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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-30 Daily Xml
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Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): Can the Premier perhaps give some evidence to the house how his Minister for Mental Health has fulfilled her obligations under section 86(f) of the act, which specifically requires the minister to develop or promote effective systems of accountability for persons delivering mental health services in South Australia?

Mr Knoll: Just keep saying sorry.

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:23): The minister commissioned the very inquiry that has been the subject of public debate. There were no questions that were asked in this house that precipitated her commissioning of this inquiry. There was no media inquiry that precipitated this inquiry. The very—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The report which has found these awful failings at this facility—a report I might add that was produced by the Chief Psychiatrist, who himself had been walking around this facility six months earlier, and then the previous three months before that an aged-care accreditation agency had given a clean bill of health to this very facility across a number of different domains, including all of the very issues that are the heart of the complaints that are now made about this facility, that is, the aged-care accreditation agency.

So here we have two bodies that exercise accountability in relation to the facility, the Chief Psychiatrist and the aged-care accreditation agency, and a third body that this government has put in place, the community visitor program, which means that people go into the facility and look and see what happens. Fortunately, belatedly, it revealed material which ultimately led to this inquiry.

There is no getting away from the fact that this is an appalling state of affairs, or that the fact that it hadn't been revealed for so long, hadn't been detected, by serious accountability measures such as the Chief Psychiatrist and the aged-care accreditation agency is, I think, a legitimate matter that should be properly explored. We are anxious to understand the answers as much as anyone else.

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