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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3055 ..

That is absolutely true; I cannot agree more. We need to enhance educational programs. The most fundamental and probably the most effective way of doing this is to have members of the community doing it for us. It is the old thing of “Why didn’t you talk to a mate?” It can be as simple as that. But, of course, as cases go on and episodes become worse and more complex, more formal help might be needed. That is why we have said in our mental health policy that we know that we have to provide additional community based resources, greater inclusion and consultation with carers and consumers and increased training for community based teams, so that we get it right in the community. It would be nice if the government, rather than its backbenchers, brought on motions like this and put a bit more effort into these services. Paragraph (4) states:

(4) acknowledges the progress the ACT Government has made in addressing mental health issues;

Unfortunately, the opposition will not be agreeing to this paragraph simply because we do not believe that the government has made much progress at all; in fact, one could almost accuse the government of neglecting mental health issues in the territory. I think one of the ways you can look at it is simply to take the document from the ACT Mental Health Strategy and Action Plan 2003-2008. The final draft was circulated in October or early November last year, yet the final version launched with the usual morning tea and fanfare did not appear until May this year, some six months later. That hardly indicates a government that is interested in acting on this matter. There is no action in this action plan. Unfortunately, it is just impossible to acknowledge the progress the ACT government has made in addressing these issues.

I will put another example to the Assembly: yesterday we all received our quarterly reports for the March quarter on the capital works program. If members check, they will see that $350,000 was put aside for the refurbishment of the psychiatric services unit in the Canberra Hospital to improve on the work that we had done previously. I do not disavow that. The odd thing, though, is that this project is due for completion in June 2004, which would be today. I do not believe that it is anywhere near completion. At the end of the March quarter, of the $350,000 that was allocated to refurbish the psychiatric services unit, $20,000 had been spent. This unit is right at the heart of hardcore treatment; these people are desperately in need of help and are often held there, as in the case of Tammy Holm who had spent three months in the psychiatric services unit. The shame in that is that we just do not seem to have the commitment from the government to make these things happen. Sometimes this is about leadership; it is about ministers saying to their departments, “This has to happen. I want it happening on the timetable. I want no excuses. I want that work done because it is necessary, it is urgent and it is required.” I do not think we can support this paragraph that says that the government has been addressing mental health issues.

We had a revelation last year. I asked the minister how many suicides had there been of those in the care of ACT Mental Health. This is not a reflection on the staff. Some of this is beyond the control of the staff of ACT Mental Health. At that stage there were 19 suicides in 19 months. I think we are now up to something like 27 successful suicides in 27 months. Yet in the health action plan I do not see a single target or a strategy that says, “This is what we are doing to try to bring the number of suicides down to.” I say, “try”, because with issues like mental health, some of it will just simply be trying. Sometimes you cannot stop people taking their own lives, but we have to at least make

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