Page 3002 - Week 08 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
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wanting to come back and quote these things later, I will get an exact answer and provide it to her on notice.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, when you are supplying the answer, or before that, can you explain to the Assembly how, given the Greens’ so-called commitment to mental health and given your pivotal role in keeping this government in power, you have allowed this high priority facility to languish in the way that it has?
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Rattenbury.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, there are no interjections. Enough.
MR RATTENBURY: I reject the premise of Mrs Dunne’s question. In my previous answer, I outlined some of the considerable work that has been going on around that project and the professional engagement that has been happening in order to get the right design. I have followed this issue very closely.
Mrs Dunne’s premise also suggests that we have been standing still on a range of other matters. She would well know from budget papers and the various comments I have made in this place that we have continued to move forward on a range of other projects as well that are highly beneficial for young people. For example, our outreach service, according to the clinical advice to me, is a really effective way of helping young people in mental health crisis. For some young people, that can be even more effective than spending time in an inpatient facility.
We are not standing still. We are continuing to develop services; we are continuing to increase resourcing for these services; and we continue to do the work to ensure that we deliver an adolescent mental health unit in the ACT.
MRS JONES: Minister, how many beds will be in the dedicated child and adolescent mental health unit, and what will you do to ensure that it does not have the same capacity issues that the adult mental health unit has recently had?
MR RATTENBURY: Those numbers will be based on the best modelling available to the ACT government.
Chief Health Officer—recruitment
MRS JONES: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, in January 2019 the ACT’s then Chief Health Officer announced his resignation, effective March 2019. On 10 August 2019 it was reported in the media that a national search had begun for a replacement. Minister, why has it taken eight months to begin the search for a replacement?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I will take the question on notice in terms of the detail, noting that it is a matter for the directorate to undertake staffing. But there is a
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