David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this adjournment debate I would like to make a contribution, and I want to talk of injustice, a total lack of consultation by a very arrogant state government in my home state of Western Australia, a lack of consultation by its officials and a minister who should know better but who grows increasingly arrogant and distant from the views and aspirations of ordinary Western Australians. The lack of provision of mental health services in Western Australia has become such a problem that even the state government can now no longer sit idle, ignore it and deny responsibility for it. And so it was that in October 2004 the Hawthorn Hospital in the Perth suburb of Mount Hawthorn closed and ceased to function—

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am finding it difficult to hear Senator Johnston.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

as a respite aged care facility—

The Acting Deputy President:

It is unruly to walk between the speaker and the Chair, Senator Watson.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

after more than 70 years in service. Then in February 2005 the state agency Office of Mental Health formed a planning committee for the Hawthorn Hospital site. This was all in secrecy and in confidence, without any of the public being made aware of it. By August 2005 this agency had made its intentions known to the planning department of the responsible local government authority, namely the town of Vincent.

The planning department at that point gave to the Office of Mental Health some sage advice. It told the office not to lodge any application concerning the Hawthorn hospital site until it had implemented a community dialogue. Sadly, this advice was ignored arrogantly and contemptuously. On 22 September 2005 the state health department lodged a formal development application for this site and continued to thumb its nose at any form of community dialogue or consultation. Around 27 September a very small number of immediate neighbours to the site had received by hand some information packages which, to say the least, caused concern amongst those residents. So the wider immediate community soon became aware of the plan to develop the site into a 20-bed step-down facility, or interim care facility, for people who had been receiving intensive psychiatric treatment. There was no explanation or disclosure as to what this meant in terms of the ongoing and practical use of the site.

By 1 October 2005 a residents advocacy group had formed to represent approximately 60 households in the immediate vicinity of the hospital. On 6 October the town of Vincent convened a public meeting with the health department wherein the residents sought further information as to the development, as you would expect that they would. Astonishingly, many obvious questions as to the department’s intent with respect to the site were ‘taken on notice’ and information was not forthcoming—in other words, a quaint parliamentary device, which we all know, was used to fob off the residents’ questions as to what was proposed for the development of the site. This quaint device was used by the state health department to actively deny information to the residents.

This in turn achieved two very important things: firstly, suspicion as to what the department had to hide and, secondly, a great deal of anger that the process was clearly contemptuous of their right to be fully informed as to what was planned for their community. Needless to say a further element was enlivened—a great sense of injustice at the tardy treatment meted out to the local residents by the department and the minister.

Having got to this point I want to briefly turn to the issue of mental health. The anger and injustice that I have adverted to has nothing to do with the residents advocacy group’s attitude or disposition to the provision of mental health facilities in their community. My colleague in this place, Senator Webber, also from Western Australia, has in three speeches now in the Senate set out her passion and concern for the mentally ill in Western Australia and highlighted the need for care facilities. I must say I share her passion and concern as does almost every senator and member in this parliament. I must say to Senator Webber, however, that a sense of awareness and compassion for people suffering a mental illness is not advanced in any degree at all by an arrogant, dictatorial approach or process to the provision of those services into our community—and that is what we have seen in Mount Hawthorn.

May I say that the conduct of Minister McGinty and the department has done a lot to set the cause of mental health back many a long year. Indeed the concerns of the residents action group have been pilloried as bigotry and the residents have been attacked for having the temerity to want a dialogue and information as to what is proposed. May I also say that Senator Webber should not allow her passion and empathy for mental health to overshadow her responsibility to allow all sections of the community to be informed, to be heard, to have their views and concerns properly considered, and to not be pilloried as being prejudiced against mental health institutions. To fail in this is to trample on many fundamental principles of consultation, equity and fairness. The end cannot ever justify the means.

When the local mayor, who is a former Labor state member of parliament, the local member of state parliament, a Labor member, and the mums, dads and families are in agreement and come together about the unacceptable nature of the process, the outrageously arrogant process that has been thrust upon them, what does that say? It says that the minister and the department have failed the mental health patients to be put in this facility and have failed the residents. This whole sorry saga is an exercise in mismanagement and maladministration. Further to this, I should put on the record that the residents do not complain about the fact that this facility is to be a mental health facility; they complain about the planning. Sixteen people will be put into this intensely developed residential suburb. The traffic issue alone is one that is of great concern, with children going to school and people coming and going et cetera.

I see some senators on the other side saying, ‘Oh, yes.’ Again, because you complain about not being consulted, you are pilloried as if you are prejudiced. That is just outrageously unfair. I might also say that non-English-speaking residents who are neighbours of this facility have never been engaged or consulted. That too is a disgrace. The consultation process—if it can be called that—has been disingenuous, farcical and phoney. The residents seek consultation. That is all they are asking for—a steering committee and consultation. I would not have thought that was too much to ask. Of the 1,000 residents from the immediate vicinity surveyed, 78 per cent were opposed. I do not believe that is about mental health. I think it is more about the shockingly inept consultation process that has been brought to bear.

In closing, I want to read from a local newspaper in Western Australia:

The Mt Hawthorn proposal has fuelled a war of words, with Town of Vincent Mayor and former Labor MP Nick Catania this week blasting Mr McGinty and the State Government for trying to impose on to the community a project he says it clearly does not want.

Mr Catania, whose council recently withdrew its approval for the Mt Hawthorn redevelopment, said that a survey of 1000 residents showed 78 per cent objected to having a mental-health facility in their back yard.

He claimed the Government had not consulted the local community enough about the project, leaving the council to face the music.

“This is typical of McGinty’s bull-at-the-gate approach,” Mr Catania said.

And that is one Labor man talking about another. It goes on:

“Instead of consulting with them first, so that they are part of the solution, what he is saying to residents is, ‘I am going to hit you across the head and will put this facility in your back yard whether you want it or not’.

“They have created a hostile environment by not consulting and now this dopey minister—this idiot of a minister—is stating that the community is unreasonable for opposing this project.

“This Government, this minister and his health department have been negligent in the caring of mental health patients.”

That says it all about the process. It has been pathetic. This issue is not over, and this bullying state government had better start doing things properly with respect to this development and the basic rights and entitlements of the local residents and not arrogantly and contemptuously ride roughshod over those rights and entitlements. The residents need it and so do the patients.