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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3282 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

This report is about the committee's review of those forces and factors, and it offers clear and unambiguous conclusions and recommendations, some of which are within the competence of the ACT Government to bring to fruition and others of which will require the cooperation of the Federal Government in freeing up the market for the benefit of ACT consumers and ACT petrol resellers. I make one particular observation. For an issue which generates considerable consumer interest in the ACT media, the committee was unable to coax local consumer interests or individuals to respond to the inquiry.

Mr Humphries has on other occasions correctly assessed that heightened competition will have a severe impact on those traders who are contracted to the majors and are in a relatively powerless situation. The report makes some recommendations for ways to help them. I am sure that members would generally support measures to help those people maintain profitable trading.

Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.

MS TUCKER (11.42): Mr Speaker, I present Report No. 6 of the Standing Committee on Social Policy, entitled "Inquiry into the Adequacy of Mental Health Services", which includes a dissenting report, together with a copy of extracts of the minutes of proceedings. I move:

That the report be noted.

Mr Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I present this report on the inquiry into the adequacy of mental health services. We invited the community to make submissions in June 1996; we had 54 submissions and held nine hearings. We visited a number of facilities in Victoria and New South Wales, as well as the ACT. We also attended the Australia and New Zealand Mental Health Conference in Brisbane.

Mental health is an issue of great importance and touches personally many people in the ACT community. The statistics show that 20 per cent of adults will experience mental health problems in their lifetime and between 10 and 15 per cent of children and adolescents in one year. We define mental health in a rather narrow manner at present. It is my personal belief that mental health is as much about broader social and emotional wellbeing as it is about mental illness. Surveys of young people are consistently showing a lack of optimism about the future, a sense of alienation from the community, and a lack of meaning and purpose in their lives. As a civil society, we must address these broader issues and examine ways to develop the community and to improve social cohesion.

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