Little AndrewMENTAL HEALTH (COMPULSORY ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move That the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.I'm very thankful to the diligence and support of the House as this somewhat minor—not minor but—these few changes to the current mental health Act have been passed through this House. This is a response to the findings of the He Ara Oranga inquiral report of a couple of years ago that said that the mental health Act in its current form is out of date. It has provisions in it that are capable of seeing people's human rights being breached. It called for a full overhaul of that piece of legislation and that work is under way but in the meantime it said that there are some provisions that would benefit from immediate attention and so this bill has been about making sure that we deal with those very few pieces of that legislation that are problematic and which changes now mean that those who are in the system or entering the mental health system often when their decision-making capacity is compromised can do so on the basis that their basic human rights and dignity will not continue to be breached. The House has been as I say very supportive of that. So this bill does a number of things. It means that the provision that effectively allows for indefinite compulsory treatment orders is repealed and so compulsory treatment orders do need to be periodically reviewed. It also means that provisions that were put in place at the beginning of the pandemic last year that allow family members to attend consultations with those who have been admitted under the Act to a mental health facility can attend by audiovisual link (AVL). The select committee I think applied very good scrutiny on that and said that look that has been very helpful and was a helpful measure as an emergency measure at the beginning of the pandemic but we do need to make sure that when AVL technology is being used for these consultations that it is being done so because it is the only practical or effective way to make sure that the consultation proceeds. Ordinarily somebody ought to have a family member or a support person present with them physically. So now a specialist who is evaluating whether AV technology should be used has to record the reasons for that and the number of occasions on which consultations and representations are made using AV technology now has to be recorded.There's a further provision that allows particularly forensic mental health patients who need to be transported and who may be a risk to themselves or others to be able to be transported with appropriate and proportionate restraints being applied. That was a gap in the current legislation and so that can now happen that those who are responsible for transporting those patients can do so with some confidence that they can use appropriate restraints and will have the protection of the law. Then there's some technical changes that the bill makes.But the broader context is that we are changing the law completely. The consultation work on that law change has now started and that has gone out to the community for feedback and I expect certainly by the end of next year we'll be in a position to know the magnitude and extent of changes that need to happen for a modern 21st century piece of legislation that respects the rights and dignity of those who suffer the ill-health of acute mental health issues who are incapacitated and can't make decisions for themselves who need those decisions to be taken by others including under these sorts of orders but who can do so with appropriate and modern protections in it. That's the direction that we're heading. This bill is a step on that way and part of the broader improvement in mental health generally that this Government has embarked on since it took office four years ago.So on that basis I once again acknowledge the work of the House the support of the House in their examination of this bill and getting us to the stage that we can make these changes and continue the important journey that I know we all every member of this House share about the need to improve our mental health services and our mental health capability in this country. On that basis I commend the bill to the House.SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.