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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3146 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

conducted by the Social Policy Committee, which is, as I understand it, about to be released. I think that would probably be regarded by most committee members as pretty rude, but not surprising. Mr Speaker, the appropriate action for the Government is to consider the recommendations of committees and respond, not to try to pre-empt them. It is quite rude to pre-empt them.

Mrs Carnell: Do not be silly.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell interjects, "Do not be silly".

Mrs Carnell: I make regular statements on mental health and on disabilities.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell says, "I make regular statements". She says, "Do not be silly. I make regular statements". When are you going to make a statement about the appointment of the Director of Mental Health Services? How would you like to make a little statement about that? Or would you rather tell us that we are still on the merry-go-round - one a month? They run out in September, as I understand it. When are we going to be advised of the next six directors of mental health services? When are we going to be advised why the Government is ignoring the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act in so far as it requires the appointment of not half-a-dozen directors of mental health services but one? That is what it requires. When are we going to be told how the Government is going to fix that?

When are we going to be told, for example, whether or not we are going to have a professorial chair at the clinical school?

Mrs Carnell: It is the same position. You know that.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell interjects, "It is the same position". It is not necessarily the same position, Mrs Carnell. The professorial chair is not required under the Mental Health Act. The Director of Mental Health Services - - -

Mrs Carnell: But it is required that the person be a psychiatrist.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR BERRY: The Director of Mental Health Services is required to be. You should read the legislation so that you better understand those issues.

Mr Speaker, we have a situation in the ACT where the person accountable to this Assembly for the treatment and care of people with mental illness has not been appointed and this Government has been unable to deliver the goods in that respect. We all remember the squabble the Government had with the then Acting Director of Mental Health Services and the subsequent - I think "sacking" would be too strong a word - putting down of the Acting Director of Mental Health Services when windows around this place were broken by a person who was a client of the service. What a reaction! We have an incident involving somebody who uses our services, and all of a sudden the Acting Director of Mental Health Services loses his job.

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