Friday, 28 August 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (09:48): I want to thank the VACCHO today for the great work that they do. It was a pleasure to meet with VACCHO representatives this week during the sitting and to hear about some of the great projects that they have been working very hard on, canvassing needs and coming up with practical solutions to the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal communities across our state. VACCHO do amazing work, with their core purpose of strengthening and elevating the Aboriginal community controlled organisation sector, forming a statewide collective voice for the sector and shaping conversations on Aboriginal health and wellbeing whilst empowering members and advancing healthy, thriving and self-determined lives for all Aboriginal people. VACCHO have done such amazing work in really deeply consulting with community members and coming up with practical solutions that need implementation in order to keep making progress on Aboriginal health and wellbeing within this state. They have come up with very, very sensible initiatives: avoiding costly hospital care by focusing on preventative health through urgent care pathways; dental and oral health services; closing the gap on mental health and building regional and outer metropolitan Melbourne capacity; healthy transitions to support strong individuals, including transforming care in custody, which we know is in crisis; implementing the recommendations from the inquest into the death of Veronica Nelson; and ideas for legislative reform. I commend their work, and I urge all parties to closely look at this work.