Magistrates' Court Amendment (Mental Health List) Bill 2009Tuesday, February 02, 2010 Second Reading It gives me pleasure to speak on the Magistrates' Court Amendment (Mental Health List) Bill 2009. The purpose of the bill is to establish a pilot program as a separate list in the Magistrates Court for certain defendants with a mental impairment. The mental health list in the Magistrates Court will be for accused persons with a mental illness, an intellectual disability, an acquired brain injury, autism spectrum disorder or a neurological impairment, including dementia, which causes a substantially reduced capacity in self-care, self-management, social interaction or communication, who would derive a benefit from coordinated services under an individual support plan. It allows that if an accused completes an individual support plan, the court may discharge them without finding them guilty and that if an accused is found guilty, their participation in the program may be taken into account in sentencing.
In our briefing we found out that this is really the next step in the court integrated service program (CISP), which the member for Box Hill has talked about, and the expectation of the government is that the majority of the 300 people who are expected to be on this list will be drawn from the CISP list. This initiative is really an extension of that program, joining the two together. The bill generated a lot of responses. I will be quoting extensively from people we have heard from throughout our consultation process. There is a lot of support for specific therapeutic jurisprudence, and we support that for the mental health list. I will go through why this is needed, firstly for people with a mental illness and then for people with a disability.
As we have heard, people with a mental illness are overrepresented in Victorian prisons, with nearly 50 per cent of all prisoners having experienced mental illness and, I think, 17 per cent currently getting treatment for a mental illness. It is the failure of the government to invest in community-based and acute mental health services and the inability of people to get access to the mental health care that they need that is leading to such people ending up in the justice system. This is occurring not just in the courts. Last year the Auditor-General found that 900 people who had experienced a mental health crisis were being held in police cells. This is in clear contravention of the Mental Health Act and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act. That is because of the failure of crisis assessment and treatment (CAT) services. Police do not have confidence in CAT services, and therefore such people are ending up in police cells instead.
The issue of people with a mental illness in the justice system is across the board. It is this failure of early intervention approaches, community-based care and accessibility of services that is contributing to this situation. The press release in relation to this bill said the government is:
But what we heard very consistently from the sector as we consulted with them is that much more needs to be done earlier. For example, Professor Kulkarni, the director of the Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, said:
She went on to say:
In addition to Professor Kulkarni, we also heard from the Mental Health Legal Centre, which said:
These are very strong messages from those right on the front line in relation to the need for the mental health system to be bolstered to avoid people needing something like the mental health court list in the first place. It is also important for people with a disability to have specific treatment within the judicial system. In particular we know of similar experiences of difficulties accessing the judicial system, particularly by people with intellectual disabilities.
Those were outlined by the member for Box Hill, and particularly by the individual who wrote the passionate submission that the member for Box Hill spoke about in great detail. What we have also found through a review of supported accommodation is that the lack of accommodation in the community can often also lead to people being inappropriately detained within the judicial system. Last year an intellectually disabled man was held in prison for almost 12 months because of a chronic lack of supported accommodation. This was described by County Court judge Mark Taft as inhumane and intolerable. But advocates for those with intellectual disabilities and the disability sector as a whole have more fundamental concerns. As was mentioned, four out of the five criteria did not even relate to mental illness, but everyone is put under the mental health label through this bill. I would like firstly to quote the comments of Margaret Ryan, who has been mentioned previously. She said:
She went on to say:
Jean Tops from the Gippsland Carers Association said:
There is a lot of concern in relation to calling this a 'mental health' list and not having separate treatment. As the member for Box Hill outlined, this could be dealt with in a number of ways. A separate list is what is largely being advocated, as is the case in Western Australia, where the individual needs are reflected through separate lists and separate treatment of people with an intellectual disability and also people with mental health challenges. The other option is to make adjustments to the name. In the South Australian legislation, on which, as we were told in the briefing, this bill is largely based, it was originally called the mental impairment court.
But now the name has been changed to the Magistrates Court diversion program. As the member for Box Hill mentioned, in Shepparton it is called the 'specials list'. What we need is the Minister for Mental Health, who does not have a good track record for speaking on her own bills, to come into the house and explain to us either why she believes it is acceptable to turn around decades of work in separating mental health and intellectual disability or what she will do to make sure that things change while the bill is between the chambers and that these changes are reflected in the amendments that we see in the bill in the upper house.
It is not acceptable to continue along the lines that we currently have, and we need the Minister for Mental Health to come in this evening, while this bill is being debated, and present either a justification or an explanation about what will change and how she, representing these groups, will make sure that those groups' voices are heard and their needs are reflected in this process. The statement of government intentions tabled today has the Minister for Mental Health very clearly identified as the responsible minister. We have not heard from her yet. We need to hear from her because people with mental illness, people with disability and people with an acquired brain injury need to hear from their minister about what she is going to do to make sure their voices are heard.
We have received a lot of additional comments through the consultation process -- unfortunately I do not have time to outline them, but I would be more than happy to provide them to both the Attorney-General and the Minister for Mental Health and Minister for Community Services should they request them -- on concerns about the implementation of this bill from the Mental Health Legal Centre, VCOSS (Victorian Council of Social Service), NDS (National Disability Services) and others. I am pleased to speak on this bill tonight. There are concerns about it. It is important to have specific treatment in the judicial system of people with a mental illness and people with an intellectual disability, but this bill does not yet reflect the needs of that group, and the minister needs to champion the group that she represents to make sure that their concerns are reflected in what is ultimately passed by this Parliament.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [ Copyright Mary Wooldridge © 2009 | Privacy | Disclaimer | Website by Peter Wiseman | Admin ] |
