Last night in Parliament, Greens MLC Alison Xamon warned that the current policy position of locking up asylum seekers was running a serious risk of creating a future cohort of Australians with serious mental health issues. The comments came after recent research released in NSW indicated that asylum seekers who had been left in prolonged detention were emerging with more serious mental health issues than when they arrived.
The Mandatory Sentencing laws introduced by the Barnett Government are set to be challenged after a Bill seeking their amendment was introduced in to Parliament today. The Criminal Code Amendment Bill (No 2) 2011 was today read in by Hon Alison Xamon, Greens spokesperson for Mental Health.
The Bill seeks to amend the mandatory sentencing laws introduced for assaults on public officers to ensure that they can not apply to persons whose judgement or behaviour at the time of the offence was impaired by a significant extent by mental impairment.
WA Greens Spokesperson for Mental Health, Alison Xamon, has welcomed todays unanimous support for her calls to set up a court intervention program for the mentally ill, but has warned that without a clear action plan the proposal could lose momentum and flounder. The comments came in conclusion to her motion in Parliament calling for the establishment of the court.
Mentally ill Homeswest tenants are being evicted from their homes and facing homelessness as part of the government’s crackdown on “anti-social” tenants.
“Once again the government is charging ahead with a one-size-fits-all populist, but ill thought out, policy which is having adverse effects on tenants who are living with serious mental illness,” Alison Xamon, WA Greens Spokesperson on Mental Illness said.
380. Hon ALISON XAMON to the minister representing the Minister for Police:
I refer to prosecutions of mandatory sentencing for the assault of public officers. Have police or police prosecutors been directed not to pursue prosecutions under sections 297 or 318 of the Criminal Code when it has been found or it is suspected that the perpetrator has a mental illness by —
WA Greens Mental Health Spokesperson, Alison Xamon MLC, will today introduce a bill which, if successful, will revert power back to the courts to decide whether an offender’s behaviour was impaired by mental illness at the time that an assault is committed and sentenced accordingly, a move which would prevent mentally ill people being automatically sent to prison under mandatory sentencing laws.
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Mentally ill Homeswest tenants are being evicted from their homes and facing homelessness as part of the government’s crackdown on “anti-social” tenants.