Matt Doocey slams Labour on mental health at party conference

Matt Doocey, National's spokesperson for mental health will attack Labour's poor record at his party's conference in Auckland.

National's mental health spokesman Matt Doocey will use a speech at his party's conference on Sunday to appeal to voters who feel betrayed by Labour's under delivery on mental health.

Doocey has been leading parliamentary scrutiny of the mental health crisis.

The speech will call for a more aspirational approach to the crisis.

"There is no reason why New Zealand can't have one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, there is no reason why we can't have one of the lowest rates of mental illness in the world, and there is no reason why we as a country we can't have one of the highest rates of mental wellbeing," the speech will say.

The speech will highlight "ballooning wait times for mental health services, massive underspends in mental health budgets" as well as the Ministry of Health's reporting on mental health which was "sanitised of negative mental health statistics that might make the Government look bad".

Doocey will try to rehabilitate his own party's reputation on mental health by highlighting programmes that the current government axed when it took office. The speech is critical of Labour's decision to hold a mental health inquiry instead of rolling out actual policy.

"Labour ignored calls from people such as the Mental Health Commissioner who said a mental health inquiry wasn't needed but action was.

"Sadly now, many of those who trusted Labour on transforming the mental health system can quite rightly feel let down as Labour has failed to deliver on what they promised."

The speech will highlight rural mental health, which has been raised at events like Fieldays and was a concern at the recent Groundswell protests. It will be followed by a panel discussion with Grace Curtis, from Cool Change NZ, and Jason Herrick, a sharemilker.

Sunday is the final day of the National Party conference.

Alongside the mental health panel, Covid-19 and health spokesmen Chris Bishop and Shane Reti will lead a discussion on their portfolio areas with Professor Des Gorman, a frequent critic of the Government's approach to the pandemic.

Treasury and Finance spokesmen Andrew Bayly and Michael Woodhouse will lead a session on the economy with economist Cameron Bagrie.

Leader Judith Collins will venture into a relatively new area of National Party policy: space.

She is on a panel with MPs Melissa Lee and Joseph Mooney, which will also look at digital and IT issues.

Collins is also scheduled to announce the big news of the morning, which is whether party president Peter Goodfellow will continue in the job he has held since 2009.

Goodfellow has been under some pressure to move on from the roll. Former National MP, Cabinet minister and speaker David Carter is his likely successor.

On Saturday Sylvia Wood, Jannita Pilisi, and David Ryan were all elected to the board for the first time. Stefan Sunde was reelected for another term.

They will meet on Sunday morning to elect the party's president. The spread of boardmembers suggests Goodfellow is likely to continue serving as President, should he wish to.