Page 980 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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Mental Health Legislation
MR STEFANIAK: My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the Minister seen the Canberra Times editorial of 17 March this year entitled, "Housing mentally ill on remand"? How would the Minister respond to the assertions within that editorial that he has shown no sense of urgency in bringing the recent report on mental health legislation forward for debate?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Stefaniak for that question. Of course, I have seen that editorial, and I can assure the Canberra Times, and, indeed, this Assembly, that the report of the review committee will be treated in a professional, considered and proper fashion by this Government. It would be entirely inappropriate to draft replacement legislation hastily, merely because it has been suggested by the Canberra Times or anybody else that these things should be done with great haste.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind the Assembly of the action that the Government has taken so far in addressing this problem. On 5 May last year, I announced the establishment of an expert steering committee to review the Mental Health Act. It was chaired by Mr Nick Seddon of the ANU Law School, and it included many community representatives. The committee provided its report to me at the end of November last year in the form of a detailed and highly professional document entitled Balancing Rights: A Review of Mental Health Legislation in the ACT. The report contained some 59 recommendations and is, I believe, one of the most significant documents to emerge in the field of mental health law in this country for many years. I intend to table that document shortly, formally, in the Assembly. I indicate that the reason that it has not been tabled is that there was such enormous interest in the original print run that the first print run of 300 copies was, in fact, exhausted shortly after it was released at the end of November. A second run has occurred, and it will therefore be available shortly for tabling in this place.
When tabling the report, I shall detail the process that the Government intends to follow in responding to it. In short, however, this process will allow sufficient time for public consideration of, and comment on, the report, following which the Government will formalise its response. This response - in a sense, the white paper that the Canberra Times editorial referred to - will precede the drafting of replacement legislation.
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