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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1647 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The community is very interested in this issue. For the benefit of members who have not received the invitation, next week, 19-26 May, is Schizophrenia Awareness Week. The Schizophrenia Fellowship are holding a forum called "Responding to the crisis in mental illness". There will be a discussion from 5.30 to 7.30 on Monday night, which will, they say, be "led by speakers from the police, the crisis team and the Magistrates Court. Find out about the time-out facility". So, it is not just me that is calling for this; I called for it on behalf of the community because the community have been telling me that is what they want.

If Mr Stanhope actually met with the community, he might hear these words for himself instead of hearing them relayed through me. I know several groups have attempted to speak to him and have yet been unable to secure appointments or are yet to have an appointment. You have to ask: what is it that the government has been doing?

The point here is that we have a foundation, and we need to build on it. Mr Stanhope's own press release of about a month ago claims-and I have no reason to doubt it-that one in five Canberrans suffers from some sort of mental health dilemma. With those figures before us we need to be looking at solutions. Let us have the time-out facility the community is asking for instead of putting a $3 million fence around the problem in what Mr Quinlan himself calls a band-aid and temporary solution. He himself said he would much rather spend it on health or education. Well, here is an opportunity to spend it on education and divert some of the people who do not need to be in the BRC away from it.

This is the high-use, high-care end of the spectrum. There are other programs that we need to put in place, and what I look forward to seeing when the government put their budget down is an array of programs that look at early intervention and prevention and cover the whole spectrum of mental health difficulties, from the minor to the extreme. It is time the government listened to the community and made a decision.

In his press release of this morning, Mr Stanhope says that it is not for him to lead the way. He says that nowhere else do they have a separate forensic or mental health system. It is interesting that he raises this. He says:

Options for dealing with forensic mental health patients will be considered as part of the work the Government is doing on the ACT's correctional needs.

This is the logical and efficient process.

But I would challenge Mr Stanhope to come up with something different. I would challenge the health minister not to follow the lead of the other jurisdictions but to make sure that we, as a jurisdiction, lead the way. The ACT can lead the way in this by providing a series of programs. But it is also about providing a suite of facilities that meet different needs at different times that the community says they want.

On a final point, the Chief Magistrate is now saying that we need the forensic facility. The forensic facility should have been addressed under the ACT's correctional needs. We would have addressed it. I want to make sure that those opposite, when they come up with their policy, address it as well.

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