Political discourse—Mental health
Statement
Hon Simon Ehrenfeld (5:46 pm): I had originally planned to pay tribute to the late Dr Alan Eggleston this evening, but other events this week have overtaken his passing so I will save that tribute for next week. First, on Sunday, I met with and heard from a survivor held hostage by Hamas. Indeed, a large number of community members turned out to hear what was a harrowing story of deliberate cruelty and barbarity. Again, I will save that for next week, because today is the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. One of the victims of 9/11 was Patricia McAneney. My wife's mother is Nolene Patricia McAneney. We suspected there was a relationship, and we recently determined that she was indeed a cousin. It is a very important date in our memory. I wanted to acknowledge that on my first September 11 here in Parliament.
Then, of course, as my colleague mentioned, we have heard about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I know that he was not everyone's cup of tea, as are many other people in high political life. They are usually on one side of politics or the other. That does not mean we mourn them any less. It was a savage attack on our democracy. As I said in my inaugural speech, people come to this place with passionate beliefs, which they fight for every day. It is the thing that gets them up in the morning, whether their political persuasion is left, right or centre. Despite being controversial, Charlie Kirk was a voice for many, many people who felt disempowered, be they men who felt targeted by the system, people who decided to be homemakers, Jewish people or people who do not want to be denigrated for being patriots of their country.
He just gave voice to many people who otherwise felt disempowered. Whether or not you agreed with him, we live in a day and age when not everyone follows traditional media. Online media is now a very, very important space and he was a very important figure to millions of people. In America, congressmen on both sides of the aisle stood and paid respect. This is not the way our democracy can roll. All of us here are public figures and are becoming increasingly so as we get better known. I am on a committee dealing with a very controversial bill and we have women on our committee who do not always know whether they can walk safely to committee proceedings. That is just the nature of where we are at. I know that my wife worries about what might happen, and Hon Nick Goiran has said the same thing. When people offer themselves to be public figures for a cause, they expect to be afforded some degree of safety and security.
This week we have had National Child Protection Week and R U OK? Day. There were many good contributions from all sides today on child protection. I was sitting next to someone at a recent Governor's prayer breakfast who told me his own harrowing story and the abuse that he dealt with growing up, but he thought that was just what life was like growing up. He did not know any different. That is the case for many children. They just suffer in silence. Similarly, people with mental health issues suffer in silence, too. We all know that people get sore feet and eyes, and that is very visible to us, but the mental soreness is not as visible to people. Telling someone just to get a move on with it when they have mental challenges is no different from telling a person with a broken leg to run up the stairs. That is something we are all increasingly coming to understand right across the chamber. I just want to say to people that if today feels heavy, they are not alone.
I know it is not a political day, but one of the things I love about the Liberals is that we respect every individual, no matter who they are, where they come from or what their challenges, background or circumstances are. Everyone needs to know that they are not worthless or useless, and they should never, ever let anyone convince them of that. For those who carry the burden of mental health issues or a history of abuse when they were children, we need to understand that in the past there was a tradition whereby people were shamed by wearing the scarlet letter. To bring that into modern terms, the shame today is people who suffer from mental issues or have suffered abuse and domestic violence. They have become today's scarlet letter. I know that people in this house care deeply about those issues. As a new member, I think that 90% of the issues we discuss will not even be issues at the next election. Let us work together on fixing those. Obviously, the political ones that will be discussed at the election will be more contentious, but on all those things that we can agree on and that need to be dealt with, let us all work together and deal with them so that, regardless of whether we win or lose in four years, our time here will have been worthwhile.
