Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in opposition to the Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, along with all of us here in the opposition in the Senate, because of three factors. The first of those factors is that this bill will clearly have a detrimental effect on the rehabilitation and recovery of people with serious mental illness in psychiatric care. The second reason is the lack of consultation: it will leave patients, their families and carers, and facilities for the psychotic, unprepared for this change. Thirdly, it is fundamentally discriminatory to people who have been determined to be suffering from a serious mental illness.

We know that this bill will take income support payments away from people in psychiatric confinement who have been charged with a serious offence and who are undergoing a course of rehabilitation. Yes, it is that rehabilitation that is, in effect, of gravest concern here for their ongoing recovery path, but more so is the fact that the bill is addressing the psychiatric confinement of people charged with a serious crime, treating them in the same way as a person who is in jail, convicted of an offence, of a serious crime. That should not be the case. It is right that social security payments may not be paid to a person in prison, but we are not talking here about people in prison. We are talking about people who have been charged with a serious offence. There is indeed a significant difference between people in psychiatric confinement who have been charged with an offence and who because of mental impairment are found not criminally responsible for their actions and people in prison who are responsible for their actions.

For some of these reasons, Labor will not be supporting this bill. I want to thank for their contributions particularly Senator McAllister, Senator Moore and Senator Siewert, who I know have had a lot of interest in and perhaps have participated in the inquiry into this bill. I have had some regard to the Labor senators' dissenting report. There are clearly a lot of issues in this bill from a technical and practical point of view, such as the definition of 'serious offence', the financial impact of the bill, the impact of clinical service delivery and reintegration, and the definition of 'a period of reintegration'. I notice from Labor's dissenting report the fact that there were an overwhelming number of submissions raising concerns about the distinction, for example, between serious and non-serious offences, which I understand the department was not able to satisfactorily address. I also understand that many participants raised concerns about the financial implications in this bill. In particular, submitters raised concerns about the possibility of increased costs for service provisions due to the impact on the forensic patients' rehabilitation.

Of course there are concerns, quite rightly, that have been expressed by various state governments as well because it is very much a cost-shifting mechanism. I cannot really understand, to be honest, the point of this bill coming before the Senate, other than to say it is about cost shifting. I think that is the only real rationale behind the government bringing this bill forward. I cannot find one other than that. Cost shifting to the states is of course being done by also cost shifting to the most vulnerable in our community.

I guess I am fairly cynical about the broader response through the media on this bill because there has been little of it. We are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our community, but perhaps some may say that, because of that, some outlets simply do not care about this bill and the impact it will have on some of those most vulnerable individuals, their families and their carers, because I have seen little reporting about this.

I would hope that, as a compassionate society, as a humane society, we would stand up for the most vulnerable in our community and provide them with the protections that they need. One of the protections people with a mental illness need is rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is the fundamental thing when we talk about supporting those vulnerable individuals who are suffering from mental illness. In this country at the moment there are waiting lists all over the country for those needing to access rehabilitation. Taking income support payments away from people who are in desperate need of rehabilitation, who are subject to psychiatric confinement and who have been charged with a serious offence, is no way to treat those people. It is no way to treat people who are vulnerable in our community. But this is what we have come to expect from this government—attacks on the most vulnerable; attacks on those in our society who can least afford to pay. Yet those who can afford to pay get away scot-free and get away with not paying their fair share of tax and continue to grow their profits to the detriment of those who are most vulnerable in our community. So, of course, as you would expect, the Labor Party does not support a bill that does that.

Since something like 1986 this legislation has provided that a person undergoing psychiatric confinement and undergoing a course of rehabilitation can receive this type of income support payment. That is an incredibly long time that has crossed both Labor and Liberal governments since 1986. So why is it now, under this Abbott government, that this bill has come before us to take that income support payment away? For the miniscule saving that this Commonwealth government will make, does it really think that it is in the best interests of our society, of those families and carers of those individuals in this particular category who are undergoing this rehabilitation, to take that income support payment away? For the life of me, I do not understand the rationale behind this government in doing this to some of the most vulnerable.

There is another thing I do not understand, and why I am so perplexed as to why we are debating this—and I really do encourage those crossbench senators to not support this bill, so it does not become law. If the government wants to get this through the parliament and make its pittance of savings in this way, why did it not consult with some of these families and carers? Why did it not consult more extensively with some of the service providers? Clearly there needs to be a lot more discussion and a lot more meaning behind what it is talking about in this legislation and this opaqueness around 'serious' and 'non-serious' offence. As Senator McAllister said, I just cannot see any good public policy outcome coming out of this piece of legislation.

There has been no consultation. This government did not speak to patients or, in fact, to anyone impacted by the outcomes of this legislation. It did not speak to families. It did not speak to carers. It did not speak to state or territory governments. It did not speak to psychiatric institutions that provide the care. This shows that there has been no genuine effort made by this government to communicate its decision and to ensure that those impacted by the measures in this bill are aware of the change and can then of course make some preparations accordingly. And we are talking about incredibly vulnerable people, people who rely very much on every cent of their income support payments and the rehabilitation connected to that. I think the government is really doing an incredible disservice to the mentally ill in our country and to their families and to their carers in the way it has gone about this. It is simply not good enough. Proper consultation and discussion is so needed for such a complex, sensitive and serious matter.

I understand the Senate inquiry was robust in the sense that there was a submission process. But not one of those submissions supported these changes in this bill. That in itself tells the government something. It tells the government that it is on the wrong end of the stick with this piece of legislation. There is no support in the community. We know the government did not consult, but thank goodness we do have in this part of our democracy the Senate committee process that does allow for a public inquiry and public hearings and that kind of level of consultation, which of course is a cross-party committee. But not one submission supported this bill. In fact, Minister Morrison's own department's submission provides no justification for this bill. There is no evidence that these measures will assist in the rehabilitation of people in psychiatric confinement and therefore there is no justification for supporting this bill.

Finally, out of the three issues that I raised at the beginning of my address as to why Labor would not support this bill, I want to go to the issue of rehabilitation, because this bill particularly undermines rehabilitation. Again, the submissions to the inquiry suggested that the bill very much undermines rehabilitation efforts of people in psychiatric confinement. The training, employment and other community links put in place whilst a patient is in psychiatric confinement to help ensure a successful transition at the time of discharge are incredibly important. Access to income support is absolutely crucial to establishing these links. Patients self-fund their external rehabilitation activities—their transport to attend activities and any supplies required to carry them out—from their income support payments. So you can see how, on the path to rehabilitation, those links to training, employment and ongoing rehabilitation can be broken if that income support payment is not there for them to get transport to attend their various activities. The cost of accessing general health care and purchasing medications in the community is also met by the patient, obviously with the concessions from their healthcare card. Access to income support is also essential for patients to secure and maintain their community accommodation and the things they need in order to be granted leave and, eventually, to be discharged.

Yet this proposed bill suggests income support payments will not be made available to a patient charged with a very serious offence until they have been granted three nights per week of overnight leave. I understand that, in Victoria, that is the maximum leave that is able to be granted by a psychiatric institution. Again, you can see how this lack of consulting with, say, a Victorian psychiatric institution or the Victorian government shows just how thought-bubbled this legislation is and how it does not work in the real world. And if it does not work in the real world it will lead to a breakdown in the rehabilitation path for that individual who is so in need of it. I think the chair of the Mental Health Commission, Professor Allan Fels, really summed up these issues in the commission's submission to the Senate inquiry:

The practical effect of removing access to social security payments would be detrimental to rehabilitation and recovery for people with a mental illness, especially without close consultation with the States and Territories.

On every yardstick this government is completely out of touch with community expectations, with the care and understanding of people confined for psychiatric treatment and with public policy outcomes, because there simply is not one good one in this piece of legislation. It will have detrimental effects on the rehabilitation and recovery of people with serious mental illness. These people should not be treated in the same way as those who have already been convicted and imprisoned. They have been charged and in this country, as I understand it, they are innocent until proven guilty.

The government has not consulted on this legislation. It is leaving patients, their families and their carers and psychotic facilities very underprepared about this change if it were to pass. It is my dear hope that it does not pass. Why? Because fundamentally, even though those points are enough in themselves, this legislation is discriminatory to people who have been determined as suffering from a serious mental illness. And what does it say about us as a country if we want to pass legislation in this place that discriminates against people with a mental illness? We already know that they are some of the most vulnerable people in our country that so many, unfortunately, have already forgotten about. We on this side of the chamber have not forgotten about them. We very much stand with them in the hope that they are led to a path of recovery and they will only be led to a path of recovery if the right supports are in place. One of those supports, which has been in place since 1986, is this income support payment. It is crucial to build those links for rehabilitation along the pathway to their rehabilitation. There is simply no need on earth for this cruel, demonising Abbott government to bring legislation in this place that does nothing more than discriminate against some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Labor will not support this bill. I stand with my fellow Senate colleagues and thank them for their work in Labor's dissenting report into the inquiry. I also stand with those in our community who find themselves in this situation in their lives, in the hope that they do recover through the support of rehabilitation and, most importantly, through the ongoing support of their income support payment.