Page 608 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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where that money should go and who is allowed to say they are providing community-based services. At the end of the day, for me, I want the person who needs the support to get that support, whether it be from a public provider or a community-based provider.
If I look at the new adult step up, step down facility, for example, that is being managed and operated by a non-government agency. The public provider is providing significant clinical services into that service as a way of supporting that service to do its job. I do not think, for the people who live in that house from time to time, it is going to matter where the origins of that money come from or who has got it.
I think it is important in this debate about a raw 30 per cent of funding must go to the community sector. I would be much more comfortable if it said all funding should go to the individuals that need it and that it is provided through a range of services, whether it be public or community-based or even private—not for many but for some.
There is a lot of work to continue to do and I think Ms Bresnan has talked about that. There is the legislation review which is ongoing. I think the target we have set ourselves is almost a three-year review, by the time the review is complete, of the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act. The range of issues and the sensitivity on many aspects of that legislation is the reason that that legislative review is so long. I would probably put it up there with the review of the Children and Young People Act as being perhaps the most significant legislative reform in my portfolio that is underway at the moment.
We made some very strong commitments on mental health in the election campaign. We stand by those commitments and of course we will start rolling those commitments out in the next budget. The new facilities are underway. There have been delays with those facilities, but it is part of the approach I have taken to mental health.
Having such a strong consumer and carer focus in that sector—it is probably, in the area of health, the strongest area where consumers and carers advocate their needs—I have taken the time to get the planning and the design, particularly of the new 40-bed unit, to this point: all I would say is that there is not agreement on it but I have got it to the point where there is not huge disagreement on it. We have got the new mental health assessment unit which is currently underway at the emergency department at the Canberra Hospital. So there is a focus on facilities.
But we can get this draft plan right. We can get it, I believe, supported across the mental health sector. I think we do need to have some difficult discussions about what goes in an overarching plan and what sits under the plan in terms of monitoring it. But I am certainly having those discussions with mental health groups and I will continue to have them—I think I have got a meeting with them next week—and I will have them with the Greens and Liberals if they are interested in progressing that.
I am more than happy to support the motion today. We welcome the interest in mental health. It is one of those areas which affect so many of us in the community and all of us here in the Assembly, I would imagine. It is nice to have, I guess, a positive motion which we are able to agree to and move forward on today.
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