02-July-2010
Portfolio Media Releases, Health, Personal
Topics: Overcoming mental health issues
E&OE
BEN FORDHAM:
Andrew Robb, welcome to Mornings on MTR.
ANDREW ROBB:
Thanks very much Ben.
BEN FORDHAM:
It was very hard to watch yesterday, I’ve got to say. Someone who knows a lot of people who suffer with mental illness, it’s personal and it’s gut wrenching.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well for me, now, it’s a source of great satisfaction and joy after all these years, to be able to discover that most of these conditions are in fact treatable and sadly I think there’s about four million people they estimate in Australia who have got some sort of condition and 65 per cent of them, that’s two and half million of them, never get any help with it. They hide it, they act and they put up with it. So I’m just grateful that finally I have to opportunity and the courage to do something about it I suppose.
BEN FORDHAM:
You told an extraordinary story at the press conference about trying to go to work and not quite being able to do it so easily. Just share that story with us.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well all my life I thought I was just bad in the mornings. I’d convinced myself that I just needed to wake up to myself. But I still found myself doing things that tried to get me out of it. My cloud would lift every morning after a few hours. I’d go to work every morning and the endorphins were sort of running through my system, I’d have adrenaline, so I’d feel better.
We lived out of town, I was working in Canberra, and I’d stop the car three or four times get out look at the sun and sneeze. The sneezing would realise the endorphins and make me feel better so by the time I got to work I’d hope the cloud was starting to lift.
BEN FORDHAM:
Have you got a history of mental illness in the family?
ANDREW ROBB:
No, not really. You don’t know with these things.
BEN FORDHAM:
Every family’s got it.
ANDREW ROBB:
I can remember people saying, well Auntie Joan’s got nerves. You know what it was like? It was never said about men. I think it’s one of the reasons I suspect I did and most people, most men, try to cover it up. It was seen as a character weakness.
I’ve been running organisations for 30 years. I didn’t want it out there that I had an issue I suppose. It’s sad really, as I said yesterday, and you just played it, it took me six months under the right supervision to find something that would fix my condition.
There are lots of different types of depression. You need to get to the experts and work through it.
BEN FORDHAM:
You took three months leave in September to get some treatment. What was the final thing that made you do it?
ANDREW ROBB:
I took leave from the Shadow Cabinet. I was still in the Parliament and doing my local work. I just needed some space to deal with the medication. I had already decided to confront the condition in August because it was getting very difficult, it was getting later in the morning before my cloud would lift, up to eleven o’clock.
I release, what they discovered, I released the chemicals that fire you up for the day, I release them about four or five hours later than everybody else. When my body has got the chemicals at the right level, I pop out of it, and I’m normal.
BEN FORDHAM:
That timing would’ve fit in well with Question Time.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, it’s at two o’clock so yes, I’m in good shape. I was always in good shape. But it was starting to affect my whole day to be honest. And if you don’t want to take decisions and you’re feeling anxious and nervous until eleven o’clock in the morning and you’ve got my sort of job, it becomes very difficult.
So I finally picked up the phone to Jeff Kennett. And I suppose that’s why I’m keen to talk about it because I’ve come out the other end because I was in a privileged position being able to pick up the phone to Jeff. There are many people out there who really want to know how they get some treatment, how they go about it and don’t know who to go to.
That’s why this program we announced yesterday, there’s a heavy focus on young people because 75 per cent of the four million who’ve got a problem, started in their youth. And we’re going to put very visible, well staffed centres all over metropolitan, regional Australia, well we’re not, but Patrick McGorry, his headspace group, so that young people in particular can see where to go to when they go in the door, they get confidential, expert treatment and get a plan.
BEN FORDHAM:
We’re going to run through some of those services and numbers a little later. I’m just interested, just lastly, I mean you spend a lot of time in close contact with a lot of other men and women, in a lot of meetings and strategy and planning, sitting in Question Time, throughout your career, did you have workmates say mate what’s going on, are you okay? Or did you just put on a brave face.
ANDREW ROBB:
I’d always say I’m not good in the mornings, so I think a lot of people, my staff and that would know that I just wouldn’t want to talk, I wouldn’t be grumpy so much, I just didn’t want to engage, I didn’t want to take decisions. I know in our own household, with the kids and that, my wife and I had a sort of running joke that we didn’t talk about the state of our marriage before 8.30 in the morning and the kids didn’t ask for money.
BEN FORDHAM:
Mate, I love that!
ANDREW ROBB:
That’s where we sort of left it.
BEN FORDHAM:
So it’s twenty past ten at the moment, you’re sounding good, listen just a quick one and I’ve got to say, I admire your performance yesterday at the press conference, performance is not the right word but you know what I mean, your honesty in sharing that because it’s so important that people do. Just before you go, John Howard and the International Cricket Council, what do you think of the decision by the ICC?
ANDREW ROBB:
I think it’s an insult to John Howard and Australia frankly.
BEN FORDHAM:
Why?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, because you know there is a very clear convention that once countries, the appropriate countries have decided on a person that they consider to be suitable to the job, and you know someone who has run this country so successfully for eleven years, to me, would be a stand out in running.
BEN FORDHAM:
Is it politically, racially motivated?
ANDREW ROBB:
I think it’s politically motivated, in the sense it’s political in terms of cricket. I think, it all hung off India in the end and I think they see themselves as the emerging power.
BEN FORDHAM:
All powerful…
ANDREW ROBB:
Yes, all powerful, and I think my sense is that the strength of John Howard and his management abilities, and his political abilities would be a threat to their aspirations in terms of how they would influence cricket in the years ahead.
BEN FORDHAM:
Agreed, Andrew Robb, thank you very much for your time.
ANDREW ROBB:
Good on you.
BEN FORDHAM:
Good on you. There’s Andrew Robb, very very brave performance yesterday at that press conference and interesting comments on John Howard, he said it’s an insult to John Howard and Australia.