Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The impact of drugs and alcohol on families across this nation is one of our most significant national problems. I want to thank the member for Tangney for raising this issue for discussion in the House this afternoon. We know the statistics—one in six are using an illicit drug nationally. As MPs we get to see the human face of this problem and from all sides, whether it is parents who come to us anguished because they cannot find the help they need for their children, whether it's families who are having to lock sheds for the first time in what were previously safe neighbourhoods or install CCTV cameras in their own front yards, or whether it's young people who in their very best moments can acknowledge that they need help. There are thousands and thousands of people across this country who are affected by drugs and alcohol.

I want to begin by paying tribute to the people who work in this incredibly difficult area. It's very easy for us as politicians to get up and talk about these problems. What is difficult is getting out of bed every day and going to work and having to deal with people who are going through the horrendous withdrawals that are associated with coming off a drug such as ice, and having to do so again and again as you hold their hand, and support people who have to go through that process again and again, because we know that it's incredibly hard to kick these difficult habits.

The AFP play such a pivotal role in trying to protect our community by policing this problem, whether it's working with police agencies overseas or here in Australia. These are incredibly brave people who put their lives on the line for us every single day. I know I speak for everyone in the chamber when I say how grateful we are for their work.

That is where the bipartisan comments from me will end, because there are aspects of the motion put forward by the member for Tangney that I take great issue with. One of those is lauding the government for all of the support that has been provided for people who are addicted to drugs. That's just wrong. What we know is that there is a severe undersupply of rehabilitation beds in this country right now. We've got the member for Herbert in the chamber. I was lucky to visit her quite recently and talk to some of the people who are working on this problem in her area in regional Queensland. They would laugh if you suggested to them that the government is doing a fantastic job at managing this problem. There were 32,000 requests made last year for the somewhere around 1,500 rehab beds that are available in this country. The wait for rehab beds in large parts of the country, especially in rural and regional Australia where some of these problems are at their worst in some respects, is months. Anyone who has come in contact with an addicted drug user knows that you have the briefest of opportunities when the person is willing to see the problem and accept help. If you tell them they have to wait months for a rehabilitation bed, you are dreaming if you think you are going to be able to do much to support that person.

That is just in regard to the public health and rehab aspects of this. I am in the justice portfolio on the Labor side of the House, and I am outraged to see some of the comments in the motion about how much is being done to support drugs work within the AFP. That is just wrong. The justice minister, Michael Keenan, loves to stand up in front of tables with drugs all over the top and talk about what a tough guy he is, but when he goes down into the cabinet room he is part of a cabinet, part of a government, that is slashing funding to the Australian Federal Police—$184 million will disappear from this organisation over the coming four years. We know that the Australian Federal Police will lose 151 of their staff between this year and next year alone. Through the estimates process in the Senate, we have dug into what this will mean to the Australian Federal Police, and they have told us very bluntly that this is going to mean cuts to some of the programs they're using today to fight illicit drugs in our community. We cannot allow a government to come into this chamber and say all the right things, talk about all their strategies and their bureaucracy and say what a tough government they are on drugs when on the other hand, when we look at the facts, we see very little investment in the rehabilitation we know is desperately needed by the families affected by this problem and a government that is gutting funding for the Australian Federal Police, the main national agency that is trying to get drugs off our street. We have to be frank about this. I'm happy to support the government if they put their money where their mouth is, but they are not doing that. That's why I have to say that I disagree with large parts of the motion before us.

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