Bondi and mental health under attack?
‘Mental health’; a broad canvas that permits a highly misinformed landscape where anything goes, particularly ignorance and social stigma. Can’t we do better than this?
I wondered how long it would take for the mainstream media to blame the public mental health system and I am very disappointed SBS is leading the charge with journalist Charis Chang and SBS Editors running the headline: ‘Bondi attack puts spotlight on ‘ramshackle’ mental health system, experts say‘.
As for the two ‘mental health’ experts cited in this article, Sydney University professor Anthony Harris and National Mental Health Consumer Alliance chair Priscilla Brice, both should join their ranks as professional opportunists gathering the limelight all too ready to once again stigmatise people with mental illness, blaming it almost entirely on the public mental health system. It may not have been their intention, but they are intelligent enough to know this is the way it will be used or interpreted by the media, and perceived by politicians and the general public, looking for someone or some organisation to blame just two days later.
The act of one man, whether they have a mental illness or not does not make the public mental health system liable inasmuch as in a court of law, someone else is not ordinarily culpable or liable for an act perpetrated by another – that is mob mentality, it is speculative at best and has no causative relationship, it is reckless.
Once again it falls to consumers and carers such as NSW resident Dorothy Cross to remind us that people with a mental illness or indeed schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of society than perpetrators. Statistically speaking the public are more at risk from people with fundamentalist religious or political beliefs, extremists, people with means, criminals, gangs, those with extreme ideological beliefs, little or no ethical, moral or social values, conscience or judgment more commonly found in the general population than people with mental illness. In fact, it is people with mental illness that will suffer as a result of this kind of insensitive, poorly nuanced, motivated and timed (though I’d like to brand here) rubbish journalism. Not what I’d expect from SBS, and certainly not prematurely from our two ‘so called’ experts.
There are a number of elephants in the room
Did it ever occur to either of the two ‘mental health’ experts that the man here who carried out this horrific and dreadful act in Bondi Junction mall was or may NOT have been a recipient of the public mental health system, and was hidden from view by private psychiatry, socially and politically backed by society itself. It would appear closer examination of the initial facts emerging, that for last 18 years he had been seeing private psychiatrist/s in Queensland, which had kept him out of the purview of the public mental health system even in his own substantive State of residence. As such you cannot then blame lack of public mental health services, access, funding, follow up, care coordination or even lack of consumer financial capacity in paying for continuing medication which might keep him well (if he is able one way or another to afford a private psychiatrist, but perhaps that too became the operant factor). Nor indeed if a private patient chooses to cease seeing their private psychiatrist and later move inter-State beneath the radar.
Where is the connection here between private psychiatry and the public mental health system? Disturbingly it is the unhealthy opportunistic if not symbiotic-parasitic relationship that private psychiatry exerts on the public mental health system, removing a ‘patient’ from the more comprehensive and effective umbrella of the public mental health system and then abandoning their responsibility when their ‘client’ no longer turns up. Where is the bridge for follow up, where is the net without someone to cast it?
Yet our two experts here, choose to jump on the bandwagon with SBS, so soon after this tragic event, and blame this on a ‘ramshackle’ public mental health system in another State – That is the headline and I see no counter argument to it in this article. I find this quite outrageous and it does a huge disservice to people with mental illness, family and carers, to mental health staff of our public mental health system (with all its faults, funding, political and institutional problems), further stigmatising mental illness, mental health and de facto, if not by poor judgment misleading the general public, strengthening the reactionary and ignorant arm of politicians and health ministers who are in fact part of the problem for legislating and creating this apartheid, enmeshed privileged and blind private – public mental health divide in our society.
While psychiatrists always come out on this misguided defence of their practice and ironically blame the public mental health system or its funding, they fail to recognise their overarching conservative institutional involvement in it and the covert private psychiatry they avariciously defend sucking the energy and capacity on elitist salaries out of our public mental health system, as well as leaving it blind. Perhaps Professor Harris should consider this as a frontline social, political and broader institutional problem alongside the impact of his voice in this article on the pliable discourse of public perception at the beckon mercy of our ill-informed and largely privately owned mainstream media (hence why I am seriously disappointed with SBS, who as an uncertain private-public broadcaster entity should nevertheless know better).
As for the National Mental Health Consumer Alliance which strongly advocates for more private sector psychologists, they are only adding to this misadventure by putting their faith in another private sector establishment and powerful institution, echoing the same blunted path, ‘business model’ and self-interest of private psychology. And the chair of this self-appointed conglomerate has her expert mental health background, self-described as ‘neurodivergent’, and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), an MBA in Social Impact from the University of NSW, and a substantive career in racial equity. Perhaps the chair of this organisation might do better to likewise consider the consequences of her general speculation before the facts pertinent to this event are fully known, given her expert brush with social inequality in our society.
Last but not least has any mainstream media reporting on this event considered to distinguish between mental health and mental illness, noting the repeated unchallenged reporting (of which the ABC and others have been complicit), where NSW police have frequently and exclusively referred to this man and his ‘mental health background’, note not ‘mental illness’ but ‘mental health’? Mentally healthy people do not behave this way, and while mental health is not the antithesis of ‘mental illness’, nor do people with ‘mental illness’ typically behave this way – distinct and subtle nuances not mentioned by way of balance in the cited article or any other live broadcast or ‘newsworthy’ report I have read or heard to date since this event unfolded.
We have no reliable facts of ‘substance’ here, no mention or ruling out of alcohol or substance use, character profile, personality disorder, criminal behaviour, hatred, bitterness and vengeful, institutional/social alienation, or plethora of other potential and accumulative variables, factors and reinforcers at play previously mentioned; or the impact, social consequences and risks of any of these – But as usual like sheep jumping absent fences, straight to ‘mental health’, a broad canvas that permits a highly misinformed landscape where anything goes – but particularly ignorance, social stigma, poor journalism and disappointing commentary from ‘so called’ experts.
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10 comments
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Andrew Smith
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Mark
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New England Cocky
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Harvey
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Harvey
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Clakka
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frances
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Terence Mills
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frances
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Centrelink customer
Return to home pageGood article and too often glib claims of ‘mental health’ are used to cut off any further investigation and discussion e.g. forensics on websites the perpetrator visited and other sources of influence.
See Christchurch shooter, who anecdotally was described as a normal ‘good bloke’, but had been following alt right etc. websites for some time.
Meanwhile the RW MSM and influencers ignored or avoided responsibility for their role in ‘stochastic terrorism’ by constant dog whistling of the ‘other’, Muslims, woke, women, diversity, immigration, population growth etc.
Trying to have a bob each way in attracting new support and denigrating the centre….
The SBS article made it clear that it was “too early to draw conclusions about the factors that contributed to Cauchi’s attack” so I’m not sure why you are so upset. The article raised many valid points about the mental health system and also quoted a person whose husband had schizophrenia.
I think your article is unnecessarily hostile.
This SMH article may also be of interest https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/schizophrenia-and-homelessness-can-be-a-deadly-combination-20240415-p5fjuq.html
As the dust settles in Oxford Street, it becomes obvious that the man was from Queensland where the former Campbell Newman COALition misgovernment slashed public spending on most social programmes including mental health.
Last week the Tamworth NOtional$ MP made his public appearance boasting about the ”new” mental health facilities being built in Tamworth to service northern NSW from the Great Dividing Range west to the South Australian border and about 320 km north to the Queensland border.
Always the publicity peacock, the former Year 8 educated former news reader ignored the multitude of family advocates for improving mental health facilities for over the past 20 years ….. who he had religiously ignored throughout his too long incumbency.
Naturally he claimed all the credit for this remarkable advance ….. privately financed by a local business concerned about his unwillingness to represent the community needs. Well, how could he show political relevance by acknowledging the concern and work of others? Just another do nothing NOtional$ politician being paid too much to do too little.
While mainstream psychiatry continues the tradition of drugging their patients with neuro-toxins in order to fix behavioural problems, what else to expect other than the occasional derailment and playing out of deadly intentions such as seen in Bondi?
A better way is shown by the likes of Gabor Mate with his psychotherapeutic method of Compassionate Inquiry. A quote from Gabor gives a hint as to his method, “We may not be responsible for the way the world creates our mind, but we can learn to take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world”.
Another therapist who is more in line with the flow of return to sanity is Dr Peter Breggin. Author of several books including ‘Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy & Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock & Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry’, he demonstrates the cure is found in an empathetic approach rather than destroying the body with chemicals and electro-therapy.
I don’t expect msm has any appetite for intelligent design of a better way. There is lot$ of money to be made in keeping people sick in the Medical-Judicial-Incarceration Complex.
For those who prefer a documentary on the topic of psych-drugs and the damages being done:
Cause of Death: Unknown: – Big Pharma & the selling of mental illness
“Award winning doc (out of Sweden) exposing the inner workings of the pharmaceutical industry and how it created an epidemic of mental illness.”
Excellent article, and comments.
I wholeheartedly agree with Harvey.
The glib pronouncements and shallow theories of the mainstream media are appalling, particularly in light of their apparent disregard for the importance of the beautiful and courageous statements of Cauchi’s parents.
The msm has apparently learned nothing from the excellent observations made this week by Justice M Lee about the msm. They have descended from reporters and a representative ‘Fourth Estate’, to a competition of rank effluxions from the sewers of bling / suicide capitalism.
I too read the SBS report and checked out the two mental health professionals interviewed and could find no ethical issue either with the programme (all caveats were in place) or the considered opinion given by Professor Harris with whom, incidentally, I am in agreement.
As for Ms Brice: a psychologist pushing for 10 extra sessions per year does not mean she is empire-building. I laboured for decades in the industry and understand the frustrations of attempting to engage collaboratively with a public health system which was at best difficult to navigate, and at worst was unreliable and occasionally non-existent for the most needy.
Since it has transpired that the killer slipped thought the cracks of both public/private mental health system supports, I wonder why sincere advocates for system reform should be the focus of such scorn.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-18/joel-cauchi-communication-failures-queensland-bondi-stabbing/103740548
Might it not be more constructive to follow the big corporate-entrepreneurial dollar instead of criticising concerned mental health practitioner-advocates (who are actual experts in their fields, not “so-called experts”) struggling to make the best of a flawed system? A system that was once upon a time the dynamic focus of progressive proposals for public/private/community co-ordinated mental health services?
The ‘deinstitutionalisation’ in NSW that followed from the well-intentioned recommendations of the 1983 Richmond Report was a bonanza for the corporate sector, which flourished under successive state and Federal governments presiding over funding shortfalls in apparent service to the god of economic rationalism.
https://www.nswmentalhealthcommission.com.au/content/richmond-report
Systemic problems and failures compounded over many decades of government mismanagement, misdirection of funds, and a relentless push for the privatisation of the public health system (such as led by Jeff Kennett in Victoria, and his establishment of the not-for-profit mental health sham service provider, ‘Beyond Blue’: https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/beyondblue.org.au).
It seems our mental health system – for which both the feds and states/territories share responsibility – has been lurching from crisis to crisis for decades. Perhaps this is the elephant in the room:
https://www.drphilipmorris.com/the-australian-mental-health-crisis-a-system-failure-in-need-of-treatment/
As ‘the Australian Medical Association (AMA) reported in its 2018 mental health review, “Currently Australia lacks an overarching mental health ‘architecture’. There is no agreed national design or structure that facilitates prevention or proper care for people with mental illness.” While the organisation noted that youth mental health care was fairly successful, it believed that the status of treatment for adults was severely lacking. The AMA argued that the Australian government lacked a structural plan for mental health management and that the future of mental health treatment in Australia was in a dangerous position.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_in_Australia
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1819/Quick_Guides/MentalHealth#:~:text=Government%20responsibility%20for%20mental%20health,and%20state%20and%20territory%20governments.
Families continue to struggle with the endless revolving door that our mental health system has become, police officers trained to apprehend criminals struggle to function at the coal-face in de facto mental health triage roles, licensed boarding house proprietors barely function as de facto psych unit managers, gaols languish with a significant proportion of offenders suffering from either a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness, while the acutely mentally ill in the broader community often languish untreated, unmonitored, and sleep rough due to systemic inefficiencies and failures (where the left hand seems never to know what the right hand is doing), their needs eclipsed by more pragmatic political priorities.
While it is conceded that no matter how excellent a system may be there will always be human error, malfunctions, and the odd overload to threaten its capacities, governments are clearly failing their communities by settling for an under-funded and poorly coordinated public/private system that continues to fly on a wing and a prayer and on the goodwill of struggling families and fatigued health workers.
Now six people are dead, many of the wounded – including a motherless infant – remain in hospital, and even greater numbers of people are in acute stress. Traumatised people need to talk and they need reliable information. Thus, given the prompt revelations by the killer’s parents’ regarding their son’s schizophrenia diagnosis and treatment history – and the further information that has since come to light – I believe Professor Harris and Ms Brice were appropriate and correct in the manner in which they communicated their concerns about the possible role of a flawed and broken mental health system in the catastrophic events of last Saturday.
frances
Well said, frances
Unfortunately the media seem to want to push conspiracies. This morning Patricia Karvelas on the ABC asked the federal Attorney General if the predominance of women injured or killed in the Bondi episode was due to an incel issue (involuntary celibacy) which I found most inappropriate at a time when the investigations as to motivation are only just getting underway.
This is the first I have heard of this theory and I have to wonder if the ABC is promoting conspiracies.
Thanks Terence. Yes agree, probably not respectful timing, though I understand there’s a lot of talk given the tragedy is still unfolding.
Sometimes I think the ABC errs on the side of tabloid journalism. Which is why I don’t listen to PK – is she predisposed to conspiracy theories or is it just ordinary bloodhound stuff? Perhaps irresponsible given investigations are ongoing. As someone else here has noted, Justice Lee has given the MSM a serve, and Karen Middleton on the Guardian gives an excellent summary of his opinion.
But the ideation/ideology aspects are more generally of interest to me as a psychologist.
I looked up ‘incel’ on Wiki and found the 2014 Californian mass murderer Elliott Rodger, a deranged killer this meme-ish social category is supposed to exemplify. Rodger’s long-planned unhinged murderous rampage before killing himself was his avowed solution (via ‘manifesto’) to a life of intolerable misery.
But it seems that the term also refers to online groups and shared hateful ideologies by those who identify as ‘incels’. The article below made me wonder whether video games play a role in normalising objectification and dehumanisation of ‘the enemy’ (whoever that may be for the gamer) via extended engagements with convincingly represented fantasy narratives. The line between fantasy and reality may thus become even more blurred for those already predisposed to it due to mental illness or trauma-related disturbance.
https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/increasing-rhetoric-of-dehumanization/
Message for Anthony Albanese
Dear Prime Minister,
In 2022-2023, I provided you with the evidence of 2 illegal debt schemes administered by Services Australia. Your office forwarded my report to Amanda Rishworth and refused to follow up.
The illegal debt schemes are as follows:
Fake Review scheme. Instead of a formal review decision by an authorised review officer (ARO), Services Australia sent me an objection decision made by an anonymous delegate or authorised officer. Multiple senior officers and ministers advised me to apply to AAT to review this fake decision.
Rent Assistance debt scheme. Administered by Family Assistance Office (FAO). FAO automatically includes a Rent Assistance base rate in a FTB debt, if a parent/carer was deemed ineligible for Family Tax Benefit. This is illegal. The Rent Assistance is a component of the main Centrelink payment (like Jobseeker, Parenting Payment, etc). In my case, Family Assistance office simultaneously used 2 illegal debt schemes (#1 and #2) on 2 separate occassions, one year apart. Later, the debts made under the scheme #2 (over $4000) were waived but FAO had no right to issue them in the first place.
Services Australia are highly responsible for the mental health crisis and pose a significant risk to the safety of Australian people.