Senator Helen Coonan, Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer and key representatives of the Mental Health Council of Australia and beyondblue met in Melbourne today to discuss recommendations made in the recently released Review of the Law of Negligence (the Ipp Report) and implications for the mental health community.
Senator Coonan said the report, which recommended that the courts should compensate people with claims for recognised mental illness, would play an important role in harmonising the approach to mental harm and creating greater clarity and certainty.
"Mental illness is a serious issue for the whole community," Senator Coonan said.
"It is important to look at ways of helping those with mental illness to navigate their way through the legal system and to minimise the adversarial nature of contests in the courts to establish liability for mental harm."
The meeting was positive with all participants agreeing to work together to establish greater clarity and certainty in the way mental illness is recognised in personal injuries cases.
All participants agreed on the importance of a consistent approach to mental health issues across a range of portfolio areas.
"Issues surrounding insurance and employment can have a substantial impact on people with a mental illness, and helping people to return to the workforce can greatly improve their mental health," Senator Coonan said.
"I welcome the constructive input from community groups to help ensure mental health receives equitable treatment in the proposed reforms."
Professor Ian Hickie, CEO of beyondblue and Dr Grace Groom and Mr John McGrath, CEO and chairperson of the Mental Health Council of Australia, all welcomed the opportunity to discuss the report with Senator Coonan.
"We welcome the obvious willingness of the Minister to work proactively with the mental health community to achieve the most appropriate outcomes in insurance reforms for all concerned," Professor Hickie said.
"This is an issue which has real impacts on people's lives. We need to make sure that we get it right and that it also leads to better community understanding of the nature of common mental disorders like anxiety and depression.
"Our main principle is to ensure that mental health is accepted as a health issue and that mental disorders are portrayed as real, not less important or less deserving than other health problems."
Dr Groom said the Minister had behaved in a responsive and appropriate fashion.
"We welcome her commitment to community involvement in key decisions, ongoing consultation and leadership in raising community awareness about mental disorders," Dr Groom said.
"We need to go on and work with other senior ministers in related portfolios to ensure that persons with mental disorders receive fair, appropriate and responsive consideration in other key areas such as employment and social services."
It was agreed that there should be ongoing consultation in relation to the appropriate way to select and accredit an expert panel on mental health as proposed in the Ipp report.
These issues will also be raised in the context of the next Ministerial Meeting between Commonwealth, State and Territory Ministers on public liability insurance.