Questions Day 2 - Wednesday 19 March 2014
Parliamentary Record 11
Questions for 12th Assembly 2012 - 2016; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 12th Assembly 2012 - 2016
2014-03-20
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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QUESTIONS Wednesday 19 March 2014 623 I can advise the House the $200 000 paid to FrogWatch was never funded by Labor through any budgets Mr WOOD: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I seek leave to table the letter. Leave granted. Mrs PRICE: Madam Speaker, Parks and Wildlife was directed to fund FrogWatch from within its existing budget. This meant money was taken away from supporting parks and rangers to keep our parks clean, tidy and operational to pay for FrogWatch. This money has now been given back to operational areas within Parks and Wildlife ... Mr VOWLES: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 255. I would like the minister to table the document she is clearly reading from, please. Mrs PRICE: Madam Speaker, these are my private notes. Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. Keep going. Mrs PRICE: This means more money for our 87 parks and reserves, to look after nearly three million visitors every year and to take care of the over four million hectares of land we manage. Roseanne Fulton Ms MANISON to MINISTER for HEALTH More than 104 000 people have now signed a petition calling on your government to bring mentally impaired central Australian woman, Rosanne Fulton, home from indefinite incarceration in a WA prison where she is being held despite not being convicted of a crime. Rosanne has now been in prison for 18 months not in care, in prison. This is wrong. The Labor government built the 16-bed secure care complex in Alice Springs to cater for people like Rosanne. We believe eight beds in this facility are now being used under your alcohol mandatory treatment policy, but how many mental health and disability clients are being cared for there? Why is Rosanne Fulton not one of them? Have you cut disability funding to this service? ANSWER Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Wanguri for her question. If she was taking any notice of what was happening in the Chamber last night she would know that I gave a very detailed explanation as to where we are up to in trying to get Rosanne Fulton back to where she belongs, and that is in Central Australia. She has been incarcerated in a corrections facility in Kalgoorlie for approximately 18 months. She committed several crimes. When before the court she was unable to plead because of her intellectual impairment and, as a result, the Mentally Impaired Accused Review Board of WA that looks after people in Rosannes situation where they are unable to plead felt it was best she be incarcerated for her own safety and that of the community. We have been in communication with Kalgoorlie the corrections facility and the Mentally Impaired Accused Review Board in WA. We want to get Rosanne Fulton back, but it is complicated because she does not face any charges in the Northern Territory or is not under any order which would allow us to mandate her into our care at this point in time. There is a lot of bureaucracy, red tape and legislation we have to work through, but I have instructed the Department of Health and my team to get onto it and not procrastinate or allow this to drag out any more than it should. When we have a risk assessment done and a treatment plan in place for her in the Northern Territory, we will be able to contact the Western Australian authorities ... Ms FYLES: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 113: relevance. It was a very direct question. How many mental health and disability clients are being cared for in the secure care facility? Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nightcliff, it is not a point of order. The minister was answering the question, and she has the time to answer what has been asked. Continue minister. Mrs LAMBLEY: Once we have that treatment plan in place, have done a risk assessment and undertaken the necessary communications with the Western Australian authorities, we can work out how we can transfer her from Western Australia to Central Australia. We cannot just bring her back; she has very challenging behaviours and we want her to have the best care. In relation to the secure care facility in Alice Springs, there are two permanent male residents living in the secure care facility there are two transitioning into the unit at the moment. These people have incredibly high needs. They are all men. We do not think that Roseanne Fulton would be suitably accommodated in the facility because of her behaviours. We do not want her to be at risk.