A major update for the Northern Gold Coast!

When I started this petition in July 2025, I did it because the gap in mental health care across the Northern Gold Coast had become impossible to ignore.

People experiencing significant mental health distress were too often left with very few options. For many families, that meant travelling outside the area, waiting for services, or presenting to an already stretched hospital emergency department.

Nearly 800 people have since added their names to this petition.

Recently, ABC News also contacted me about the campaign and gave me the opportunity to speak about why this service was so badly needed in our community.

And now, I have some very important news.

The Northern Gold Coast Medicare Mental Health Centre has officially opened in Pimpama.

The centre is located at the Pimpama Health and Lifestyle Hub at 29 Dixon Drive. It provides free mental health support, with no referral or Medicare card required. People can walk in, self refer, or be connected through health professionals and community services.

This is a significant step for our community.

I want to thank every person who signed this petition, shared it, spoke about it, or told their own story. Community advocacy matters because numbers on a page represent real people and real experiences.

I also want to acknowledge Open Minds, the Gold Coast Primary Health Network and everyone involved in establishing the service.

But I do not think the conversation ends because the doors have opened.

We now need to make sure the centre is adequately resourced, accessible when people need it, connected properly with hospitals and community services, and capable of meeting the needs of a rapidly growing Northern Gold Coast population.

Opening the centre is an important achievement.

Making sure it works for the people who need it is the next part.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the need for better mental health access on the Northern Gold Coast impossible to ignore.