Page 4017 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES (3.44): Mr Speaker, I certainly welcome the statement the Minister has made. I welcome also the institution that Mental Health Week has become in the ACT. It is a very valuable way of highlighting the problems that people with mental illness face. Of course, those problems are determined primarily by the society in which they exist. Clearly, people need to take a different attitude towards those with mental illness in order to overcome at least part of their problem. The Mental Health Week exercise is very valuable and I will be taking part in Mental Health Week activities, much as I have done in the last few years and as I understand the Minister has done.
It is, however, sad that the Minister so desperately needs to polarise or politicise these sorts of issues. It should have been possible for both of us to rise in this place and talk about the good things that can happen under the Government's program for mental health issues and for people suffering from mental illness. That is not possible because of the sorts of things the Government has said and, in particular, the Minister has said. I sincerely hope that in the long term the Minister realises what damage he does to the institution of parliamentary democracy by constantly polarising issues which ought not to be polarised.
Mr Speaker, Mr Berry referred to the hype that was generated, he said, by me concerning the reopening of the new activities club in Civic, near Childers Street. He expressed regret that this had happened, but was happy that the centre had reopened. I record my view very definitely, and I very firmly put it to this Assembly, that had it not been for that hype the new activities centre would not have reopened. It had been closed because of problems with violence; that is acknowledged. From my discussions with officers of the department, it was clear that the desire - at least the prima facie desire - of the department was that the centre be closed. Mr Berry should talk to some of his officers to find out what their attitude towards that was.
The residents were not going to take that decision. They fought back and said, "We believe that this centre is important. It fulfils a role which is not fulfilled by any other service in the ACT, and we want it to stay". In that exercise they were helped by the Opposition, which got down to the business of making sure that the issues the Government was trying to sweep under the carpet were not allowed to be swept under the carpet. I am pleased to say that, as a result of that publicity and as a result of that work on the part of the Opposition, the new activities centre is once again open and will continue to provide services to people in that very special category of mental illness.
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