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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 6 Hansard (22 June) . . Page.. 1628 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
How within our society and our community we address the needs of these sorts of people is an ongoing debate and discussion in which I am very willing to participate. What was clear was that there were critical legal issues in this piece of legislation. At that round table we had Richard Refshauge, Rosemary Follett, the Community Advocate and Ron Cahill. As an elected representative, I listened to them, because I believe they have experience and expertise.
I agree that the people to whom Mr Humphries referred are falling through the cracks, as are other people. They are certainly the people politicians often see. These people have real needs. I am not disagreeing with you that there are big problems for society in this. It was clear from the consultation that occurred that it was not the view of the people who work in the field that that the Minister's way of dealing with the problem through the legislation was the way to deal with it.
I am quite genuinely willing to participate in further discussions about how we deal with these sorts of people. In fact, yesterday a woman visited me about her child. I will be speaking to Mr Moore about this instance. This boy will probably grow up to be the sort of person that Mr Humphries has referred to. Here we have an opportunity to work together, as I want to do with Mr Moore, about this boy, who is only 13 years old. We could now talk together about this boy and, as a society, find ways through our government agencies to address the issues sooner rather than later. As Mr Humphries said, if it is not sorted out early it will often mean gaol or something like that. This is about putting a strong focus on prevention and intervention and being aware of these problems in particular individuals before they become a crisis in the community and therefore very extreme action becomes necessary.
As a result of the consultation and the round table, as I have said and as other members have said, there have been significant changes to the original proposal. I do not think any of us could say with confidence that this is a perfect piece of legislation. I believe there will be a critical need for a review later to look at how it is working.
I have had a number of consumers contact me with specific concerns, and I would like to get those concerns on the record. There seem to be very different views of ECT therapy from consumers and professionals. Basically professionals see this sort of therapy as similar to any other treatment. This is not the view of many consumers who have talked to us. I know that there is concern in the community about how the legislation frames the requirements around the use of that particular treatment. I am certainly going to keep a close eye on how that works.
Concern has been raised about whether or not more definition should be given to social and financial harm and whether an adjective such as "significant" or "serious" should be put in front of the word "harm". I know there has been discussion of that, and it was agreed that there was not a problem in removing the adjective "significant" or "serious". I think that is also something that we need to keep an eye on as this legislation is put into practice.
I think I will just conclude there. I do hope that we will be able to work together on a number of these issues. While we will have legislation in place and we will need to keep an eye on how it is working, the ongoing issues around service provision cannot be separated from this discussion and from the legislation. I am sure the Assembly will be
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