduce stigma around mental illness, and we need it now more than ever.

Hard times mean poor mental health for most, and the last two years have been hard times around the world. The COVID pandemic has brought into focus that mental health is fundamental to overall health. The pandemic has made mental health and issue for those who have never had to address it before and further marginalised already vulnerable people, pushing them to crisis.

We need to ensure that people who are LGBTIQ+, ageing, homeless, addicted or Indigenous have access to the specialised supports they need to have resilience and recover. The upside is that mental health and mental illness have never been talked about more in politics and I hope we see this awareness continue with real outcomes for both individuals and communities.