Page 1554 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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This report has 15 recommendations attached to it, one of which has been superseded by Tuesday’s budget. It is the intention of the committee that this report be a useful document in assisting the government to deal with this issue, which is a troublesome issue for people living in the community who have mental illness and those who support people living with mental illness. It is troubling and often a challenge. However, as I say in my foreword, none of us would choose to have a mental illness or choose to have somebody living with a mental illness, but it is something that does occur in our society and therefore it is something that members of the community and the governments that they elect need to deal with.
In finishing, I want to give my personal thanks to the community groups and individuals who took the time to put in submissions and appear before the committee. We often do not appreciate the amount of time and effort that it takes for community groups and individuals to do that—and also sometimes the amount of courage that it takes for them to do that. I certainly appreciate people taking the time to do that—to put their thoughts and experiences on paper and appear before the inquiry.
This inquiry has been running for quite a while now, and some things have been overtaken over the length of the inquiry. But we found that the more that we talked about it out there in the community the more people stuck up their hands and said, “We would like to come and have a conversation with you about this because we have also got something to add to this inquiry which we think is of value.” The committee did not want to turn people away if they wanted to appear before it.
My thanks also go to the committee secretaries who were involved with the inquiry and the staff of the committee office. These included Linzi Lamont and Lydia Chung, who provided secretarial support; and the list of committee secretaries: Trish Carling, who was there at the beginning; Ellie Eggerking, who did a lot of work with the visit down to Victoria that we made and was there when we were doing most of the hearings; Derek Abbott, who came in when Ellie got a better offer and who has done most of the writing; and finally Grace Concannon, who came in after the committee did all of the hearings and Derek had written the report. Grace went through the report and formed it into the readable version that you find.
Mr Speaker, I commend the report of this inquiry to the Assembly. My hope is that it is of great use.
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (11.51): Mr Speaker, I will be fairly brief. Ms MacDonald has covered most of the key points of our inquiry, an inquiry that has been thoroughly educational, I think, to all of us. We have a better insight into the needs of people in our society with mental health problems, and hopefully the 15 recommendations will be of use in guiding and directing the government and in highlighting out there in the public eye the real needs of people with mental health problems and the appropriateness of their accommodation. The chair has already said thanks to all. Lots of people were involved in the preparation of this report and the last secretary, Grace Concannon, certainly had a mammoth job to pull everybody’s ideas together; so well done to Grace.
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