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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1097 ..

these people’s fault. We are not looking after these people. We have a duty of care. Why does the government continue to mix elderly tenants with young tenants who continue to display antisocial behaviours and also have mental health problems? We are not doing these people any favours by throwing them back into the community. I have talked to the minister. He will remember the conversation, his wrestling and struggling about saying we do not want an institution. He will not deny we talked about this, that there needs to be a type of facility for such people.

Mr Wood: You talk but you never listen.

MRS BURKE: No, you talked and I did the listening on that occasion. If the government is not convinced, then what about dual-diagnosis strategies? At the beginning of 2000 under the former Liberal government the ACT implemented a dual-diagnosis project based on a report entitled “Stopping the Merry-Go-Round” which identified a series of recommendations about dual-diagnosis needs in the ACT. Phase 1 of the project was completed in July 2001 and resulted in the ACT community care alcohol and drug program, the Canberra Hospital and the mental health service employing dual-diagnosis clinicians. The role of the senior clinicians is to provide consultation liaison services to their respective sectors and to facilitate and co-ordinate joint ventures. I strongly believe one of these joint ventures should be the development of housing policy that better reflected mental-health outcome needs. This means better integrating mental health and housing policy in the ACT. It is not good enough for Mr Wood to leave this place with the housing issue in the ACT in crisis with drug use, crime and anti-social behaviour at alarming levels.

The housing minister has not done a good enough job in regard to mental illness outcomes. I receive copious complaints to my office with regard to drug use, antisocial behaviour and crime at ACT multi-unit housing complexes. This housing situation is not conducive to good mental health outcomes and does not help housing tenants who are suffering from mental illness. ACT multi-unit housing complexes must be cleaned up. There needs to be greater policy integration, where housing policy better supports mental health objectives as stated by a number of reports I have just mentioned. Mental illness is a real concern and if the housing minister is committed to early intervention initiatives then the first port of call should be the cleaning up of all ACT multi-unit complexes.

MS MacDONALD (4.19): I support my colleague the Minister for Health in his statement. Despite the rhetoric and media attention around some aspects of mental health services in the ACT, the state of mental health services in the ACT is in a much better position than it was under the previous government and when the Stanhope government came to power in 2001. As the Minister for Health has indicated, this government has increased mental health funding significantly, boosting it from $67 per capita in 2001 to $115 per capita in 2003. Once mental health had been identified as a major priority in the ACT health action plan the government worked collaboratively with the department, the community and other key stakeholders to develop and implement initiatives to improve the delivery of mental health services across the territory.

Areas of need identified in the health action plan include early intervention, depression, suicide prevention, dual diagnosis, physical health, service integration and quality and safety. This government has made significant progress in addressing a number of these priority areas. In the past two budgets we have provided significant additional funding

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