Roy Heather: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Roy Heather: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9577] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise to speak on Part 1. I want to back up Paul Hutchison’s comments about the change to the definition of “intellectual disability”. Although I was not part of the Health Committee which considered this report I am concerned to hear that the committee spent a long time debating what determines whether somebody is intellectually disabled—I suspect the committee had very good advice from the medical profession—yet the definition in Supplementary Order Paper 160 goes back to the original definition. The Government had obviously made up its mind that the definition would be narrow rather than allowing the flexibility that the committee obviously felt was necessary. 
I am pleased to see that Ruth Dyson the Minister responsible for the bill is now back in the chair because I want her to define “rehabilitation”. She will have heard my concerns about the inclusion of the word “rehabilitation” in the bill not because I am opposed to rehabilitation but because it is important particularly for the public and for public expectations to have “rehabilitation” defined so that unrealistic expectations do not become widespread within the community. It is unrealistic to expect the disabled condition of “intellectual disability” to be rehabilitated; obviously that is an impossible task. But if the Minister is talking about behaviour modification of the intellectually disabled to whom the bill is referring that is quite a different matter. As confusion could exist not only among the public but also with some in the medical profession and with judges having to rule on these cases it is important to define clearly what we mean by “rehabilitation”. I ask the Minister to take a call and explain or better still to put forward an amendment so that “rehabilitation” is clearly defined in the bill. I do not think that is an unreasonable request. 
The increasing use of politically correct language in legislation was an issue raised by my colleague Stephen Franks and also by Paul Hutchison just a moment ago. It is appearing more and more in legislation put forward by this Government and is very obvious in this bill. I pick up on Paul Hutchison’s point about the definition of “care recipient”. Once upon a time we talked about “patients”. Somebody receiving medical care of some kind was defined as a “patient”. Certainly the patients seemed happy with that and everybody knew that meant somebody who was receiving treatment or care. That term was changed to “client” and I noticed that Judy Turner used that term when speaking in the second reading. The term “client” in the area of intellectual disability has become the norm of late. When I worked in the medical field as a physiotherapist the people I treated were always “patients”. I never considered them to be “clients”. The word “client” implies the handing over of money in some way the getting of something in return. Now we have moved on to “care recipient”. Again that term has sort of been defined but for the life of me I just cannot understand what was wrong with “patient”. 
Then we see a provision in the Supplementary Order Paper that replaces the term “care recipient” with “peoples”. We seem to have done a complete loop—going from “patient” right through to “peoples”. Likewise clause 6(2) defines “special care recipient” whereas in the past the term was “special patient”. Again I do not know what was wrong with that. It is the terminology used by everybody in the field. To be politically correct we have changed all these terms. 
Another confusing and totally unnecessary term that has crept in is “seclusion”. Supplementary Order Paper 160 amends subclause (5)(c) of clause 4 by omitting the word “isolation” and substituting the word “seclusion” and that change is made in other parts of the bill. Those two words are frequently used intermittently in the health sector. Isolation and seclusion really mean the same thing. The term “isolation” has been used for an awfully long time. I ask the Minister to tell us why we are changing the term “isolation” to “seclusion”.