Prasad Rajen: Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:9595] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I also am pleased to take a call in support of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill and I acknowledge my friend and colleague the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban for her excellent work in gaining support for this bill for checking it out with lots of important and informed people outside the House and for talking to us as colleagues and then bringing the bill to the House in this way. I say to Winnie that that is an excellent model for doing this work and I thank her for that. 
There are several reasons why I strongly support this bill and I urge those who have already made up their minds to think just a little bit more because many of the problems that Government members are raising are precisely what select committees are for. There is no pretence that this bill has it absolutely right—no bill ever has. A bill’s passage through a select committee with the help of officials and other submitters strengthens it before it is brought back to the House so that is where the bill should go. The fundamental problem that has been identified by this bill remains. Why is it that the people in the know have supported the Hon Winnie Laban in bringing the bill as far as this? They are saying that there is a problem and that it ought to be resolved. This is a wonderful process for doing this and I urge members to think through this a little bit more and send the bill to the select committee. 
There are several reasons why I support this bill. One is that it puts the interests of families right at the centre and it says more to them in some of the clauses in terms of the rights that the bill introduces about getting involved and really engaging in the needs of families and whanau where mental health is concerned. We know from any amount of work that is being done with families that that collective is the most powerful force there is to enable all its members to do well and to be the best that they can be. Consequently the same applies when mental health issues arise for family members. The best information often comes from family members and in any case they are required to support this. 
So this bill sets about strengthening the ability of families to have information to participate and to be the best that they can be. It is inconsistent that we still have some parts of our legislation—and the primary Act that this bill refers to does so as well—that frustrate some families in terms of participating. It certainly puts a lot of power and authority in the hands of the practitioners—the psychiatrists and psychologists. That ought to be balanced out as well; they do not always have it right as I shall demonstrate. The power that is in the hands of the practitioners ought to be balanced by some of the rights that families have to ask questions to receive information and to be there for their family members who require mental health treatment. 
This is also a time when a family and family members are most vulnerable. This is when mental health issues emerge and this is when one needs families more than ever before. What this bill does is find quite a nice balance on a number of levels in terms of the expertise of psychiatrists and the needs of family members and of others. It is for those reasons that it ought to be supported. 
Perhaps the most powerful evidence that I can find for supporting what this bill is trying to do is what the 2007 report of the  
Confidential Forum for Former In-Patients of Psychiatric Hospitals 
 reported and some members may recall that this forum was chaired by the present Governor-General. Many family members presented at those private forums and it is what they said that was most important. These are the risks that even now we need to prevent and clearly a select committee should look at this bill again from that perspective. I will quote from what family members told the confidential forum. Members will recall that this is about what their family members who had been in psychiatric hospitals had— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I regret to advise the member that his time has expired.