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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-05 Daily Xml
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Mental Health Services

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:12): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding mental health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: The minister has referred today to extensive consultation on homelessness reforms and that any successful tenderer, as a result of those reforms, would require an ability to have a collaborative approach. My questions are: did the allegedly extensive consultation include the mental health system and, if so, who? Secondly, if so, what exactly was their response to the closure of 67 crisis beds when there is a huge crossover between homelessness and mental health?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:13): I thank the honourable member for his question. In terms of the role of mental health in the consultation phase, there were a range of workshops last year. I can't tell you off the top of my head which stakeholders were there from outside the homelessness and housing sector generally, so I would need to take that on notice. Certainly, we did a report on lived experience, which is one of the reports that informed the structure of the reforms, if you like. Obviously, there would be a number of people with lived experience of mental health who were consulted as part of that process.

I think it is important to point out that, in terms of the alliance tenderer that won the Southern Adelaide bid, one of the alliance partners is a mental health provider. That really does go to the point the honourable member made in his question, in that we do recognise that mental health is a significant driver for some people who experience homelessness.

That embedded expertise within that alliance partner is going to be quite innovative going forward in how those mental health services are delivered. I think it is something that is very exciting in terms of that particular successful alliance tenderer, and I think it will be a very interesting model that other jurisdictions will look at in terms of its success rate, which we expect to be very helpful.

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