Ingrid Leary, Labour MP of Taieri since 2020, and Labour Spokesperson for Mental Health, recently sat down for her first-ever interview with Critic Te Ārohi. Young people consistently have ranked the mental health crisis and climate change as their top concerns for the future, so Ingrid wants to address that in her mahi in Parliament.
Ingrid emphasised that with the upcoming general election, it’s important for young people to know how Labour perceives “mental and social health […] and the type of approach that we would take.” With mental health policy front of mind for many when heading to the polls, it's an important consideration in choosing who to vote for come November 7th.
Mental and social health (as opposed to just mental) was a frequently-used phrase throughout the interview. As someone living with ADHD, Ingrid said she tends toward horizontal thinking, and therefore sees mental health as something intersectional and connected to social wellbeing. Ingrid believes that social causes of mental distress, such as unstable housing, family violence, and attacks on marginalised communities, can be solved through investment and social inclusion. She added that a fairer taxation system and less inequality could mean that “we might not even encounter [these] problems to start with.”
Ingrid cares deeply about “fair and transparent funding to evidence-based programs,” “absolutely” agreeing with the characterisation that her constant debate with Matt Doocey, the current National Minister of Mental Health, is really about who gets funding, and how much they get. Her main concern is that she claims mental health services provided by Health New Zealand funding arrangements “don't tend to measure outcomes […] they only measure outputs.” This means that people just coming through the door seeking help is the metric for success – not whether or not their issue was actually resolved.
Ingrid believes the last Labour Government made some great strides towards improving the funding environment for mental health services. She pointed to their 2019 investment of $1.96 billion dollars over four years, their Access in Choice program, and the improvements made to specialist access as flagship reasons for that belief. She also reckons that there is an “intergenerational difference” in alcohol consumption, and that students are recognising that “alcohol is our most harmful drug,” for our mental health and hauora in general.
Interestingly, Ingrid described the root cause of an under-resourced mental health sector as “a workforce crisis”. To illustrate this, Ingrid referenced the fact that the police’s final stage in withdrawing from mental health callouts had recently been delayed. For context, the police were planning to only attend “higher threshold” callout events, basically where there is an immediate risk to life and safety – but they’ve pushed pause on doing that for now. Ingrid argued that the delay in the final phase of police withdrawal is due to a “hiring freeze”. She explained that last year, Minister Doocey had announced 40 new positions in crisis response teams to support the police stepping away from callouts, but Radio New Zealand recently reported on Doocey admitting that only 7 of those roles had been filled.
“The hiring freeze also looks like the decision to be able to hire, having to be transferred to somebody up the food chain in the organisation and Health New Zealand, who then doesn't make a decision,” Ingrid claimed. “So, there's no explicit refusal to hire.” Instead of explicit refusal, Ingrid accused Health New Zealand of just having it “sitting on their desk”, and not making the decision to “fill that vacancy [...] and that vacancy stays open. They're doing it on purpose to try and avoid the political fallout from it,” she claims, referencing the current government’s commitment to not cut “frontline services”. Other factors like privatisation, burnout of workers, and the migration of “200 people a week to Australia”, probably aren’t helping either.
When asked about any new policies from Labour, they pointed to their snazzy proposal of a ‘Medicard’. These would allow for three free doctor’s visits a year, funded through a targeted capital gains tax, kicking in July 2027. Ingrid asserted the need for policies that promote well being without costing a lot of money. Besides that however, she was tight-lipped, adding that Labour won’t be “releasing our policy [manifesto] until the Budget. It would be irresponsible to do so when we don't know the state of the books.”
Ingrid emphasised the importance of mental health support and policy in Aotearoa, “more than half of the population will experience mental unwellness at some point in their life” noted Ingrid. She also added that on a more personal level, “seeing mental well being is a journey, not as a state, or a label is really important [...] and I think if people realise that, then it can take some of the anxiety out of experiencing mental distress or mental illness.”
In her closing pitch to voters, Ingrid said that “Two votes for Labour gives New Zealand the best chance of a mandate for really progressive policy.” She noted that while “other parties might promise a whole lot of things,” students will need to take a critical lens to policy, and see that Labour “can't just say pie in the sky, because we will be held to account to deliver on it as the leading party.” With the election inching closer week by week, politicians are more than ever campaigning for your vote. The question is — who is going to get it?
