Magistrates' Court Amendment (Mental Health List) BillTuesday, March 23, 2010 Second ReadingI am pleased to have the opportunity to again speak on the Magistrates' Court Amendment (Mental Health List) Bill, as it was known, and the amendments that we have before us, which will change the name of the list from the 'mental health list' to the 'assessment and referral court list'. It is a disappointing outcome, particularly for people from the disability sector -- for those individuals in our community who have intellectual disabilities, who have an acquired brain injury (ABI) or who suffer from dementia or autism spectrum disorder and are classified under this bill. Unfortunately, as we have heard throughout the earlier debate, they are not necessarily recognised for their specific needs. We support the change in the name because that was an issue that we advocated for.
We listened to the community and we understood the community's concerns, and we support changing the name, but there are a number of additional changes that we believe should have been made to this bill that have not been reflected in it. I have to say that it is also incredibly disappointing that we have heard absolutely nothing from the minister, who is both the Minister for Mental Health and Minister for Community Services. She directly represents all the groups who are represented in this bill and who will be using the list and accessing the support and services. She is listed in the government's statement of government intentions as the minister who is co-responsible for the bill, yet she did not speak in the first second-reading debate for this bill. Given her absence from the house tonight, I suspect she will not be speaking on this amendment either.
I think it is incredibly poor form for a minister who has direct responsibility for a bill and who represents 100 per cent of the groups of individuals who are affected by the bill to not come and speak on the bill and answer the many questions that have been put to her and to the government in relation to the failure of this bill to separately recognise people with disabilities. As I said, the coalition had called for the change in the name. We advocated for it and listened to the community, and we support the changes. But in the upper house debate there were a number of other changes and amendments we proposed that unfortunately were not supported. These changes included making sure that people with appropriate qualifications are assessing individuals for their inclusion on the list. They included enabling the chief magistrate to create separate or sublists to reflect distinctions in the needs of eligible individuals.
They also included amendments to look at increased transparency so that the Magistrates Court would report annually in relation to the performance of the list and so that we would have a thorough evaluation. I was very pleased that we got on the record this evening the comment from the Attorney-General that the evaluation will be publicly released, because we had not had that commitment from the government beforehand. That will enable us to assess if this pilot has been effective. The coalition had also proposed an amendment to ensure that individual support plans are tailored appropriately to the person's needs, recognising their particular impairments. We have had a change to the name but not these other changes which we believe are necessary to make sure that people's specific needs and the range of impairments that people who are affected by this list have are reflected in and fully incorporated into the process by this legislation. Government members called this 'adding layers of bureaucracy' in the debate in the upper house. But rather than adding layers of bureaucracy, we were trying to add layers of appropriately tailored assessments and ensure that people with appropriate expertise and qualifications were determining the needs of and the support required by individuals, whether it be from mental illness, intellectual disability, ABI, dementia or autism. Unfortunately what we achieved was the agreement of the Legislative Council to the new name for the list only and not to the other changes. As the member for Box Hill has mentioned, the name may be a furphy, and we certainly hope that that is not the case. We feel that everything needs to be done to make sure that it is not.
Unfortunately there are only a small number of generalist staff in the court integrated services program (CISP); at our bill briefing we were told there are eight CISP case managers and that they operate across three different regions. At most there would be three or four, if a high proportion is in the Melbourne Magistrates Court area, doing the assessments in the first place. Given this small number of staff, there is no way they can know about the full range of needs and diagnoses in relation to people with an intellectual disability, mental illness, autism or other impairment. If an individual then gets through the assessment process and qualifies for the list, they will get a plan and hopefully be able to access services. Again in the briefing we were told that the new list would have three equivalent full-time staff, described as clinical and forensic psychologists, and that they could get brokerage as required.
This is clear evidence that we are approaching this from the perspective of mental health rather than the full five categories, four of which are disability related. What we have seen again and again is that all roads lead to Rome in relation to this list -- that it was set up for people with a mental illness, that it is structured to deal with people with a mental illness and that the staff have those skills and qualifications. There is brokerage and there have been reassurances, as the member for Box Hill said, through the Attorney-General's comments on the Jon Faine program, but we will be waiting for the evidence to make sure that, given the changes were not accepted by the government, people with a disability can access appropriately tailored supports delivered by people with qualifications to deal with their needs. Unfortunately all the risks are for people with a disability rather than for people with a mental illness.
Just to reiterate the point I just made in relation to the fact that everything is mental health oriented, a large number of the speakers from the other side of the house did not even mention disability in their contributions to the debate. There is a strong feeling about this focus on mental health services and that this is for people with mental illness. The changing of the name in and of itself is an improvement, but it does not deliver what is needed for people with a disability. I also want to say that unfortunately there are a number of issues with the mental health and disability sectors generally, which means that people are getting to these points.
Ideally if we had a system where people could access the services and support they needed, if they could access supported accommodation so that they had stable housing, they could be getting care associated with that, whether for their disability or their mental illness, and I think we would see a significant reduction in the number of people getting involved in the criminal justice system and needing these sorts of services. There is a critical need, as I have outlined many times in this house, for better mental health services at an earlier stage and better disability supports and services at an early stage so that people do not need the services of this list. At this point I have to say that we are supporting the amendments. It is incredibly disappointing that the Minister for Mental Health has not fronted up to argue the case for the people she represents, and we are watching with interest and making sure that people with disabilities get the program supports they need under the legislation.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [ Copyright Mary Wooldridge © 2009 | Privacy | Disclaimer | Website by Peter Wiseman | Admin ] |
