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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3149 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

of Psychiatric Services, whichever it turns out to be, you get all these things together and then invite the chief advisory body, the Mental Health Advisory Council, along to the launch. You say, "Thank you, everybody, for coming along today. I am so pleased to see you. I am so happy to make this announcement - - -

MR SPEAKER: Relevance!

MR BERRY: "My special thanks go to the Mental Health Advisory Council, who have not had a chance to advise me on any of these matters because I did not tell them that it was going to happen". That is the sort of behaviour that upsets the community of carers and people dependent on these services out there in the community. Mr Speaker, it is clear that this Government had no intention of living up to its promise to be open and consultative on these issues. It is clear that Mrs Carnell has not been competent in the management of the provision of psychiatric services in the ACT. I think her inability to deal with psychiatrists who work within our public system has demonstrated to the community that she should have nothing to do with the provision of these sorts of services. It must be more than a year since Mrs Carnell put us on the merry-go-round of one director of mental health services a month. What a joke!

MR SPEAKER: Relevance!

MR BERRY: It is pretty relevant. We get a new director of mental health services every month. We will have 12 by the time she has finished. Mr Speaker, I think this statement is a shallow move by a Chief Minister distressed about what an inquiry might report, probably this week, in relation to mental health services in the ACT. But what it does do, Mr Speaker, is expose this Chief Minister for what she is when it comes to the provision of services. Mr Speaker, I have outlined some very important areas of mental health services. They are the key personnel who have not been appointed; the arrogance of the Government so far as its consultation with the community is concerned and in particular with the Mental Health Advisory Council; and the overdue nature of the review of the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act. There are many things wrong in mental health services in the Territory that Mrs Carnell has not dared to touch on because they are so embarrassing. I repeat my earlier comments in relation to this particular statement: I think it was intended to pre-empt what the committee of inquiry is about to announce and I think it was a rude and calculated move.

MS TUCKER (4.15): I do not really want to respond to this statement at this point, because I think I would be pre-empting the report that I will be tabling on Thursday.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (4.16), in reply: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry continues to amaze me on these issues. He believes that the statutory position of Director of Mental Health Services is somehow a treatment position, somebody who actually treats patients or provides services. The position does not do any of those things as a statutory position. Mr Speaker, we do have a Director of Mental Health Services. It is Richard Clarke. Yes, he is a psychologist; but he is also an extremely competent person, who I believe has done a very good job in the Moving Ahead statement. He came from New South Wales. He was a very capable director of a mental health region there.

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