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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3763 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

that they know what the unmet need is in these areas. They cannot. I have asked senior officials over and over again. Not only can they not show me what the unmet need is now; they do not do projected growth. They cannot tell me what the needs will be in the future, yet we see all these grand strategies about the future, about how we are going to get the staff working better.

I would suggest that, unless you have this basic information included in these reviews, you are never going to be able to meet the needs. You will continue to get crisis-driven policy. Maybe that is not a very comfortable thing for government because, if you do recognise the unmet need and the projected growth, you will find that there are resource implications. I am not looking at resource implications in this motion, because I do not believe that it is necessary at this point. What I am addressing is the structures of this area. If they were appropriate and sound and accountable, we would know where we were failing, and then the resource issue would be very clear indeed.

I notice one of the interjections Mr Humphries made when I was speaking was that I was capitalising on people's suffering. I found that interesting because at least Mr Humphries acknowledged that people are suffering. I have not heard Mrs Carnell acknowledge that once. I can tell you that people are suffering, because that unmet need, those figures on the paper, I am meeting. That unmet need has a human face, and it is very distressing. People in this town are caring for people who are very disabled; they have been caring for them for a long time. Some of them are getting to the point where they are suicidal, and they get letters from senior officials saying, "We cannot help you because we do not have accommodation or we do not have the resources". That is not good enough. That is the bottom line for me, and that is why I have raised this motion.

I am disappointed that so many members in this place have not understood. (Extension of time granted) Maybe I have not made it clear enough to members on the crossbench, because I do believe that they would be sympathetic if they could understand the dimensions of this problem. I hope in this wrap-up I may have influenced them a little in terms of their vote. This is a very critical issue, and it is a matter of responsible governance that has not been carried out by this Government, and especially in the area of health by this Health Minister.

I noticed also in Mrs Carnell's speech that she chose, once again, not to address quite a number of the issues I raised. She did not respond to my quote from the Mental Health Network. She also did not respond to why so many different figures have been put up as current mental health expenditure. She chose not to do that. She chose not to address the question of why we have unaudited figures given to Walter and Turnbull consultants. This is particularly odd, considering that we are supposed to have excellent financial managers running this place. She also did not explain why she believed two years ago that the ACT was 40 per cent underfunded in the mental health area but apparently now we are fine. In fact, I heard her tell the media, "Everybody is really happy". She also dodged the issue of her misuse of key concepts. I did not get any response to that, and I think that is offensive in the extreme to anyone who has taken any interest in the development of these key concepts and the subtleties involved in them. But she did not chose to do that.

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