New Mental Health Bill 2015 for ACT

Earlier this month (4 June 2015), ACT introduced a new Mental Health Bill 2015 (The bill), to provide for the treatment, care or support, rehabilitation and protection of people with a mental disorder or mental illness and the promotion of mental health and well being, and for other purposes. 

Companion Bills

Most of the provisions of the current Mental Health Act commenced in 1997. Since then, people with mental illness/es and/or disorder/s have becomes increasingly less marginalised by their societies, at least throughout most of the economically developed world, including the ACT. This has occurred at a time of improved responsiveness to people with mental illness/es and/or disorder/s, in the disability rights movement, community development, psychology, psychiatry, ethics, and the law.

Accordingly, in 2006, the ACT Government launched a public review of the Act lead by the ‘Review Advisory Committee’. The Committee’s membership and activities are described in the Explanatory Statement on the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Amendment Bill 2014 (ACT) (Amendment Bill). That Bill was the first to result from the Review. The Legislative Assembly for the ACT passed it, on 30 October 2014. Enactment of this second Bill, the Mental Health Bill 2015, will complete the legislative reforms that the Review determined were necessary.

The bill is a companion piece to the amendments to the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act 1994 adopted in this place last year in the form of the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Amendment Act. If passed, it is intended that those amendments, and amendments provided for by this bill, would commence together in November 2015.

Purpose of the Bill

The Bill is an attempt by the ACT Government to consolidate and modernise all of the mental health treatment and care legislation, and also for the protection of the rights and interests of people with mental illness or disorder and their significant others, such as carers. It is also legislation for the regulation of community and facility-based assessment, treatment and care services delivered daily by health and other professionals who work with people with mental illness or disorder. 

Apart from bringing the ACT’s mental health legislation into a single, contemporary statute, the bill also provides for enhancement of a number of provisions in the ACT’s current mental health legislation. For instance, Chapter 6 clarifies the current provisions on emergency detention of people with mental illness or disorder who are at serious risk and builds extra safeguards into those provisions. Chapter 9 similarly increases the safeguards on the delivery of electroconvulsive therapy and psychiatric surgery. All of these clauses are predicated on respecting the capacity of a person with mental illness or disorder to make their own decisions and respecting the knowledge and experience their carers may have of their personal circumstances.

If enacted, the Bill will cover the following areas:

• Rights of people with a mental disorder or illness;
• Assessments;
• Mental Health Orders;
• Emergency detention;
• Forensic mental health;
• Correctional patients;
• Electroconvulsive therapy and psychiatric surgery;
• Referrals by courts under Crimes Act and Children and Young People Act;
• ACAT Procedural Matters;
• Private Psychiatric facilities;
• Mental health advisory council;
•  Interstate application of mental health laws;
• Notification and review of decisions; and
• Other related matters.

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Mental Health Bill 2015, as reproduced on TimeBase LawOne