Page 757 - Week 03 - Thursday, 2 April 2020
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provided an initial $100,000 injection to Lifeline to increase their capacity, to help with the increased calls being experienced by Lifeline.
As the situation progresses, we are expecting to see an upturn in demand through our clinical mental health services. We are planning for this, as well as for how we support our vital frontline staff in continuing to deliver health services. The Coordinator-General for Mental Health and Wellbeing is currently leading whole-of-government work on the mental health response as COVID-19 develops. This planning is well underway, and I will provide updates to the Assembly as the opportunity arises.
Madam Speaker, let me conclude by observing that many people will have noticed that the COVID crisis is exposing the weaknesses in our systems—weaknesses exacerbated by the undervaluing of public systems, the relentless push for smaller government and unfettered faith that the market will fix things. As this pandemic directs a searing spotlight onto these weaknesses, you cannot help but notice the tendency for our system to privatise the profits, but, especially in times like these, socialise the losses.
There is no doubt that we have some distance to go to get to the other side of this challenging period. We must stand together to get there. In the coming months, as governments and the community turn our minds to the recovery phase of this COVID crisis, we must reflect on important lessons of this time: that collectivism is a strength, not a weakness—we are, after all, a society, not simply an economy—that ruthless economic efficiency has a huge cost, in human terms, to our society’s resilience to shocks and to our environment; that government is often a solution, not the problem; and that businesses in particular need to pay a fair share of tax in the good times because they will need a bailout in the bad times.
In our own ways, each of us is already yearning for a return to normal and to emerge from these difficult times as quickly as possible. But as we emerge on the other side, let us not forget the lesson that in fact what was normal before has not been able to truly deliver what we need. This period may provide the opportunity for us to create a better normal, one that is indeed fair and sustainable.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Health and Minister for Urban Renewal) (11.06), in reply: I thank Mrs Jones and Mr Rattenbury for their contributions and acknowledge Mrs Jones’s comments about the appropriateness of the Public Health Act and, indeed, the Emergencies Act in this situation of an epidemic or, in this case, a pandemic. After this is over, we will certainly review the emergency arrangements that we have in place to cope with this type of event—which, I hope, as I am sure others do, does not occur for another 100 years. But it is important that we learn the lessons. This is a rapidly evolving situation and we are responding quickly to the changing environment. I have no doubt that, after this is over, there will be a thorough review not only of the legislation but of all kinds of structures and processes that are in place to ensure that we are as well prepared as we can be for an outbreak of disease, even if it is not of these pandemic proportions.
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