Page 2821 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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part of the restructuring of the public hospital system in the ACT? That was completely untrue. Who was the man who told us that the hospital redevelopment budget had blown out because the figure had been adjusted to account for inflation? The man who milks things politically is hardly in a position to tell anybody in this Assembly about dealing with matters fairly and squarely.
Madam Speaker, Mrs Carnell has raised a very important matter in this Assembly, and it is the question of what we need to be doing with respect to the enactment of comprehensive new mental health legislation in the ACT. It is a serious and pressing concern which should be at the top of the agenda of all of us, but particularly of the Minister for Health. This review came down in November 1990. By the time the two months which Mrs Carnell's motion refers to has expired, it will have been on the table for in excess of two years. That is plenty of time in which to have responded comprehensively to the recommendations in this report.
Mr Connolly has taken steps along this line and no doubt he will tell us about those when he speaks. There have been some important legislative reforms and they have been welcome in that respect. But, first of all, to make comparisons that are not really warranted is unwise on the part of this Government, and for the Minister to say, "We are doing something; you should be quiet and be patient and accept gratefully what we hand you", is just not good enough. The mentally ill of this Territory deserve a great deal more than they have received so far.
The fact of life is that only a few years ago we were spending something like 37c per person on our mentally ill in this Territory - about half of what was being spent in New South Wales and Victoria. The ACT, as is well documented - 60 Minutes will tell you - spends a lot more on many things than other places in Australia, but one area where we have not spent as much as other places has been mental health. That is a situation that has to be turned around. I concede that the Government has made some attempts to do just that.
We all recall the appalling cases of mistreatment of mentally ill people over the last few years. We recall the case of one mentally ill person who spent a full nine months in the Belconnen Remand Centre - a place I have spoken about many times in this place - before his case was dealt with, in totally inappropriate accommodation. His offence was riding a motorcycle without a licence. We recall the statements made by all the major parties in the 1989 election, now three-and-a-half years ago, to do something about mental health. I might say that the things I have listed already about mental health indicate very clearly that self-government in the ACT has produced some very clear improvements in this area for the people of the ACT. We have a lot of things which are very valuable under our belt in this area, and I think we should be building on those, if possible, on a bipartisan basis.
The motion which Mrs Carnell has put on the agenda here does not in any way condemn the ACT Government; it says that we believe that the Government should proceed quickly to a new mental health Bill and asks it to have a draft Bill ready for consideration within the next two months. I think that asking for that Bill to be ready more than two years after Balancing Rights came down is not too much to ask. It is important that we develop a response which will assist those in this Territory who are suffering from mental illness.
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