MENTAL HEALTH (INPATIENT) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 3 May 2012.)

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (17:57): I rise to support the remarks made about this bill by the Hon. Michelle Lensink on this important issue and on behalf of the Liberal members in this place. I also note the contributions made by the Hon. Ann Bressington, the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Hon. Mr Brokenshire and the Hon. Carmel Zollo. I think that is indicative that more and more people are prepared to make contributions both in the parliament and in the community about mental health matters.

While this is not a major bill, it does make an important change to the language. It certainly changes the terms 'detention' and 'treatment order', replacing them with the phrase 'inpatient treatment order'. While many people may not see that as a huge difference, certainly anything we can do to destigmatise these issues is important. We need to encourage people in the community to discuss mental health issues. It is something where, in the work that I have done over a number of years in suicide prevention, I have noted a change.

We need to continue to move to change community attitudes. When I first raised these issues in the parliament and in my party room, there were a number of people who were uncomfortable with discussing these issues. I do not say that there are not still people around who are uncomfortable discussing suicide, but there are fewer of them and we are seeing more discussion in the media. I am pleased to say that the ABC 891 program with Ian Henschke has opened the debate on suicide prevention.

We see The Advertiser has been prepared to do more. A number of country newspapers have been prepared to discuss the issues and in fact, my local paper, The Bunyip,raised more issues about that, and they were issues that I raised in this parliament only last week. So, I am pleased with that. I think we need to encourage that in the community, because there was a time of which most of us would be aware where no-one was prepared to admit they had a mental health issue because, in times gone past, people who did that got locked up in an institution forever.

Now we are, thankfully, beyond that, but I think we need to keep up that challenge across the community at all times, because there are still people out there who feel that, if they admit any of these tendencies or feelings, they will be discriminated against. We need to help those people, and we need to help the organisations, many of which are non-government bodies—voluntary bodies—and which are out there trying to help people with mental health issues. With those words I support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.