Mental Health Bill

The Mental Health Bill passed its third reading in New Zealand’s Parliament on 3 July 2026, repealing and replacing the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. The old Act had governed compulsory psychiatric assessment and treatment for more than three decades and had been widely criticised as out of step with a rights-based, recovery-focused approach to care. Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey called it a “once in a generation reform,” and the Bill forms part of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, addressing at least ten of its recommendations.

Substantively, the Bill shifts the framework toward supported decision-making, so people are helped to make their own care decisions wherever possible rather than defaulting to compulsion. It ends the use of seclusion for young people entirely and significantly tightens the circumstances in which it can be used for adults, with a stated long-term goal of eliminating it altogether. It also raises the threshold for electro-convulsive therapy so it can only be used in much more limited circumstances, increases family and whānau involvement in care decisions, introduces independent advocacy, and adds new protections to keep mothers and their newborns together during compulsory care wherever possible. The changes were shaped heavily by people with lived experience of compulsory care and their families through years of consultation.

Importantly, none of this takes effect immediately — the Bill has a commencement date of 1 July 2028, giving clinicians, hospitals, and the wider mental health workforce a two-year lead-in to prepare, write new guidance, and train staff. The current 1992 Act remains in force until then. Reaction has been broadly positive but measured: groups like Te Hiringa Mahara (the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission) have welcomed the direction while cautioning that legislative change alone won’t fix a stretched system, and some submitters argued during the select committee process that the Bill doesn’t go far enough — for example, pushing for a firm end date for seclusion rather than a gradual phase-out.