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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (27 May) . . Page.. 678 ..

Mr Smyth: Yes; that is because you know that what you have just said is incorrect.

MR BERRY: It is not incorrect. It is going up by $9 and there is $1.50 built into it somewhere.

Mr Smyth: But it is not registration. It is compulsory third-party insurance.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Do not debate the issue.

MR BERRY: The $1.50 is just a tax. It is a safety tax. It is just a tax. I return to the issue of the adjournment. We will oppose the adjournment. The Government is riding roughshod over the Opposition because they are embarrassed about the Hall/Kinlyside development. So they should be, because it is on the nose.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (5.17): Mr Speaker, this week is Schizophrenia Week. With members of the Schizophrenia Fellowship, it seems to me that it is an excellent time to raise this issue in the adjournment debate. I was at a lunch today and Marilyn Landau, the author of a book entitled Snippets on Sanity, provided me with a copy. She signed it for me, I am proud to say. I think the best thing I can do is read out some parts of the book by somebody who has suffered from mental illness and is now well:

Perhaps it is a quirk of language that certain objects, ideas and people are categorised or, more specifically, labelled. It is probably necessary for communication purposes. However, labelling people can have derogatory, hurtful and negative connotations.

I am sure members are conscious of that. I do see some schizophrenia badges on members around the Assembly. This part continues:

These connotations can lead to repercussions, particularly for the psychiatrically disabled, such as being misunderstood, being unhappy, having poor self-esteem, poor communication and social skills, to mention a few examples.

To most people, the label implies that a psychiatrically disabled person is a problem, a nuisance, difficult, weird and mad.

We are all lumped together in one category labelled `psychiatrically disabled', regardless of our own idiosyncrasies, our own unique personalities and individual characteristics.

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