Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The annual report of the Department of Health and Aged Care details all the parliamentary committee inquiries that the department participated in last year. One of those inquiries was the inquiry into assessment and support services for people with ADHD. The ADHD inquiry was long overdue and extremely well engaged with by the ADHD community, despite the significant barriers that they had to overcome to engage with the submission process. This inquiry received over 700 submissions, had over 70 witnesses and was able to hold public hearings in three locations across the country. It examined topics such as the barriers to assessment and diagnosis, access to treatment, ADHD under the NDIS, and ADHD in the workplace, in education and in custodial settings. People with ADHD, their families, their advocates and healthcare professionals that support them came together to provide a mountain of compelling evidence to the government. As the annual report states, this evidence was supported by contributions from the federal health department, and state and territory health departments also provided updates. It couldn't be clearer from the findings of the inquiry that there is a lot of work to be done across government departments and sectors to address the significant issues, discrimination and barriers to support that ADHDers all across the country are experiencing right now. It also could not be clearer that this work is urgent.

The government—in fact, all governments—is expected to provide a response to inquiry reports within three months of them being tabled within the Senate. The ADHD report is no different. Three months have come and three months have gone, and the government has still not delivered a response. No response is in sight. It is very disappointing to see the government missing its own deadline on this. It feels rather ironic—rather pointed—because ADHDers, a group of people who by the nature of their disability can struggle immensely to meet deadlines, managed to get their work in on time, while the government did not get their work in on time, despite having every possible advantage and resource at their disposal, especially when we know for a fact that many of the ADHDers who participated in this inquiry did struggle immensely with the inaccessibility of different aspects of the Senate inquiry process. With this in mind, it is not just disappointing that three months have passed without a response; it is disrespectful to the community. It is not good enough. Deliver your responses as you said that you would. We have got work to do, and we cannot do it until you hold up your end of the bargain.

Question agreed to.