“You guys broke the text machine yesterday - that’s how good you guys are,” he said.
“So from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you so much and look forward to catching up on the Gumboot Friday podcast tomorrow, starting at midday.”
King earlier this week gave a tearful interview in which he said he is tired of online “virtue signallers”, politicians, and “arrogant bureaucrats” failing to help New Zealanders struggling with their wellbeing.
Mike King, with former Health Minister David Clark, during a press conference in 2019, after the Government announced a Suicide Prevention Office will be established. Photo / File
King, who made his name as a comedian before revealing he suffered from depression and drug addiction and began campaigning for improvements to mental health care, spoke about New Zealand’s suicide rates in what he described as a “f**ked up” system.
“If you put your faith in the system, there is a better than evens chance that your child will die because no one is coming,” he told music radio station The Rock.
He said he feared more Kiwis would become suicide victims while “arrogant bureaucrats” and members of Parliament did little to address long-standing problems.
“We can either sit around and whinge about it or we can do one of two things. Invest in our own system, which is Gumboot Friday, and if you can’t invest, stop being silent. You need to speak up about this,” he said.
Last year, King criticised the Ministry of Health for rejecting a plea for funding from Gumboot Friday, which provides free counselling for young people in New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later announced the Government would give Gumboot Friday $600,000, which came from the $1.2 million Mental Wellbeing Innovation Fund.
“We cannot let the bureaucrats that run this country - and this is not a political thing. If you think that when National gets in, things are going to be different, you’re living in la la land,” King said.
Mental health advocates have often criticised a lack of access to mental health services. In October, Te Whatu Ora figures showed the public system was short of 643 mental health staff.
For the past eight months, the Herald has run an editorial campaign called Great Minds, which has investigated and highlighted the alarming rise in mental health problems among children and teenagers, and the lack of services and support available for them.
