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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2186 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

Finally, there is the question of mental health. I am sure that all members are only too well aware of the tragedy which occurred recently in Canberra, and I do not propose to engage in cheap point-scoring on that. I will confine myself to the findings of the committee. It found that the budget in the area of mental health was presented in a misleading way that appeared to be trying to take the credit for Commonwealth initiatives. The committee was concerned that the Commonwealth funding in question might end in 1998, leaving the ACT with little support in this area. The Estimates Committee sought a guarantee from Mrs Carnell's department that adequate resources would be provided to overcome this problem. However, the department's response was less than satisfactory.

On the one hand, it was advised that increasing funding for mental health would be premature, as - according to the department - sufficient trained staff and structures are not in place to utilise increased resources. On the other hand, Mr Speaker, the committee was told that the ACT mental health plan would be implemented when the funds were available. In the words adopted in the committee's report, this suggests something of a catch-22 situation - it does more than suggest it; it casts it in concrete, in my view - and I urge members to endorse the committee's unanimous recommendation to remove the roadblocks to the implementation of the mental health plan as speedily as possible. This means that the Government must take the necessary steps to provide adequate funds to implement the ACT mental health plan as a matter of urgency.

Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell's much-vaunted 1995-96 three-year budget has proved to be a real shocker. It has created new records, of Olympic standard, in the political depths it has plumbed and in the speed with which election promises were broken. I could point to any number of other instances where this Government has proven that its promises are as empty as they are glib. I made many such observations in my reply to Mrs Carnell's budget speech, and I will not go into them again today.

I would like to point to a further important aspect of the Estimates Committee report, and that is that it is a unanimous report. There is no dissenting or minority report, although there was clearly the opportunity for such reports to be made. The unanimous Estimates Committee report means that all parties represented on the committee - that means all groups within this Assembly, including the Liberal backbenchers - agreed that these recommendations should be made to the Government. Only one non-Executive member of this Assembly, Mr Osborne, took no part in the Estimates Committee process, although I see that he has now joined the throng wishing to amend the budget, Mr Speaker. My motion gives him and, indeed, all members of the Assembly the opportunity to urge the Government to do so in a legally and fiscally responsible way.

In moving this motion, Mr Speaker, I am giving the Government the opportunity to take the Estimates Committee's report as seriously as the rest of this Assembly has taken the task. The Government can go away now, if the motion is passed, and look seriously at how they can implement the majority will of this Assembly. The Government has been aware since the Estimates Committee reported on 31 October that it was likely to be

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