Two young children were allegedly hurt in Canberra last week, and their family is now living through something no family should have to endure.
More stories like this are coming to light, and the pain and worry in our community is real.
These stories are in the headlines, and they matter. But part of the assumptions being made behind the story is about how the mental health system has failed.
When something like this happens, it is natural to want answers. We want to know why. Finding one reason can help us make sense of something that feels impossible to understand.
But if we only look for one cause, we miss the bigger picture. We miss the years of choices and changes that have led us here.
Those who work in mental health, disability and community services in the ACT are doing genuinely hard work with very limited resources.
And they are trying to hold together a system that's been underfunded for years. When that system breaks down, it's rarely one person's fault.
The reality is that it's the result of choices made in budgets and policy settings, made long before things reach crisis point.
There are important conversations about the people involved and how the police and others responded. Those discussions matter. But we cannot let them cover up the deeper problem. This is a problem that has been growing for years and will not be fixed by an apology or a quick review.
Thousands of people in the ACT with a psychosocial disability are not getting the support they need to stay well.
Recent reports indicate that 8940 people in the ACT require support they are not receiving. These are not just numbers. Each person is someone's family member, friend or neighbour, trying to get through each day without the help they deserve.
Much of this is not due to a mental health system that is failing, but instead comes down to gaps in the NDIS. Plans change without warning and eligibility shifts without notice.
People lose support when rules or funding change, not because they have recovered, but because a review found a reason to stop paying. None of this is new information. But what's missing isn't another review of the NDIS or the National Mental Health Agreement. It's action.
These gaps show up in ordinary ways. A support worker who used to visit twice a week now comes once a fortnight because funding was cut and no one explained why. A family filling in wherever they can because there's no one else to call when things start to slide.
Weeks of waiting for a plan review while someone's mental state quietly worsens, unnoticed until it can't be ignored. Programs like the ACT's Housing and Support Initiative, built for the people who need it most, are stretched to serve far more people than they were ever funded to reach.
Declines in support levels often result in recovery breaks, similar to when a treatment stops for a chronic illness.
When we cut funding for the community supports meant to keep people connected and safe, we're not saving money. We're quietly recreating the kind of isolation we spent decades trying to move away from.
People end up stuck at home, cut off from their community, because there is no support to help them get out safely. In the end, this costs all of us much more.
We celebrated when institutional care ended. We agreed that everyone deserves a meaningful, connected life. We know people do better when they are included, seen and able to take part in their community.
So why do we keep moving away from the policies and funding that make this possible?
Why do we fund personal care for dignity, but not community support for inclusion and safety?
Right now, the government plans to cut funding for community inclusion and engagement for people with a disability. This move is meant to save money, but it does not consider the real impact.
Many people need support to get out into the community safely. Sometimes, the community also needs people to have support to keep everyone safe. Without this help, people will be forced to stay home or go out in ways that are not safe. We need policies and funding that make inclusion possible.
MHCC ACT, the peak body for the community mental health sector, has long argued that the ACT government needs to shift mental health spending away from expensive, crisis-driven responses and towards ongoing community support.
This is what prevents crises before they happen. We have asked for at least 10 per cent of the mental health budget to go to prevention and early help.
The cost of doing nothing keeps rising, both in our hospitals and in stories like last week's. This isn't a call to spend less on acute care. People in crisis still need a hospital bed when necessary.
It's a call to stop treating prevention as optional, as something to fund only after the crisis budget is covered.
Early investment is what keeps people out of crisis in the first place.
It also means being honest about what recovery requires. The Mental Health Act sets out people's rights when they're unwell. It's overdue for an overhaul that recognises the right to ongoing, everyday support that keeps someone well, not just the right to treatment once they've reached crisis point.
We know who needs support. We know what works. What's missing isn't evidence. It's the funding decisions to back it.
The family affected last week deserves more than a headline and a news cycle. So does every other person in the ACT who is quietly going without support, waiting for their turn to become a story before anyone pays attention. We can keep responding to each crisis as it happens, or we can fund the support that prevents the next one.
That's the choice facing government right now, and it shouldn't take another headline to make it.
