Page 207 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018
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mental health. I was told at that briefing that the consultation on the form of the office for mental health would begin in April 2017. I was surprised that nothing happened during April—or May, June or July. During the truncated health estimates last year—truncated because of the illness of the minister for health and the absence of the minister for mental health—an official told the committee that the consultation on the form of the office for mental health would be the minister’s first priority when he returned from leave.
Eventually, after all of that, late in the year we had this conversation starter. Even now, we are not at the starting blocks. It has taken 12 months to write a 10-page document to start a conversation. That is a one-year dance around so that we can get to the starting blocks. The minister said he took action after the Assembly passed the appropriation for the office for mental health. However, that seems to be an ex post facto justification. I was told in a briefing, which was attended by ministerial staff—I think, if my memory serves me correctly, that I was told by the ministerial staffer present—that the consultation on the office for mental health would begin in April 2017. There was no indication at that stage to say, “Oh, Mrs Dunne, we can’t do anything until there is appropriation.”
There was appropriation of $2.9 million over four years to establish a new office for mental health for the ACT. The budget papers say:
The Office will enhance coordination of mental health services and work towards closing gaps in care for people with mental health conditions …
The budget paper does not say that the money is about having a conversation.
In his answer to my question on notice, Mr Rattenbury also said that the appropriation allowed him to undertake a procurement process to engage a consultant to tell him how the office should be structured and what it should do. Although we have had a policy position since at least September 2016 from the Greens, and at least October-November 2016 from the government, by November last year we were still having a consultation and hiring a consultant to tell us what we thought should be in this office.
It is perhaps a slightly over-used term, but it sounds pretty much as though the whole policy idea was little more than a thought bubble. The appropriation in the last budget does not say that there is money to engage a consultant to tell you how to do what you should already know how to do. The appropriation is for the office for mental health to “enhance coordination of mental health services and work towards closing gaps in care for people with mental health conditions”. This appropriation assumes that all the research and the consultation had been done so that the office for mental health could hit the ground running as soon as the Assembly pressed the go button. Pressing the go button occurred through the appropriation of August last year. Mr Rattenbury has been sitting around, surfing the net and having conversations, and not very many conversations at that. And even after all of that, he still needs to pay a consultant to tell him what to do when he should already know what to do.
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