Let’s all get out of the social media trap

The noticeable jump in the number of teenage fishermen wetting a line and enjoying sunshine with their mates around Sydney in recent times is hard to have missed.

Born out of the FishTok craze, its popularity among young men has continued to grow after the social media ban forced kids into a much-needed rethink of how they spend their free time.

Head down to your local jetty on a Saturday morning and you’ll find them, 15-year-olds with rods, bait, and no shortage of conversation taking place over a blaring bluetooth speaker, while others kick a footy in the local park, play some basketball or ride their bikes.

Against all odds, they look like they’re enjoying themselves. Their feed is now replaced by a decent-sized flathead instead of Instagram. And the pay-off for their mental health is obvious.

Which begs the question: If banning social media for our kids has meant they rediscover the Great Outdoors and each other, why are the rest of us still glued to our screens? The average Aussie aged over 16 is spending a staggering 41 hours every week consuming online media. That is more than a full-time job.

Adults on social media are being bullied by trolls and bots, duped by conspiracy theorists and numbed from real life. Social media corporations have created a global online cesspit and it’s making them a fortune.

We love to tell our kids about the “good old days” of our own childhoods. But they are exquisitely good at detecting hypocrisy. Instead of nostalgia, our children simply need a model of how to live well, which begins by having meaningful connections without a screen.

We’ve been given a rare chance to reset what we actually want our homes to feel like and what we’re prepared to do to get there. The quality of our relationships and the time we invest in them is the single most powerful determinant of mental wellbeing.

The kids have already looked up and they like what they see. It’s time we did the same.

This article was first published in The Sunday Telegraph March 29, 2026

I have a lot of faith in the next generations

G’day,

My eldest daughter started high school on Monday. She told me I wasn’t allowed to cry, and I didn’t, though any parent knows how hard that is. It seems like five minutes ago she was a tiny baby, and now she’s big and sassy and funny and smart.

Parents also know the worry. When they’re small, you’re bombarded with advice and products about keeping them safe. I couldn’t sleep that first night, worrying that at any moment she might need me. That first drive home is one of the scariest most of us ever do.

I worry about the world she lives in and the world she will inherit from us.  But I have faith in her ability, and that of her peers, to meet whatever challenge comes their way. 

As long as we back them in.

Our Youth Unmuted group at Australians for Mental Health makes me proud every day.  They are a group of young Australians who are passionate about making mental health in this country better. 

Young people are not, as some might have it, lazy and helpless. They are determined and ready to lead.

This month, we are launching our first intensive training program for Youth Unmuted members.  In the first half of this year, 12 young people will be chosen to participate in the Youth Unmuted Community Leadership Training. 

They will learn the skills needed to step up as effective advocates, including:

• Policy Development

• Listening

• Engaging with politicians

• Public speaking and using your voice

• Photography, video-making and graphic design

• How the political system works

• Strategy development

• Media engagement

Too often, youth mental health discussions leave actual young people out.  We want to change that.  Our young people have had enough of not being listened to or consultations that go nowhere.  They are ready to take responsibility for creating the future they want.

And the rest of us at Australians for Mental Health are here to back them in.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director

P.S. If this work resonates with you, I hope you’ll consider joining Australians for Mental Health. This movement exists because ordinary people decide to show up for each other, through conversations, training, and collective action that pushes for real change. Membership is free for the first 30 days, then $4 per month. If you are keen to join, but money is a barrier at any point, reply to this email to let us know - we will always find a way to make it work. 

Choosing love

G’day,

I honestly don’t know what to say.  I'm numb, composing this on my phone, hoping the words will come.

I know something needs to be said. 

My weekend was a summer bbq at my new house with family and friends. It was an afternoon for sausages, Zooper Doopers, and the slip 'n' slide I bought with my daughters. 

I have been to Bondi more times than I can count. On any other day, like so many Sydney-siders, I could easily have been there on Sunday. It was a perfect day for the beach.  A perfect day to be with community.

But what words are enough for this terrible act of violence and terror, targeted at our sisters and brothers in the Jewish community, and striking to the heart of all that we hold dear as humans who share this country?

The truth is, today I’m grieving and I’m afraid.

I’m grieving for the innocent lives lost and for those injured. I’m grieving for their families and those who loved them most. I’m grieving for the Jewish community who live in fear in what should be their safest places. 

And I’m afraid of a dark, thick blanket of hate that is smothering our world. 

I’m afraid for my kids and yours. 

But this, as ever, is a moment of choice for us all. We can turn grief and fear into yet more hate, or we can reach towards love.

Love is the binding glue of solidarity. It is the substance of community. 

Love drives out hate. It propels the heroes and first responders at Bondi. It lives in the messages of kindness on social media and stands in the blood bank queue today.

The days and weeks ahead are going to be hard.  If you are feeling it today, know that you are not alone.

Let’s recommit to looking after each other and acting always with love. 

Thanks for who you are and all that you do.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director
afmh.org.au

Awareness is not enough, responsibility is overdue.

G’day,

There is an artwork hanging in my office that features a famous quote from the Brazilian priest and later Bishop, Dom Helda Camara:

“When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

On the face of it, there is widespread support for “mental health” in Australia. In our recent , we classed 85% of people as being broadly aware of the importance of good mental health. Only 15% resisted mental health and wellbeing as an important social issue.

But scratch the surface and a whole different picture emerges.

Some 22% of us recognise the importance of mental health and have had a pretty good experience getting the support they need. They struggle to see the experience of the 13% of us who fight for survival in a system that is just not there for them.

There are the 23% of us who intuitively know mental health is an important issue but for whom the issues have not really touched their lives; and the 28% of us who accept that mental health is important, but who lean into personal responsibility as the right response.

Make no mistake: mental health is a question of justice that will only be fully addressed when we accept collective responsibility for change.

Awareness campaigns and pats on the head are not enough: we need real action.

That’s not going to be for everyone. When we substitute real change for platitudes, it is easy for everyone to get onboard. But real change requires solidarity and courage.

By connecting with each other, understanding each other, and ultimately standing united with each other, we can demand that our governments hear our stories and commit to changing the policies, norms, attitudes and laws that help write our stories.

And sometimes the changes we seek may look a bit boring but matter a lot.

At last night’s monthly member meetup, we discussed whether the PM appointing a Minister for Mental & Wellbeing, who sits in the Cabinet and works out of his department to coordinate a whole-of-government response to the mental health crisis would make a difference.

I say a firm “YES”.

Imagine a government that did not have a Minister charged with national security or defence? It would be plainly derelict in its duty.

Imagine a government that did not have a Minister charged with managing the economy? It would be laughed out of office.

But what issue is more profoundly central to the prosperity of Australia or the safety of its people than mental health?

Without a Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, we have government Ministers with all care and no responsibility, and a Health Minister who is charged with putting out a bushfire with a garden hose.

. And then help spread the word by sending this email to your family, friends and co-workers – every extra person brings us a step closer to the Australia we want and need.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director
Australians for Mental Health

P.S. If you are not yet a member and this resonates with you, I am asking you to join us. The first month is free, then it is $4 a month, and we will waive that if you need. You can cancel at any time. You can join here. 

Looking back from 40,000 feet up

G’day,

As I write this, I am on a plane from Sydney to Melbourne for our Annual General Meeting and, more importantly perhaps, a thank you dinner for our former Chair and outgoing board member, Jon Myer.

There are many things about plane travel that I strongly dislike. One wrong turn at Sydney Airport’s new road system and I was on my way into the city and on track to miss my flight. A long queue through security screening. And right now I’m squeezed into my window seat next to a bloke who has pointy elbows and is somehow vigorously engaging them to complete a crossword.

But the thing I love about flying is that when you look out the window, you can’t help but take a wider view of the city, the coastline, and the vast ocean below. And also, of life itself.

2025 started in crisis for me. Both my personal and professional lives were under extreme stress.

At last year’s AGM, I asked the Australians for Mental Health board to keep the faith. Our cash was running out, and we had to lay off staff. Hard-working people -- friends -- who want to make a difference but whom I could not afford to pay.

I asked the board to remember why we all want this organisation to succeed, and what we do that matters.

And because we have the best board a person could hope for, they leant in and helped in a big way. Some chipped in thousands of dollars of their own money to top up the coffers until sponsorship money we had been promised came through. Others were on the other end of the phone, helping me plot a way forward. Others again just turned up with the moral support I so desperately needed.

Australians for Mental Health exists because together we --  you, me, everyone reading this -- are people who don’t accept the status quo on mental health as being anywhere near good enough.

And we put our hopes for change in the audacious idea that it is we, the people ourselves, who must lead that change. Not policy wonks, not clinicians, not governments. The people.

When citizens get organised, make connections, decide priorities based on our actual needs, strategise and take action, we can shape Australia as a place where every single person can thrive.

In the year that has followed, together we:

• Pushed MPs and candidates in the federal election to make mental health a top priority
  

• Spoke up in the media with nearly 650 news reports reaching over 9.9 million people, amplifying our case for better mental health for every Australian
  

• Lobbied politicians for improvements to tackle loneliness and support social inclusion
  

• Sparked a new group of young people stepping up to have their voices heard
  

• Joined with partners to fight and defeat the retrograde changes to workplace mental health supports proposed by the NSW Government
  

• Launched the largest and most comprehensive research into the attitudes of the Australian people towards mental health ever conducted, so that we can better engage every Australian in our vision for our country, and target both mental health advocacy and solutions far more effectively
  

• Started regular online meetups for our members to connect with each other

And, right now, hundreds of you have made your voices heard on the best responses for people experiencing a mental health emergency.

Not bad for a tiny team that works out of a broom cupboard in Surry Hills and doesn’t have regular funding!

But we have so much more work to do.

In the year ahead, let us see if we can:

• Deliver a pilot training program for young leaders (15 to 25) who want to make a change in their communities on mental health
  

• Expand our Mental Health Compass research to get a deeper understanding of what makes people tick when it comes to mental health
  

• Initiate projects on workplace mental health, addiction issues, social isolation, quality of care and place-based solutions
  

• Conduct a nationwide listening effort to get us all talking about what matters most to us on mental health and what ideas we have, big and small, that would make a difference
  

• Get local organising teams in place in all 150 federal electorates across Australia

And perhaps most importantly, recruit many more people to the cause to connect up, skill up and speak up.

Because people power is the only way to win.

You with me?

Thanks for being on this journey with us. And thanks for keeping me company on my flight, time for some dodgy coffee in a red paper cup.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director
afmh.org.au

P.S. If you are not yet a member and this resonates with you, I am asking you to join us. The first month is free, then it is $4 a month, and we will waive that if you need. You can cancel at any time. You can join at: afmh.org.au/joinup

Aren't we more than "consumers"?

G’day,

When I first started working in mental health, I was surprised by the liberal use of the word “consumer” to describe people who use the clinical care system.

In the trade union movement where I come from, people might be called workers, employees, or members. On the flip side, there were bosses or employers to deal with.

When I worked in the environmental movement, we talked about activists for those trying to drive change. We called those with expert knowledge of natural systems scientists or ecologists. We described communities where nature was loved and its destruction consequential.

But why “consumers”?

Before you hit reply, that is a rhetorical question. I know why. But I wonder if there is a deeper question here.

As consumers, we are part of a transaction. We exist in a market. Markets are made by goods and services delivered in exchange for money, whether that is yours, your insurer’s, or the government’s.

But is the mental health crisis simply a market crisis? Or is it something much more human?

As our Mental Health Compass shows, Australians see mental health as a shared responsibility. We know the pressure does not fall on individuals alone. It rises from the world around us, from our communities, from the systems we live and work in.

And in a market, as consumers, we are typically alone. Left to make the best of whatever is available.

I say that is not good enough. I say we are much more than consumers. We are sisters, brothers, parents, children, neighbours, co-workers, teammates, and friends.

We are Australians, citizens with the ability to shape the future of our whole country, and in so doing, our own lives.

That might feel inspiring, but it can also feel overwhelming. So where do we begin?

Ask yourself these three questions and reply to this email telling me what you come up with:

1. Where does the pressure on your mental health, big or small, temporary or long-term, come from?

2. Who else might be having a similar, even if not identical, experience?

3. Is there something we treat as normal that, if it were changed, redesigned, reimagined, abolished, or created, would ease pressure on your mental health?

You will soon see two things:

1. You are not alone, far from it. You are not strange or different. Your mental health challenge might actually be the most normal thing about you.

2. Change is possible. But it is only possible when we work together to make it real.

Thanks for being with us on this journey.

Do you know someone who might like to join you as an Australians for Mental Health member? Forward them this email with a note. The first month is free, then it is just $4 a month, and if that is too steep, we will waive it. They can cancel at any time. They can join at afmh.org.au/join

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director
afmh.org.au

I can't find a hat that fits

G’day,

I have an unusually large head.

By that, I don’t mean I'm full of myself, though I suppose that’s for others to decide. No, I mean I find it hard to get hats that fit me. It runs in my family: my father has a surprisingly large head, and so does my daughter.

It doesn’t seem that way on first inspection, but the Gambian noggins are not like most. Like Australia, we’re far too big for “one size fits all”.

If you just think about the people in your own life: friends, co-workers, neighbours, children, parents, your pizza delivery guy, or the woman you see on the bus every day. Think about their life experience. Think about their skills and their struggles. Think about their families and where they live. Their job, their education, their income. All this and more shapes who we are, how we experience the world, and the views we form.

In fact, can you think of even one issue on which everyone you know agrees?

From footy teams to pizza toppings, we all have different perspectives that are formed by our values, experiences, and circumstances. And this can be a difficult reality when trying to communicate the universal impacts of mental ill health.

That’s why today in Canberra, we are launching the Mental Health Compass.

The Mental Health Compass is the product of groundbreaking research into what Australians think about mental health as an issue: from how important we think it is to what causes it and what solutions we support.

From that, we’ve identified 5 major groupings of opinion and mapped out a rough sketch of what makes people in each grouping tick: from the folks who are ready to take action all the way through to the folks who think it's a storm in a teacup.

With this work, everyone from service providers to government, employers to trade unions, community organisations, and everyone in between will be better able to understand priority groups, target resources, and communicate much more effectively.

Some of the findings will show us that there is widespread community support for change, while other findings might challenge your assumptions about what people think about some mental health issues.

Those who joined this week's member meetup got a detailed walkthrough of the report from one of our researchers, Holly McCarthy, and all Australians for Mental Health members received early access to the report in their inbox.

If you’re not yet officially signed up as a member, please consider joining us. Because just like heads, no two minds are shaped the same, and it’s when we bring them together that real change begins.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director
afmh.org.au

Tired and cranky

G’day,

To be honest, I was tired and pretty finished with the day.  It was two Tuesdays ago in my office in Surry Hills.

I say office, but really our HQ here at Australians for Mental Health is more like a glorified storeroom: 22sqm crammed with five desks piled with papers and flyers and posters, a whiteboard with the scrawl of ad hoc planning sessions conducted from a bright orange sofa.

My tired crankiness wasn’t improved when, at about 3pm, I remembered that tonight was the night for our monthly member meetup online, and that I’d need to put on my best, cheerful face for the meeting.

So when at about 4:30pm – 30 minutes before the meeting – I discovered that our guest speaker needed to take some unexpected leave, I was ready to call it off!

But I persisted: the previous month I had to call it off because I was struck down with the flu, and I didn’t want to let everyone down twice.

And it was the best meeting I'd had in ages.

As we went around the virtual room, listening to what drove folks to join Australians for Mental Health I remembered something vital:  social change starts with the stories of people.

That’s where connection starts too.  By letting each other into our lives just a little, seeing ourselves in each other, and most importantly, to finding common concerns, we are able to commit to taking action together.

From that meeting, the idea of forming a working group was born. We ran out of time that night and agreed to meet again the following Tuesday.  And we met again last night.

In the coming weeks the Member Working Group will be launching a massive program of listening. Understanding from Australians for Mental Health members what their priorities are and inviting them to be part of the action to make real and tangible change, community by community and across the country.

The community organising process we follow at Australians for Mental Health is used all over the world when citizens take charge and demand change.

Listening & Connecting

• By listening to each other’s stories and understanding each other we can build connection and find the things we want in common. This is the foundation of everything we do.  It can’t be top down – community organising is all about everyday people standing up for the things that would truly make a tangible difference in our lives.

Research & Strategy

• We know our facts. We understand how things work and why change hasn’t happened so far.  We are realistic as well as idealistic.  That’s often described as starting in “the world as it is” but imagining “the world as it should be”.

Building Power & Taking Action

• We recognise that in a democracy decision-makers need to grapple with a lot of competing issues and interests. We achieve change by involving a lot of people in putting pressure on politicians and others to act.  We are always respectful and we are fiercely non-partisan, but we don’t accept excuses or weasel words: we keep fighting until we win!

The Member Working Group has come up with a strategy for using this process across Australia as a whole but also community by community.  The work will be hard and sometimes we’ll be tired and cranky.

But everything worth doing sometimes is.

Thanks for being part of it.

Best,

Chris

Chris Gambian
Executive Director

ps:  if you're interested in joining the Member Working Group please shoot me an e-mail!

pps: Not yet a member? Join us here -- its free for the first 30 days, then just $4 a month. Cancel anytime.