While the riders from Nowra and Canberra stopped at Batemans Bay, the message they carried concerns the whole of the shire and, indeed, the whole of the Far South Coast.

Mental health services are few and far between in rural areas and the Eurobodalla is no exception.

It is just another indicator we lag behind on, such as access to other public health services, more diverse opportunities for higher education, family court services, disability services, infrastructure development and more.

Our shire lacks access to important services, such as timely psychiatric consultation and assessment, residential care close to families and loved ones, residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation and supported accommodation for a group that is statistically vulnerable to homelessness and abuse.

These gaps affect not just those suffering from mental illness, but the families who are trying to support them.

It affects the police, NSW Ambulance paramedics, hospital emergency departments, nurses, doctors and community health workers who have, by default, become the rural fire service of mental health.

The Black Dog riders this year were supporting a youth mental health program in the Shoalhaven – one Eurobodalla youth are likely to try to use, given the lack of services in their own home towns.

The Canberra riders covered the same distance many in the Eurobodalla must cover when seeking a residential recovery and rehabilitation service for either a mental health issue or an alcohol or substance addiction.

From the parents of psychotic adult children, to the grandparents and parents of ice addicts, to those who worry constantly about a loved one at risk of self harm, to the Country Women’s Association – everyone who has been touched by mental illness knows the human and practical cost of this service gap. They know the stress and anguish it brings.

Parents and the CWA have campaigned in the Eurobodalla now for several years for a residential facility to save them the grief and expense of putting their loved ones in care so far away.

A federal election looms: let’s help make parity for rural areas an issue no politician of any stripe can ignore.