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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-31 Daily Xml
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MENTAL HEALTH

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:35): I move:

1. That this council calls upon the state and federal governments to increase funding and support for mental health initiatives, including improved contribution towards the non-government sector; and

2. That this resolution be conveyed to the federal Minister for Mental Health.

As I have been meeting with constituents around the state, I have become very concerned about mental health services in this state. By this motion, I invite the council to consider the quality of mental health services in this state and to decide whether or not we need to send a message to the federal government that we are underfunded and need more support.

Wednesday 10 October (my wife's birthday; it was a good day) was World Mental Health Day, and this is the last day of World Mental Health Month. I acknowledge the growing public awareness of this issue—people such as Olympic champion Ian Thorpe and others are going public about their mental health battles—and therefore the growing realisation of how big a problem mental health is. Last month, Australians observed R U OK? Day, which saw us checking up on others to make sure their mental health is okay.

We welcome the government advertisements about including back into our social circle those people who might have dropped out or taken a back seat for a while because of a mental health issue. These are positive issues, but we need to do much more. Professor Allan Fels, who is well known as the former high-profile head of the ACCC and now the chair of the National Mental Health Commission, recently said that the folding in of his commission into the Prime Minister's portfolio showed that mental health was not being seen as a significant issue.

Professor Fels said that they are realising that one of the major challenges is the high incidence of mental health issues being dealt with in the workplace. Yet a recent poll by the Chartered Secretaries of Australia of the ASX top 300 companies revealed that 40 per cent of companies did not perceive mental illness as being any risk to their organisation, and half of those who saw it as a risk did not have a mental health policy in place.

On the question of mental health in the workplace, I have to mention the issue of section 56 of the Public Sector Act. We have received many allegations that it is being abused by senior management to claim that someone has a mental health problem when they do not. There is no denying that this has been happening. Mental Health tools for management to set an employee aside have been wrongly used to bully employees who do not toe the cultural line in some parts of the Public Service, and that is a disgrace.

On 7 November, the government will be staging for public servants a seminar organised by the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, Warren McCann, about mental health in the workplace. Although this will cover generic matters addressing mental health at work, which some say is a hidden problem in this country, I note that the Department of the Premier and Cabinet has told public servants that chief executives and managers involved in reliance on laws requiring medical examination (that is, section 56) are being encouraged to contribute to a discussion on how to handle those examinations more sensitively.

Quite frankly, the handling of those powers has created the risk of mental health problems for people who do not have any. The Stepping Up mental health plan, which expires this year, stated that South Australia was to be a leader in managing mental health in the workplace. The evidence in the Public Service reflects negatively on that goal but, to be fair, I have had some of those constituents meet with minister O'Brien. He has a draft guideline, which I will be commenting on, regarding how senior management in the Public Service should be dealing with section 56. I commend him for that; however, I still feel that we need to go further to protect bullying and harassment being used as a tool with respect to section 56 of the act. On the broader policy front, though, Professor Fels said:

...every few years something is done about it [that is, mental health] by whichever government's in power and then other priorities become more important and mental health tends to drop down the list somewhat.

The commission is due to deliver its first major report into the state of mental health in Australia at the end of this coming month (November), and at about that time I hope that this motion will be close to being finalised.

I want briefly to talk about national reporting. I cannot tell whether or not the commission's work is being unreasonably held up. For instance, the chair has said that he is trying to develop a national mental health report card, but I note that, after a reliable number of years of constant annual reporting, the last national mental health report was in May 2011, and I think it can be said that it is well overdue.

This is the same report the government has referenced in saying that extra beds at James Nash House take us closer to the national average, but we do not know because we do not have the latest report. The last report, published in May 2011, showed that since 1992-93 South Australia's doubling of funding to 2007-08 was the third lowest rate in the nation, with the ACT, WA and the Northern Territory increasing by 160 to 170 per cent compared with our 100 per cent. Our per capita spending was fourth in the nation. Our service mix compared to the national average in other states was more dependent on psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals than on community services, that is, non-government organisations.

I turn now to the Weatherill government's recent Mental Health (Inpatient) Amendment Bill—basic language changes but universally accepted changes, including by Family First. Describing people with a mental health issue as an 'inpatient' rather than 'detainees' is commendable, but much more needs to be done. Debate on this bill illustrated what little interest the government had in taking that opportunity to do more when the bill was introduced. We know that the Stepping Up reforms on mental health in SA for 2017 will not be reviewed or a new plan developed into 2013, well after the next state election, so there is a gap in strategy on mental health in this state.

Recently, I visited the Mental Illness Fellowship of South Australia, which nationally says that there are 100,000 people with serious mental health illnesses missing out on essential mental health service; and, as a result, this non-government organisation has formed the Mi Networks initiative with support from SANE Australia and Aftercare. I must say and put on the public record how impressed I was with the Mental Illness Fellowship of South Australia staff, their commitment and compassion, and the clients I met during my visit and how much they were benefitting from this wonderful organisation. I commend them for their work.

Also, I mention the Public Advocate, Dr John Brayley. Most of us would have had meetings, I assume, with Dr Brayley. He has said a great many useful things on mental health issues as he faces them daily. He is a wonderful advocate. In response to the shackling of prisoners in the prison system, he has said that there needed to be a benchmark on the number of mental health beds and other services provided in each state, which he felt should be set by the National Mental Health Commission, which is part of a new annual report card that Professor Fels wants.

The non-government organisations are playing a vital role on mental health issues, but they lack the funding to do the work as effectively as they could, and I will give a couple of examples in a moment. I note that the federal mental health minister, Mark Butler, announced this month that there was $500 million nationwide available in government funding for their Partners in Recovery program, which detailed that applications were due by 18 December this year.

This came after a large debate federally on mental health funding, with the 2011-12 budget putting in place a $2.2 billion reform package, but it took $583 million out of the Better Access program, which in part explains the cuts to availability for psychological consultations from 31 December.

Secondly, a Western Australian Labor MP has criticised it, and I put these on the record. I cannot yet analyse these comments. He claims that, in one of the central programs of the 2011-12 changes, a $222 million youth mental health program for early psychosis prevention and intervention centres, the pre-psychotic states the program seeks to diagnose have a false positive rate of 64 per cent to 92 per cent and could result in young people being put on antipsychotic drugs unnecessarily. I note the minister has disputed those claims with former Australian of the year Patrick McGorry, saying the program takes 27 per cent of patients off antipsychotic drugs.

South Australia is the only state that does not fund Lifeline, as the Hon. Dennis Hood and other colleagues have highlighted. I note that Lifeline can do important work with that funding, such as they now do in Western Australia in investigating the mental health impact of fly-in fly-out lifestyles on workers and their families. I acknowledge the interest and work of the Mental Health Coalition, the YWCA and others on this important project. I also acknowledge the line of questioning on borderline personality disorder asked by the Hon. Kelly Vincent in this place, and I look forward to her contribution on this motion.

The ABC in Broken Hill reported a fortnight ago that a meeting at the Trades Hall there as part of the review of the New South Wales act identified as a key issue the cross-border issues with South Australia that arise for mental health inpatients. I have to mention also the related issue of suicide prevention and our work on calling for a suicide prevention coordinator. I acknowledge the government's suicide prevention strategy, including identification of suicide issues in regional areas.

I want to now talk about the funding of non-government organisations. In my consultation and preparation before moving this motion I offer just two examples of how NGOs are struggling under the government funding settings. The One Voice Network has been operating throughout country SA, but the CEO recently said they did not meet key performance indicators and reporting requirements, which they actually dispute. In fact, they claim they sent them twice, but Country Health SA has lost them, but now in yet another health cut they have been defunded.

One Voice's mental health activity and resource centres (ARCs) began as an alliance of four such centres at Wallaroo, Mannum, Yorktown and Nuriootpa, and have since been augmented by centres in Auburn in the Clare Valley, Berri, Port Augusta and Mount Gambier, with outreaches at Millicent, Kingston and Robe. Collectively they have 10,000 attendances at their ARCs and outreaches every year, providing support, rehabilitation and recovery-based programs, education and information sessions.

Compeer's international mental health program is run and solely funded by donations through the wonderful St Vincent de Paul Society SA Incorporated and has been operating since 2007. It recruits, trains, matches and supports volunteers to form ongoing relationships with people who have mental health issues and it addresses social inclusion. They have 64 people in the program, 11 of whom are about to be matched and 21 on their waiting list. Sadly, this program is now to close after they were unsuccessful in securing government contributions to the approximately $50,000 in funding which they needed, as donations decreased after the global financial crisis.

Whilst the government agencies refer clients to them they cannot get any help. Compeer's 2009 analysis of users found that 74 per cent of clients had an improved or stabilised housing situation, and roughly half of those assisting the clients felt that the client had lessened their use of or had not needed hospital or crisis services. These two things illustrate that we are going backwards, not forwards as a state in assisting those with mental health issues, particularly in rural and regional areas, which Family First is very committed to supporting.

I want to finish on couple of points, and one is James Nash House. I want to go back to my earlier comments about yesterday's ministerial statement about the James Nash redevelopment. The 10-bed step down rehabilitation unit and the 40 beds are being consolidated at James Nash house. Of these 10 were formerly at Glenside, and it is a positive development. The government was under enormous pressure after the public advocate and others, including myself, called for more forensic mental health beds in light of embarrassing situations that have arisen for the government.

However, this is a government service, not a non-government service. This motion is about improved mental health funding across the board but highlights the deficit in funding to the non-government sector. James Nash House is there as an important link in the chain, but I wonder, if the state and federal governments were committed to funding proactive community-based non-government programs, whether we would have so much need for beds at James Nash House.

In conclusion, I call on my honourable colleagues to support this motion and to keep the focus on mental health at a state and federal level to prevent, as chairman Professor Allan Fels of the National Mental Health Commission says, a periodical focus on mental health and to have instead a constant focus on it so that we see a major improvement in services, awareness, care and understanding for those with mental illness in this state.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. K.J. Maher.

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