Mr. Gary Kiernan:

That will hopefully work for people a little more. I will try to speak as loudly as I can. We welcome the separate provisions and the fact that the restrictive practices have been dealt with separately in the general scheme. We particularly welcome the inclusion of chemical restraint and physical restraint in the new part of the Act. That highlights that these are not treatments but very specialised arrangements that need to be put in place under very limited circumstances. We want these arrangements, and this is the aim of the Act, only to be used as a last resort under limited circumstances where all other appropriate alternatives have been considered. The revised scheme now allows for the commission to generate and create rules not just for seclusion and physical restraint but for chemical restraint and physical restraint, which is very important.

The commission is undergoing a process at present to revise our rules on seclusion and physical restraint. That is being done through an expert group and a process of public consultation that will look at the best available evidence internationally, to answer the Senator's question, and consider that in the drawing up of those rules. The general scheme will give us a statutory footing for those rules to eliminate and reduce, as far as possible, the use of restrictive practices in patient facilities.