Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission inquiry into the manufacture, importation and use of amphetamines and other synthetic drugs in Australia. I would first like to thank the secretariat of the parliamentary joint committee and the witnesses, either in writing or attending in person, across the nation for their assistance and integral input into the terms of reference. A key function of the Australian Crime Commission parliamentary joint committee is to examine trends and changes in criminal activities, practices and methods and report to both houses of parliament any change to the functions, structure, powers and procedures of the Australian Crime Commission which the committee thinks desirable.

The terms of reference for the AOSD project were extensive and need to be read in conjunction with the recommendations provided in the amphetamines and other synthetic drugs report. The committee’s report makes 18 recommendations which flow from the inquiry’s findings on the importation, manufacture and use of AOSD in Australia. Eight recommendations relate directly to the functions, structure, powers and procedures of the ACC and, as such, require consideration and responses from the ACC.

It is a fact that Australia has one of the highest levels of methamphetamine use in the world. In recent years it has seen usage increasing. The Department of Health and Ageing, DOHA, noted the following from the UN World drug report 2005. In comparison with other data presented in the report, Australia has a substantially higher rate of amphetamine use than the other countries listed, including the UK, 1.6 per cent; the USA, 1.4 per cent; the Netherlands, 0.6 per cent; and Canada, 0.6 per cent. The annual prevalence of ecstasy use in Australia was 3.4 per cent of the population aged 15 to 64 years in 2001. According to the report, the rates for Australia are well above those presented for the UK, at two per cent; the Netherlands, at 1.5 per cent; the USA, at 1.1 per cent; and Canada, at 0.9 per cent.

I must say that I was very concerned to hear Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland of the Victoria Police highlight the scale of the AOSD problem in Australia. He said:

Our estimation, our intelligence, is that there are somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000 tablets of ecstasy being consumed per weekend across Australia …

Similarly, DOHA noted that one in eight persons aged 20 to 29 years had used ecstasy in the last 12 months. The 20- to 29-year age group had the highest proportion and number of persons ever using ecstasy compared with all other age groups. There were approximately 100,000 more recent ecstasy users in 2004 when compared with 2001.

I would like to highlight two very successful ongoing operations by law enforcement in Australia which should be adopted Australia-wide. As a former police officer I have seen firsthand how operations such as this can assist in the battle against drugs of all kinds. In Perth the committee heard that police have brought the issue of contamination of premises to the attention of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia. Sergeant Gill Wilson, drug education officer with the Alcohol and Drug Coordination Unit of the Western Australia Police, told the committee:

Just recently we have introduced a strategy whereby we have brought the situation to the attention of REIWA—the real estate industry organisation here. This strategy is very worth while ... you can understand that real estate agencies through their property management teams can become realistically the third policeman. They have the opportunity of inspecting premises and may come across situations that they can report through Crime Stoppers ...

In Queensland, Project STOP has recently been instituted and tested. It was developed jointly by the Queensland branch of the PGA, the Queensland police and Queensland Health. The scheme involves recording pseudoephedrine purchaser information on a pharmacy database called Epothecary. This tracks purchases of pseudoephedrine products. The system allows pharmacists to identify persons who may be pseudo-running, using the products illegally or operating a clandestine laboratory. If a transaction arouses suspicions, they may refuse the sale.

The submission from the PGA indicates that, since the pilot program for Project STOP commenced in November 2005, over 40,000 entries have been put through the system and there have been over 2,500 refusals of sale by pharmacists. Further, the submission states that between January and March 2006, only a three-month period, Project STOP resulted in the generation of more than 100 police investigative files, with 12 offenders being arrested on 114 drug related charges, together with six counts of trafficking, three illicit laboratories being detected and a number of suspected pseudo-runners being summonsed to attend the Australian Crime Commission in the ACT for coercive hearings.

I have a significant concern regarding any endorsement of pill testing. While the committee acknowledges that pill-testing proponents are well intentioned, a majority of the committee consider that such programs have yet to overcome a number of legitimate and serious concerns. These are: one, the perception that official conduct and sanction of such programs are akin to condoning drug-taking behaviour; two, that such programs could expose conducting authorities, bodies or individuals to liability for harm arising to users of pill-testing services; and, three, that there are questions over the accuracy of the testing procedures employed.

The committee was also concerned that, despite pill-testing proponents pursuing a neutral information based approach, users of such services will tend to use the information provided to decide simply whether or not to ingest a particular MDMA pill. Given the critical and unpredictable role that individual physiology plays in cases of adverse or even fatal reactions to MDMA pills, the committee was concerned about the extent to which MDMA users might use the information provided by pill testers as the basis of, or to confirm, a decision to ingest a particular MDMA pill.

I concur with the member for Werriwa, my Labor parliamentary colleague, who just shared the experience of a mate of his own son who took a speed bomb in a nightclub and unfortunately paid with the ultimate loss of his life. He did this by going along with the crowd. If there had been a pill test involved, he may have done it because of the fact that the pill was tested and found to be okay. It may be okay for one person but, as I have repeatedly said, the physiological make-up of individuals can be vastly different.

I strongly believe our sports men and women, who our young people hold as mentors and role models, and the press who describe AOSDs as social or party drugs need to be aware that possession of these types of drugs is illegal and that these drugs can have and have been proven to have disastrous effects on an individual. The AFL should not have a three strikes and you are out rule. On the very first occasion a player tests positive or his club becomes aware of a possible dependence on or use of an illegal—and may I be careful in saying—party drug, his parents, the club doctor and coach need to be aware and to provide the necessary support mechanism to ensure that player does not fall between the gaps as in the case of Ben Cousins, a champion young footballer of this era. We all hope to see Ben overcome his addiction and play football again. Everyone can do more in this area, and I support the many recommendations that our committee has provided.

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