 And now, it is my great pleasure to get on with the opening ceremony and welcome to the stage Lord Mayor of Melbourne Sally Cap. Lord Mayor Cap steered Melbourne through the pandemic as Melbourne clocked up the most days in lockdown in the world, an experience that devastated the residents of the city. She continues to be a highly visible advocate on behalf of business owners and residents of Melbourne for Melbourne's economic recovery. Miss Cap is actually the first woman directly elected as Lord Mayor of Melbourne and has progressed complex policy initiatives, including a renewal program for Queen Victoria market you should visit and action on homelessness through the make room initiative. Please welcome Lord Mayor Sally Cap. Thank you Naomi. Hello everybody. It is an honour to be with you all. Now I did have a written speech but following Uncle Bill's welcome to country and Naomi's rousing speech to kick off this conference what I had to say seemed almost irrelevant so I've thrown it away. I want to make two points with you today. The first one which always strikes me when I listen to Uncle Bill but also in thinking about the issues that you'll be discussing through this conference is that when I first became Lord Mayor it struck me that for so many issues that happen in our community whether it is appropriate recognition of our First Nations or dealing with people when they're at their most vulnerable impacted by drugs and all of the associated issues I as a well educated, well resourced informed member of the community used to think that was somebody else's problem and it's not. It's my responsibility, it's your responsibility, it's everyone's responsibility to get involved in these issues and make a difference. It's one of the reasons why I love the theme this year strength in solidarity but it also is a reflection to me as an elected representative and other leaders in our community is that we have to provide the right space and the right environment for your good expert work to be properly understood and discussed and actioned so that we can make a manifest difference in these issues in our community and one of my responsibilities and it's been reinforced here today listening to Naomi and Uncle Bill is to make sure that I play a proactive role with others in creating that space for your good work to be delivered because it is a shared problem and it will only see a resolution if we take a shared responsibility across our community. I thank Uncle Bill for welcoming us. We are on the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurrung people and the other point I wanted to make was the very generous way in which our traditional owners welcome us on to land with purpose and clearly that is what this conference is about. We are honoured here in Melbourne to be hosting this conference the first time in two decades that we get to welcome this incredible community of policymakers, practitioners of government representatives, UN representatives, community champions all together to discuss these important issues and I commend you for the purpose that you have in your work and the difference that you make. We often say that your work is part of the hidden heart not just of Melbourne but of cities around the world and again that strikes me because so much of the work that you do is the type of activity that people would prefer to be swept under the carpet that they want to see an outcome but they don't want to know about how or why or what the really hard long-term work needs to be to see positive legacies for our people. One of the most common things that people write to me about are the confronting scenes or experiences they have in our city when they see people who are impacted by homelessness, drugs and mental health issues and I'm really pleased that they write to me but of course they're demanding some sort of action and most of them as I said not only want somebody else to do it but they're not really invested in what those outcomes may be. I'm sad to say that pre-COVID one in five Melbourneians were already identifying as suffering from mental health issues and of course during the pandemic we've seen not only mental health but alcohol and drug issues, domestic violence issues grow as a result of isolation and lockdowns and the anxiety of the pandemic but one of the things I'm pleased to say is or reflect on is that during the pandemic I believe there's been a heightened appreciation and respect for the work of experts and that there is a new level of trust in what experts say and so as you come with purpose for the debates and discussions through this conference as you look at what those solutions are as you continue your work that is a lot of the times life is saving but at every time is life changing we want to support and help mobilise and action and implement the ideas and programs that you know best practice have been tried or need to be tried in communities and cities around the world and so on behalf of the City of Melbourne I'm supporting your work and commending you for coming with purpose to this conference today. Can I say on behalf of councillor Dr Olivia Ball who's also attending this conference and everybody at the City of Melbourne again we are honoured so thank you to Naomi and the team at HRI for bringing this conference to Melbourne to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre for their role in hosting this conference. I do hope you have an opportunity to walk around magnificent Melbourne a lot of my speech was about the fantastic things on offer in our city of course because I'm head of sales for Melbourne as well but really the importance and relevance of what you're doing here is something that we appreciate and admire and it is my role to not just say welcome but to say thank you and to again reiterate our commitment to supporting the very fine work that you do and thank you very much. Thank you Lord Mercap.