TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: It's Mental Health Awareness Week. And if you were watching this show yesterday, you would have seen that David Seymour is questioning the explosion in the number of people claiming job seeker support on mental health grounds. If you missed it, here's what he had to say.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: No, I just refuse to believe that New Zealand has become twice as sick in the last 10 years or that we have become twice as bad at getting people say, actually, no, you could work. Here's the pathway to be back at work. Because what's worse, if you're not working, it's one of the things that will affect your mental health and your sense of well-being the most.
00:00:37
Speaker 1: He wants the numbers brought back towards pre-pandemic levels. But the Mental Health Foundation says the government's own figures show mental health problems have surged. And getting people back to work takes more than tougher welfare rules. Sean Robinson is the Mental Health Foundation's chief executive. He's with us this morning. Good morning to you. Good morning, Nadine. What goes through your mind when you see a policy like that, that we should get people back to work if they've got mental health issues? Well, prove it.
00:01:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think getting back to work, totally agree with that. I do agree that engaging in work is really good for people's mental health, including recovering from times of mental distress. I think what amazed me about that policy yesterday was how... ignorant of facts it was, how simple-minded it was, poorly researched, and therefore it's really not going to work. When David Seymour said he refuses to believe that New Zealanders are twice as sick as they were pre-COVID, well, he signed off on a mental health strategy as part of Cabinet two months ago, which has figures in it that shows that that's exactly what has happened. We are twice as sick. The number of young people are experiencing significant mental distress has gone from 11% to 23% since 2019.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: Why?
00:02:01
Speaker 3: There's a wide range of reasons that are impacting on everybody's mental health. That trend predates COVID. COVID definitely was an inflection point. You know, we're looking at they had to live through COVID, which was a major impact on their lives, on all of our lives. We're looking at climate change. We've had major climate events in that period. We've got massive changes in the workforce. Let's not forget there are 14,000 less jobs in the economy than there were back then. But also we've got AI, we've got changing economic, changing job roles. There are so many things affecting young people and everybody else's lives today that are putting major pressure on people's mental health.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: So does anyone, from what you have observed, have a credible plan to address that?
00:02:58
Speaker 3: Not overall, no. I would say that we've recently put out a mental health scorecard to help voters kind of look at the different parties' policies around mental health. And I'd have to say It's quite interesting. So ACT came up with virtually no policies on mental health, but interestingly, so did Labour. So that was surprising. Then we had National got pretty much ticks against everything, but so did the Greens. So it doesn't seem to fall down the traditional left block, right block lines. But what I think nobody is really addressing are those barriers bigger, wider issues that are impacting on people's mental health. I mean, I actually support the Minister of Mental Health, Matt Doocy. He's done a lot to improve services. But we still have at least 15% of young people saying they can't get services when they need them. And that doesn't even count those that just give up and don't even bother to ask for services.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: Is that a crisis?
00:04:10
Speaker 3: It is absolutely a crisis. And so for David Seymour to basically imply that people who are on the benefit are faking it, to imply that they are aggressive with GPs in order to get their benefits signed off. I think that's really quite bigoted and despicable and casting stigma on people with poor mental health.
00:04:38
Speaker 1: And yet there will be people who go, yeah, David Seymour's right. Why can't you work if you're anxious or depressed? Wouldn't that be the best thing for you to have some purpose and something to get you out of bed in the morning?
00:04:51
Speaker 3: And I would be one of those people. I absolutely agree that it would be great for people to work. But you don't do it by saying you're faking it and you have to prove you've got a mental health issue. The facts are we have a doubling of people experiencing mental health issues. So if you want them to work, invest more in the special employment service in MSD, which supports people who have particular needs to get into work.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: What is the number one thing you would like to see after this election that you think would make a material difference to this mental health crisis?
00:05:27
Speaker 3: It's very difficult to pick one thing. But I think focusing on young people is really important. We've got nearly one in four young people experiencing poor mental health. That's doubled in less than a decade. I mean, that is a national crisis. It's taken a lot of effort to get politicians and Health New Zealand and the Ministry of Health to actually even acknowledge the importance of young people. So I think we need to be addressing that Through schools and the education system, we need to be addressing it through support so that young people can get into work, whether they're struggling or not struggling. We need to be genuinely thinking about their futures in terms of things that they care about. like climate change? What's their life going to look like in 10 years' time?
00:06:20
Speaker 1: Which may, in fact, flow through to getting more young people enrolled and voting if they're talking about stuff that really matters to them.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:06:27
Speaker 1: We appreciate your time this morning. That is Sean Robinson, the Mental Health Foundation's Chief Executive.