Page 1976 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2016
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I think it is worth having a conversation in this place about time frames and the protection of the human rights of those who are being dealt with at the more severe end of the spectrum of mental health.
Let me go to facilities. We do not need to add to the concerns of those being protected by the public guardian or undermine their ability to demand that basic standards are maintained. I have a very real concern about an open-ended time frame for that reporting.
The remainder of the amendment bill covers mostly minor and technical amendments, with changes to forensic community care orders to allow the transfer of patients to the secure mental health facility. Also, one of the biggest changes to the bill today is to add chapter 8A, which provides for the opening and operation of the secure mental health facility by setting out the mechanism for the official handover of detainees from ACT Corrective Services and the Community Services Directorate, Child and Youth Protection Services, to the Health Directorate.
As I said before, we are aware that this new facility is a model of care we have not seen in the ACT before, and that there will be more to know, to understand and to watch as the facility is opened. I am sure the review, which I believe will be undertaken around the 18-month mark, will be welcome to ensure that the facility is working as it is supposed to work and that the model of care is working.
As I mentioned in the previous debate, there is apprehension in the community about forensic and non-forensic patients being in this facility—people coming out of the AMC or coming from the broader community. Yes, there will always be some form of court order or, I presume, ACAT order to have people put into the facility. However, it is around their expectations given that it is being promoted as a health facility and being maintained by the Health Directorate.
I also have concerns about young detainees possibly being transferred into the facility and the appropriateness of the care that they will receive. I am sure everyone’s intention is for that care to be appropriate. However, we do tend to keep younger people in separate facilities. In this case, there is the possibility that young people will occasionally be in this facility. Again, I look forward to briefings from the minister and the minister’s officials to understand better how the details are going to be nutted out in relation to young people.
There is still ongoing community concern regarding the combination of different people, how they will be managed in the facility and, as I say, the prison-like nature of the facility and how visitations will be supported.
We do support the bill on the whole. I just foreshadow the three amendments that have been circulated and another one, at clause 44, which is the same change to another area where I realised the 12-hour time frame was being taken away.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Corrections, Minister for Education, Minister for Justice and Consumer Affairs and Minister for Road Safety) (5.12): I rise
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