This has been a focus of my studies and practice since I began advising the Commission in 2016 and working there in 2017. In 2021 I began publishing academic and other reports that examined human rights and the Commission.

Evidence

• 12 000 complaints without a compliance notice (Guardian Australia & ABC) [it is now well over 14 000]

• Negative experiences of complaints processes (Guardian Australia + internal feedback obtained via FOI + Your Story, Your Say)

• Evidence that some services fail to meet statutory obligations to report on complaints outcomes (e.g. South West Health Care)

• Commission efforts to suppress the release of recommendations that it makes to mental health services (Guardian Australia).

Research

2021

• Forensicare Consumers & Simon Katterl, ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing Act’ (online, Submission to Engage Victoria’s Consultation Paper, 2021).

• Simon Katterl, ‘The importance of motivational postures to mental health regulators: Lessons for Victoria’s reforming mental health system’ (2021) 29(6) Australasian Psychiatry 638.

• Chris Maylea, Simon Katterl, Brendan Johnson, Susan Alvarez-Vasquez, Nicholas Hill and Penelope Weller, ‘Consumers’ experience of rights-based mental health laws: Lessons from Victoria, Australia’ (2021) 78 International Journal of Law and Psychiatry DOI: 101737.

• Simon Katterl, ‘Examining the workplace rights of mental health consumer workforce members’ (2022) Online First Australian Health Review 1.

• Simon Katterl, ‘Regulatory oversight, mental health and human rights’ (2021) 26(1) Alternative Law Journal 149.

• Simon Katterl & Chris Maylea, ‘Keeping human rights in mind: embedding the Victorian Charter of human rights into the public mental health system’ (2021) 27(1) Australian Journal of Human Rights 58.

2022

• Jonah Bossewitch, Lydia X. Z. Brown, Piers Gooding, Leah Harris, James Horton, Simon Katterl, Keris Myrick, Kelechi Ubozoh, and Alberto Vasquez, ‘Digital Futures in Mind: Reflecting on Technological Experiments in Mental Health & Crisis Support’ (University of Melbourne, 2022).

• Simon Katterl, ‘From harm to healing: restorative and responsive mental health regulation’ (2022) Journal of Social Issues 1.

2023

• Simon Katterl, ‘Regulating rights: developing a human rights and mental health regulatory framework’ in The Future of Mental Health, Disability and Criminal Law, edited by Kay Wilson, Yvette Maker, and Piers Gooding. Routledge, 2023.

• Simon Katterl, Caroline Lambert, Chris MacBean, Flick Grey, Lorna Downes, Morgan Lee Cataldo, Katrina Clarke & Sharon Williams, Not Before Time: Lived Experience-Led Justice and Repair (Advice to the Victorian Minister for Mental Health, February 2023) <www.livedexperiencejustice.au> .

• Simon Katterl, ‘Words that hurt: how mental health stigma remains outside the law’ (2023) Alternative Law Journal 1.