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Published: 27 June, 2023

More investment in kaupapa Māori mental health and addiction services is needed to ensure the support available meets the level of mental distress experienced by Māori. Despite funding increases over the past five years more needs to be done to achieve equitable funding. This is a

Published: 27 October, 2022

services. “As the Commission notes, the arrival of the Omicron variant has exposed long-standing, fundamental weaknesses in our health system. There is little capacity in the mental health system to cope with shocks, there are entrenched inequities in access to services and better outcomes experienced by

Published: 15 December, 2025

licence 4.0. This means you are free to copy, distribute and adapt the material, if you attribute it to Te Hiringa Mahara - Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission and abide by the other license terms. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode    Early planning is already underway

Published: 27 June, 2024

More evidence of the state of New Zealand youth mental health — Youth and rangatahi wellbeing and access to services assessment — has been released today and shows that while most youth and rangatahi are doing well, there is a steady decline in youth wellbeing in comparison to older age groups more

Published: February 2026

greatest extent possible. We submitted on the Mental Health Bill, introduced into Parliament in October 2024. Download and read our full submission on the Mental Health Bill (2024) (PDF 284KB)       Summary of our submission on the Mental Health Bill This Mental Health Bill is a step

Published: 25 February, 2026

Te Hiringa Mahara is calling for increased urgency to improve access to specialist mental health and addiction services for young people after new analysis shows a continued reduction in the number of young people accessing services.   Despite 15-to-24 year-olds reporting increasing levels of

Published: 11 June, 2025

, respect for human rights, along with achieving both equitable access and outcomes from services to name a few”.  “What we need to see is improvement toward these shifts across the whole system. We are calling for an acceleration of collective efforts with the whole sector working towards the

Published: 28 October, 2021

wellbeing systems in Aotearoa,” says Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Board chair Hayden Wano. “Our role is to be the eyes and ears of the people of New Zealand, amplifying the voices of our communities. We bring focus to areas where meaningful action can be taken. Appropriate access to and choice

Published: 5 June, 2024

accessing specialist mental health and addiction services has decreased over a five-year time frame. In 2022/23, 3.4% of the population accessed a specialist service, a decrease from 3.8% in 2018/19. This is a drop of 9,000 people using these services. Of those seeking specialist support the decrease for

Published: February 2026

focusing on our legislated priority groups. The purpose of this summary is to provide a synthesis of key mental health and substance use findings from the NZ Health Survey. We want to maximise available evidence to drive improved decision making. Our aim is for this information to be used for