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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3713 ..

MS REILLY (11.56): Mr Speaker, one of the interesting and refreshing things for me this morning is to hear a discussion of health and community care that does not focus on just hospital waiting lists. I was beginning to think that there was nothing in the health budget apart from worrying about waiting lists, important though they are; but that is only one small part of the responsibilities of the Minister for Health and Community Care. If you consider waiting lists, and we will continue to discuss them for a bit longer, they affect only a certain number of people within the community; but if you look at community care in the broader sense, and health care in the broader sense, we, the whole community, have a part to play in this, and everybody is affected in one way or another.

It is important that we look at the functions of the Minister for Health and Community Care. Mrs Carnell has made mention of a number of reviews and consultations that she has held; but, if you consider those reviews and what they were looking at, it is crisis management. We do not appear to have any overall management of the health and community care budget. This Government responds to crises. I think the message to a lot of people in the community is: If you want something done, initiate or set up some form of crisis. Then you will get a response. If you just want to have a service that you know about, that you can be assured of the quality of, that you can be sure will continue after next week or next month, you have no guarantees; but if you set up a crisis you will get a review. They will even put out a consultation paper. It will be all completed, but they will put out a paper for you.

It is very hard to know what is going to happen. It is interesting to see that the Minister for Health and Community Care is looking at mental health and disability services. She appears to be responding also to various reviews that have been held under the auspices of the Standing Committee on Social Policy, and it is good to see that there is some response. It is a pity that she is responding before the Social Policy Committee has brought down its findings. I think she could take a lesson from her Minister for Education. He at least waited until the violence in schools report was finished, but he then ignored the recommendations of the report.

It was also interesting to hear her discuss community care and suggest that a number of initiatives have been taken and an amount of expenditure has gone on; but, in fact, if you look more closely, a lot of this is Commonwealth money. Even though it may be matched by the ACT Government, the Commonwealth initiates any response. The Commonwealth is the one that is providing the first dollars, and, of course, if the ACT does not respond, it does not get the Commonwealth dollars either. These are not initiatives or functions or programs that the ACT is running itself; these are responses to initiatives from another area.

While talking about the major parts of community care, let us consider a number of self-help groups that have been formed within this community. A number of these groups have a very important role in keeping people informed about the latest developments in their particular area of concern, or a disability or health problem they may have. They also play an important part in supporting each other in what they do and how they lead their lives. This gives these people control over their own health care and over their own functional development. It has been shown that people working through, say, self-help groups within the community are more satisfied with what is going on.

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