Page 4374 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 13 October 2009
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illness in the community. That is why last year the Canberra Liberals took a number of very practical, well-targeted policies forward on mental health; policies that were realistic, achievable but nonetheless effective.
I do acknowledge that the government has introduced a number of programs and I applaud it for having done so. There is much more that needs to be done, though, in terms of additional programs but also expanding the scope of some of those programs; for example, step up, step down, a program that Ms Porter mentioned. The minister has said that she will increase that at some stage in the future and I await a response on that.
I do note, however, that the Greens-Labor parliamentary agreement relating to mental health funding contains some very specific agreements in relation to funding. It says:
Commit to continuing to increase the proportion of the health budget spent on mental health, with a goal of reaching 12% of overall funding. By 2012, 30% of mental health funding should be allocated to the community sector for the delivery of services.
When the 12 per cent figure was articulated, I think it was articulated as a figure that was going to be achieved within the near term; I think one would have expected it to be within the life of this Assembly given that that was the term, as I understand it, of the Greens-Labor agreement. But to date the level of funding is way below that. It is, as I understand, 7.7 per cent of total health spending and what we have not seen is a detailed plan articulated either by the government or by the Greens to demonstrate how we are going to get to the 12 per cent figure or how we are going to get then to a 30 per cent figure of money going to the community sector.
So I encourage the government and the Greens, if that is a commitment, to articulate how and when that will be delivered or, if it is not a commitment, to be honest with the community and express it as such. The Greens-Labor agreement included a joint communique of 30 June 2009 in which I looked for evidence of that sort of detail, but a scan of the document showed no mention of mental health funding in it. It did say, though, that there are 12 remaining items that will be the subject of further discussion before being progressed. I hope that the next joint communique as a result of the Greens-Labor agreement will include more specific detail of how and when the government will get to the 12 per cent that they have committed to—or a frank and honest discussion with the community that they will not actually achieve it. We need to know rather than just have a target that will not be achieved.
Although there are programs being introduced by the government, there is a lot that the government have not delivered on that they said they would. I have tracked back through previous election commitments and through what was articulated by the government. I can go back to Mr Corbell’s statement in 2005 about what was going to be delivered: 20 acute beds for young people, 30 acute adult beds, a 15-bed high security unit; that was all meant to be delivered by 2008. Obviously we are in 2009.
I have looked, for example, at the 2004-05 capital works budget. A new psychiatric secure unit was proposed, and that was meant to be completed in August 2005, and a mental health forensic centre with a proposed completion date of 2004. So I do just
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