NSW Labor call for mental health inquiry after evidence police are ‘on the front lines’ of the crisis
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has sidestepped questions about whether she will back Labor’s push for an urgent mental health inquiry following shocking revelations that mental health issues account for about a third of all calls to NSW Police.
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Premier Gladys Berejiklian has sidestepped questions about whether she will back Labor’s calls for an urgent mental health inquiry following shocking revelations that mental health issues account for about a third of all calls to NSW Police.
It also comes in the wake of a string of disturbing crimes involving offenders with a history of mental health issues, including a man who went on a stabbing spree in Sydney’s CBD and a woman charged after beheading her mother.
Ms Berejiklian this morning said the state government already had a range of initiatives — including a towards zero suicides policy and a homelessness body — to address mental health.
“We have a number of major inquiries going at the moment including a major inquiry into ice and other matters to see exactly what action the government needs to take on those fronts,” she said.
“I don’t know what they’re (Labor) putting forward to be honest.”
“The government is ready to take any extra action we need to and we need to make sure we have a whole of government approach.”
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller (pictured) told a budget estimates hearing he believed “around 30 per cent” of call-outs for police are related to people experiencing critical mental health issues.
He said police officers currently participated in a day of mental health training but would soon undertake a four-day training course.
“But we are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are people who are trained at a certain level, and certainly mental health is something that we try to record as an associated factor,” Mr Fuller said.
Labor’s police spokeswoman Lynda Voltz said police officers were “on the front line of the growing mental health crisis in the community”.
She also raised concerns around the use of tasers, saying: “No police officer wants to pull a taser on someone who is sick”.
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The last NSW Ombudsman report on taser use from 2012 found that in 31 per cent of incidents subjects were suspected by police of “having had, or to be suffering from, mental health issues”.
“We can’t go on like this — NSW needs better dedicated frontline mental health services so people who are ill get the care they need and our police can focus on fighting crime,” Ms Voltz said.
“The government should act now and hold an inquiry to hear from health professionals, nurses, patients, carers, our police and the community so we can begin to address the crisis in mental health across NSW.”
NSW Labor will push for a public inquiry into the Mental Health Act with an emphasis on Section 14 of the legislation, which considers the treatment of a person who does not recognise they are mentally ill.
It comes after revelations 20-year-old Mert Ney, allegedly responsible for multiple stabbing attacks in Sydney last month, absconded from a psychiatric unit days before the incident occurred.
In another horrific attack less than a month before the CBD stabbing, Sydney woman Jessica Camilleri allegedly beheaded her mother near Penrith. She was charged and released four times under section 32 of the Mental Health Act before the incident.