Page 4144 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 November 2005
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community outreach and community-based support. Seventy-five per cent of our budget is spent in these areas. But there is more work to be done. There is more work to be done on accommodation in support and prevention of mental illness, and we will continue to focus on these issues for as long as we are in office.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.15): This matter of public importance, the state of the mental health system in the ACT, is an exceedingly important matter for the people of Canberra. On occasions like this, when the minister stands in this place, he is, thankfully, rather chastened and does say; “Yes, we have a lot more to do.” Never were truer words said.
Mental health in the ACT is in a parlous situation, but I am still a little pessimistic when I hear the minister because we still have the usual cant: “We have thrown a lot of money at it; so people should be thankful for the amount of money we have thrown at it.” As people on this side are probably almost tired of saying, putting money into a system is not the solution. Inputs in terms of money do not necessarily give you good outcomes. What we are talking about here is providing good outcomes. Ms McDonald can screw up her face, but just because you spend money does not mean you are going to do it better.
We had the minister here saying, “We have doubled the money.” Then he said, “We have increased it by 75 per cent.” We are having a little mathematical problem here. He also said, “And we are gunna do a whole lot of things.” This minister has been gunna do a whole lot of things for three years or more now, and I see very little difference.
I speak from personal experience. I speak from personal experience with the permission of the person I am speaking about because he basically says to me, “Talk about my case anytime you can because eventually we might get some solutions to the problems.” Members of this place will know, some better than others, that my family has a family friend who is a fairly regular consumer of mental health services in the ACT. I have to say that, for this person, for his family, and for those who are close to him, this is a most scarifying experience.
It is not from want of goodwill and it is not from want of resources on many occasions. This young man has at his disposal at various times a private psychiatrist, a counsellor; has access from time to time, in an on-and-off way, to the mental health crisis team; is admitted in and out of hospital on a semi-regular basis. When you think about it, there is a lot of time and effort that goes into this young man.
But, in the space of three years, when I have been dealing with this—and other members of my family have been dealing much closer than I have with this for three years—we see no progress. His family sees no progress. He sees no progress. We are in the same situation we were in three years, going round and round in circles. He has asked me to advocate on his behalf. I am in the process of trying to set up what seems to me to be a pretty straightforward thing. It may or may not succeed, but it beggars belief that no-one has done this before. Because there are so many mental health professionals with a finger in this pie, it would seem logical that we could all sit down at the one table and come up with a regime of treatment.
This has been one of the most difficult tasks that this young man has come up with. He has basically thrown up his hands and said, “Can you help me to get this meeting under
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