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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3292 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

So, it is important that we ensure that the services, particularly for young people - adolescents and in some cases, unfortunately, children - are adequately resourced and cover the needs of the people in the area, so that parents are not being forced to live in distress and uncertainty about what is going to happen and are not, in some cases, being forced to go to Sydney to access services. I think it is a shame for our community that parents cannot get services for their children and are forced to go interstate to get them. (Extension of time granted) It is important that we look particularly at services for young people and for children and that we look at some of the gaps in services that have been highlighted throughout the report.

As a community, we should be very ashamed if we leave some people feeling insecure and uncertain about their future. The general academic findings and research suggest that community-based services are the best; but they operate only when they provide a safe network for people to live in the community adequately and have the opportunity to develop full and satisfying lives. There is no point in saying that we have community-based services if they leave people in uncertainty and with lives that cause distress for themselves and for other people.

Also, we need to ensure that we look at services that recognise the different needs of people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. I want to mention particularly the need that is going to be growing, which must be recognised and addressed, in relation to the development of families as young people are returned to those families following the Bringing them home report. We also need to look at the special needs of some of the non-English-speaking communities, of those who have come from a refugee situation, and the loss, grief and trauma that can follow that, which may not be addressed immediately on arrival, but which may be addressed much later. We cannot put a time limit on the provision of those services. We need to ensure that those services are available for many years. They should not be available just in the first two years after entry into Australia, because the trauma can arise at other times.

I ask that members of this Assembly and others in the community read the report. We do not need a mere knee-jerk reaction, which is in some ways typified by the dissenting report. There are many important issues raised in this report. We are talking about issues that affect a large number of people in this community and that can be addressed by looking at the cultural and community change in how we address mental health issues. What we are asking for from this Assembly is commitment to people in the ACT who have mental illness, to assist them to develop satisfying lives and to have some quality of life. This matter is not one that can be put in just simple dollar and cent terms. We are also talking about this Assembly providing some leadership in how people with mental illness should be dealt with in our community, how we live together and how we ensure that there are adequate services for these people. So, I would ask all members to look at this report carefully and look at ways in which we can implement the recommendations.

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