15 Comments

It's frustrating to live with mental illness and navigate long-term diagnoses over decades, only to feel like genuine help is still out of reach. I'm sure I'm not alone in this; many of us went through a broken system as children, teens, and young adults. And now, as we grow older, the situation feels even worse. There’s real help we need but may never receive. This country seems more focused on slogans than solutions. Young people are encouraged to publicly share their supposed mental health struggles, while thousands are still on waiting lists just to be tested for ADHD. Meanwhile, government funding is directed to organizations like Mr King's gumboot clinic yet hardly anyone understands what they actually do. What the hell is $24m spent on.

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It's pretty clear to me that as a psychiatric matter mental illness support organisations should only be allowed to practice, let alone be Government funded, if they are substantially directed by qualified psychiatrists and psychologists. Instead what's happening sounds like an irresponsible approach by all parties to assuring availability of essential health related services. Really I just don't get such amateurish Kiwi nonsense.

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Mr Luxon should know better than this. If it’s NZF’s policy then Luxon should let NZF defend it. I thought we’d stopped spending on whims.

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Why on earth would anyone work their butt off to help others if the end result is to be universally castigated by the left because a right wing government gave money to your cause

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Because other health workers are also working their butts off with little recognition or support. Share the $ around more fairly.

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Mike King is getting the worst kind of tall poppy treatment, but I would back him to do a better job than any of you critics, and he deserves that funding because he understands young males better than any of you, and would run rings around you all when it comes to getting results. Go Mike King and the Coalition. Save us from all these small minded people.

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Your words do not come from a position of being well informed or wise.

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I am actually very well informed and wise. I even test people for being well informed and wise, and so far, you havent shown much of either. You need to up your game if you want to be taken seriously.

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Well said

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No-one is claiming to resolve mental health problems. They're querying whether giving $24 million to Mike King's outfit while cutting funding to other services is the best use of public money. The course of events suggests that MK got the money because of Coalition deal-making and the wish to court public popularity by rewarding a high-profile figure. If there's objective evidence that King's outfit gets demonstrable results that are better than those of any alternative organisation, someone should produce it.

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The problem for you tall poppy critics is that Mike King has more credibility than any of you. Everything I have seen of Mike shows he has the mana and commitment to continue to do a good job, unlike all his small minded critics, and no-one has criticized his work, so it is up to you to find a good reason he shouldnt get that funding. I would rather get the best person for the job, and ignore all the Woke DEI adherents. You need to put up or shut up.

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As I recall, Labour tipped just over one billion into mental health and had nothing to show for it. Oh yes, one extra bed in a hospital facility somewhere. Mike King will be answerable for his targeted funding.

Time to stop the tall poppy criticism and let him get on with the job.

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Nah, don't think MK will be answerable at all. The govt will work on the basis that thousands of people get warm fuzzies when they hear the name 'Mike King'. Meanwhile services like the one discussed in the article will continue to be starved of funds and suffer OTT vetting. No reason to think this govt is any better than in the last in this field.

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A bit like Te Pati agenda. A wonderful perfect maori culture/society embeded in all of us without any evidence of how it all works

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"Back in the 2000s film-maker Peter Jackson ran controversial but highly effective lobbying campaigns to obtain tax rebates for his industry and weaken legal protections for film-industry workers" - those times seem long, long ago. When Wellington really was the coolest little capital (despite Jackson's undue influence). I know 'back in the good old days' talk is tiresome but they were nice years for Wellington.

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