Policy positions and submissions

Through this submission, the MHF emphasises the importance of employers supporting and protecting their workers' mental health, which is just as important as the obligations of workplaces to ensure physical health and safety. 

In our submission to the Health Committee we make 68 recommendations to amend the Bill.

Overall, the MHF supports the Mental Health Bill, but it does not go as far as we had hoped. We support many of the new provisions, particularly those related to supporting and assisting people potentially subject to the legislation to understand and participate in decisions, express their decisions, have their rights upheld, and have their whānau and loved ones involved in their care.

That said, the MHF is disappointed the Bill is not as transformative as initially envisaged in He Ara Oranga, the 2018 report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction. After over 30 years without review, many saw this repeal and replacement process as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine our response to people experiencing significant mental distress.

The Mental Health Act outlines how someone is legally assessed for and receives compulsory mental health treatment. This Bill makes changes to indefinite treatment order, the transport of special patients, and the use of audio-visual technology for whānau/family consultation and for mental health assessments and examinations. This is a joint submission from the Mental Health Foundation of NZ and the Like Minds Like Mine Nōku te Ao programme.

We recommend the strategy be strengthened by:

• Be inclusive of all disabled people in definition and scope
• Clarify how the strategy will progress existing government commitments and action relating to people with psychosocial disabilities
• What pae ora (healthy futures) looks like to people with experience of mental illness/distress 
• Prioritise the mental health of people with disabilities, particularly young people with disabilities
• Disabled people who experience mental health and addiction-related needs have been caught between disability and mental health sectors, often resulting in them unable to access the support they need.

The MHF outline concerns the overall structure, aspirations and outcomes in the draft framework reflect and reinforce the dominant medical model of mental health. The MHF recommend He Ara Āwhina include visible and clear aspirations and outcomes for tāngata whaiora and whānau to be supported to apply strategies to live well, and to experience positive mental wellbeing; and to clarify the scope of the framework in this regard. 

The MHF are supportive of the intention of the code and make a number of recommendations to clarify its scope and application, better integrate Te Tiriti o Waitangi with the other values, name accountability structures and implementation pathways, and strengthen the language of the code.

The submission highlights how to enable tino rangatiratanga and exercise Māori citizenship in electoral reforms and how to avoid discrimination in, and increase the accessibility of, general elections for people with experience of mental distress, including those residing within inpatient unit.

This submission is to the Governance and Administration Committee on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill. The SOP would enable people to self-identify their sex on their birth certificate by making a statutory declaration, similar to the current processes for changing sex on drivers’ licenses and passports.

Te Aka Matua o te Ture | Law Commission is examining the protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 (the Act) for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people who have an innate variation of sex characteristics (intersex). The Act protects the right to freedom from discrimination — for example, when accessing education, employment, housing, and goods and services. Our submission outlines MHF's overall support for the intention of the review. We highlight that further human rights protections is an important legal tool for those who are part of these communities, given they face greater discrimination than the general population, and therefore experience worse mental health and wellbeing outcomes. The Commission intends to publish its final report in mid-2025.

The MHF supports:
- the Commission's recommendation for changes to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in section 21 of the Act, to clarify that being transgender, non-binary, or having an innate variation of sex characteristics are covered;
- the Commission’s preliminary conclusion that NZ laws should protect people from discrimination that is linked to the fact (or the discriminator’s belief) they are transgender or non-binary or they have an innate variation of sex characteristics;
- adding new symmetrical grounds to the Act that will enhance protections for these communities. 

The MHF opposes this Bill. Mandating polls for Māori wards is discriminatory, in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and will result in a less representative local democracy. This Bill will negatively impact Māori wellbeing by suppressing the ability of whānau Māori to express tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake on their whenua, and it will harm all of Aotearoa by inciting disunity and racist rhetoric against Māori.