AS WE try to find excuses for the
actions of Saeed Noori that have caused so much pain to our community, I hear from police his mental health was to blame
Millions of Australians suffer a mental illness to some degree or another, from continuing stress and anxiety to the most serious forms of bipolar, schizophrenia and so on. Very few of those are a risk to society. Almost all are law abiding citizens, dealing with their illness and in many cases taking steps to recovery. We do mental illness and those suffering mental illness an injustice by blaming anti-social behaviour and criminal acts on their affliction. Mental illness is often offered as an excuse for criminal acts but that is an absolute cop out. Drugs, particularly ice, are mind changing substances which can lead to erratic, and at times, criminal behaviour. But being under the influence of drugs should not be used or accepted as a defence against the full weight of the law. My colleague on Seven’s
Sunrise, Mark Latham, has suggested people who are known to the police and other authorities should be apprehended, and taken from public circulation.
Who is going to judge whether a person is or might be a risk to society? Where are people so identified going to be held? Events such as Thursday’s atrocity are no different from when someone in a rage attacks another and takes their life. Such acts may be drug related, but often they are not. Too often mental illness is used as an excuse for such violence. That is, sadly, an understandable response to Thursday’s horror but it is impractical.