Page 206 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018

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(b) delivery on this initiative has been delayed;

(d) the difficulties ACT residents experience in navigating the current system; and

(2) calls on the Minister for Mental Health to:

(a) explain to the people of Canberra:

(i) the delay in the establishment of the Office for Mental Health; and

(ii) what the Government is doing in practical terms to provide the services that patients need now, in advance of the establishment of the Office for Mental Health; and

(b) report to the Assembly by the first sitting day in March 2018 as to the:

(i) construct and terms of reference for the Office for Mental Health;

(ii) Government’s strategies to simplify navigation of the mental health services system; and

(iii) Government’s strategies to attract and retain more mental health professionals in Canberra, particularly in the field of child and adolescent mental health.

This is a very important issue for the people of the ACT and continues the work that the Canberra Liberals have been doing over a considerable time now. I acknowledge my predecessor as the shadow minister for mental health, Mrs Jones, for the work that has been done to highlight the concerns that we have in relation to issues relating to mental health.

My particular concern at the moment is the almost stasis in the health department in this area because we do not have an office for mental health. It seems that everyone is waiting for the office for mental health to be bestowed upon the people of Canberra and then everything will be fine. During annual reports hearings late last year, I asked the Minister for Mental Health on notice:

What were the unavoidable delays in progressing formal consultation on the office for mental health?

This was a matter that the minister had referred to on a number of occasions, including in ministerial statements in this place. The summary of the minister’s answer is that he could not do anything until funding for the office for mental health had been appropriated, and that did not happen until 24 August 2017. The ACT Greens announced their plan for an office for mental health on 13 September 2016, and it made its way into the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement for the Ninth Assembly. It was almost a year later that the Greens actually got the government to put the whole proposal on the streets, and this was only in the form of a conversation starter.

When I first became the shadow minister for health, and therefore for mental health, I eventually received a briefing, I think in about February last year, on the office for

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