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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 3230 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Amendment Bill (No 2) 1999 rectifies a number of anomalies in the amendments to the Mental Health Act 1994 which were passed in this place in June this year. I know that members appreciate the difficult and complex nature of mental health laws. The amendments which we passed in June were the result of two years of consultation and debate within the community, and were supported by all sides of the Assembly. However, in planning for the implementation of the amendments, a number of inconsistencies were noticed by persons within government and within the community. These anomalies need to be rectified as soon as possible to ensure that the amendments operate as intended.

There are five amendments in all. The first amendment will provide for the Care Coordinator to delegate his or her powers under the Act. The June amendments separated out the mental health orders for persons with a mental illness, called psychiatric treatment orders, and persons with a mental dysfunction, called community care orders. The Chief Psychiatrist is responsible for the implementation of psychiatric treatment orders and the Care Coordinator is responsible for the implementation of community care orders. The Act provides the capacity for the Chief Psychiatrist to delegate his or her powers under the Act, but does not provide this capacity for the Care Coordinator.

Both the Chief Psychiatrist and the Care Coordinator occupy senior positions with a variety of responsibilities. In almost every case they will need to delegate their responsibilities under the Mental Health Act to case managers who will be directly involved in providing the necessary services to persons subject to mental health orders. This was always the Government's intention, and I believe it was the Assembly's intention. The June amendments gave this capacity to the Chief Psychiatrist. This Bill will extend that capacity to the Care Coordinator.

The second amendment removes reference to the Care Coordinator from the first three subsections of section 32 of the Act. Section 32 refers to psychiatric treatment orders. The implementation of these orders is the responsibility of the Chief Psychiatrist. However, section 32 refers to both the Chief Psychiatrist and the Care Coordinator. This error was caused when references to custodians under the Act were replaced with references to the Chief Psychiatrist or Care Coordinator. This is appropriate in most cases. However, it does not apply to the references in section 32. While this change does not affect the operation of the Act, it is advisable to make this amendment now to clear up this anomaly while we are making other changes.

The third amendment rectifies an inconsistency in section 41 of the Act. As the Act currently stands a doctor may be required to detain a person on the advice of a mental health officer, even where the doctor is of the opinion that such a detention is unwarranted on health and safety grounds. This was not the intention of the amendments to the Act.

Subsection 37(2) of the Act provides the criteria for the apprehension of persons for emergency detention purposes. These criteria are the same for doctors or mental health officers. Unfortunately, these provisions were replicated at section 41 even though that

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