Page 605 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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What have we learnt from them which we can build on? Why is there still no evaluation built into the current draft plan?
An ALP election commitment was to create a ministerial council on mental health which, amongst other things, will advise on the finalisation and implementation of the draft mental health services plan. I note the council will be enshrined in legislation as part of a new Mental Health Act. I hope, however, this does not mean the council will not start to operate until the new Mental Health Act is enshrined, as already we are half a year into the draft plan and are far from achieving a finalised plan let alone an implementation plan resulting from that. Work needs to happen on this sooner rather than later. The ministerial council must play a lead role in determining and advising on the implementation plan for the mental health plan.
In conclusion, I urge both the government and the opposition to support this motion. What the motion asks for is not radical; it is a bare minimum that we would expect to see in such a plan. There are a lot of creative and innovative responses to the challenge of mental health problems in our society, and we could and ought to pursue this. We need to welcome the leadership being offered by other jurisdictions and work with those people and agencies in our community who have so much to offer. We also need to take on the ALP’s own election promises and the commitments it made in the parliamentary agreement with the Greens to deliver a mental health plan that will pursue concrete targets for improved mental health service delivery in and through the community. While the goal of 12 per cent as set out in the agreement might be seen as aspirational, it can be achieved and has been achieved elsewhere.
The mental health needs of the community are far too important to fail to address in a strong, innovative and coordinated way. If the Assembly passes this motion and the government takes it on, we will be moving in the right direction.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Services and Minister for Women) (11:24): I welcome the opportunity that the Greens have provided this morning to talk about mental health policy reform occurring in the ACT. The ALP is very happy to support the motion moved by Ms Bresnan this morning. We certainly are very happy to table the KPMG report, although I would have happily given it to the Greens if they had asked for it. I present the following paper:
ACT Health—Mental Health Services Plan—Draft prepared by KPMG, dated 7 May 2007.
We certainly stand by the policy commitments we have made in the ACT Greens-ALP parliamentary agreement. I think many of the elements which Ms Bresnan spoke to and her concerns on the draft plan build on conversations I have had with community mental health groups over the formulation of this draft plan. And can I say that this draft plan is proving to be the most complex and lengthy consultation process to go through in putting together any document that I have been involved in my time as minister. The reasons behind that are that we have taken quite a lot of time, both ACT Health and I, to ensure that the plan we get to in the end has, if we can, at all—and I am not saying we will be able to achieve this—the full support of all the groups involved in mental health service delivery in the ACT.
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