Page 737 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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Madam Speaker, I support the general thrust of the motion before us. I agree that a draft Bill should be put forward soon, particularly since we have in the Government's response to Balancing Rights a clear outline of its intentions. Madam Speaker, I also indicate that I support Mr Connolly's proposed amendment to the motion, which will delete paragraph (2), and then support Mrs Carnell's amended motion.
MR HUMPHRIES (12.06): Madam Speaker, I rise to support this motion. I also indicate that we are prepared to support the amendment which Mr Connolly has put forward. We accept that timing is a problem, although I will come back in a moment to the question of whether the same criteria apply to timing for a Labor government's implementation of reform in this area as applied for a government of another persuasion.
I do not think any of us, Madam Speaker, could have been immune from contact with or exposure to the problems of some members of our community that touch on the question of mental health and, in particular, the problem of taking proper control and care of people who are facing a mentally dysfunctional crisis. I have certainly encountered a number of cases where very anxious relatives have attempted or wanted to take firmer action than was possible under the law to deal with a particular problem where the courts have been involved in criminal matters. Clearly, it is inhumane, even primitive, I would say, to be dealing with those people in the environment of the court; but we are obliged by the present deficient state of our law to deal with them in that environment.
We face the philosophical problem of defining what is mental dysfunction. The line between eccentric behaviour and lunacy is a constantly unclear problem. It has been alluded to by authors, poets and doctors, and it is one we are not going to solve, even with very good legislation when it comes forward to this place. But it is an issue that we have to face up to relatively quickly. There are people in our community who are living every day with the problem of relatives who are mentally dysfunctional, and at the present time those people do not have the resources available to them in our laws to deal properly with those circumstances. That situation must be remedied as soon as possible.
A range of facilities appropriate to the needs of the people in the ACT in these circumstances is obviously going to be a very important long-term goal. We have a couple of facilities - Hennessy House, for example - which offer some relief, some avenue, for people in certain categories of mental dysfunction; but the range of opportunities needs to be almost as wide as the number of people who are involved in this area.
It is almost impossible, within the context of the ACT's small environment, to get the right range, the full range, of alternatives for people who are facing crises of this kind. We will continue to rely, for example, on the facilities at Goulburn for a long time to come, I am sure. More importantly, we need to provide a range of options in our legal system to deal with that problem. As the Minister who was closely associated with the Balancing Rights report - indeed, I received the report in November 1990 - I am very anxious to see us deal with this problem as quickly as we possibly can.
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