Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement I present the committee's report entitled Inquiry into crystal methamphetamine (ice), final report.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e)

by leave—The terms of reference of our inquiry were to:

… examine the criminal activities, practices and methods involved in the importation, manufacture, distribution and use of methamphetamine and its chemical precursors, including crystal methamphetamine (ice) and its impact on Australian society.

It was quite a disturbing inquiry that we had, and we were presented with a lot of confronting evidence about the problem of ice addiction, its harm to its users, families and friends, our communities, societies, and the overall economy. It is quite disturbing and it's also disturbing because it is growing.

We do have the three pillars of our Commonwealth drug strategy: demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction. One of the concerns that came to me during our inquiry was the resilience of the supply chain. Our AFP and our law enforcement officials are doing wonderful work intercepting and trying to reduce the supply of drugs onto the street, but the supply chain for these drugs is in numerous countries throughout the world, involving countless actors. And, sadly, it seems, the interception of drugs that we are making is no more than a mere ullage allowance for many of the gangs involved in the importation and distribution of drugs.

When it comes to harm reduction there are very strong arguments that we need to invest more of our nation's resources in harm reduction. But, ultimately, the best form of harm reduction we can have is abstinence from the use of drugs in the first place. And that's where I believe we should try and use more of our resources, on that demand side. As one of our law enforcement officials said, 'We will never be able to arrest ourselves out of the problem of drug addiction.' I believe that we need to try new, inventive and more creative ways of educating people about the harm of drug addiction, the harm that they cause to themselves from taking drugs.

The committee also made a visit to Portugal, from 24 to 30 September 2017, to look at what is often referred to as the Portuguese model of decriminalisation. There are quite a few myths surrounding that particular model. It is often thought that the Portuguese model means that all drugs have become completely lawful, but actually we found that it was almost the opposite. Under the so-called Portuguese model there are thresholds for every form of drug, whether it be heroin, methadone, opium, cocaine, cannabis or LSD. In Portugal if you are found to have more than what is deemed 10 times the supply of a casual user, the criminal penalties are in many cases actually higher than they are here in Australia. If you are found with less than that level, you are still arrested. It is still an offence under Portuguese law. But, rather than going through a criminal system of law enforcement, people are taken through drug dissuasion court, and in Portugal that has had success.

I will note some of the successes that we detail in the report. They include that Portugal's level of drug use is currently below the European average. The most at-risk population of people between ages 15 and 24 has shown a decline in drug use since the implementation of the Portuguese method. Lifetime drug use amongst the general population has increased slightly but remains comparable to that of nearby countries. Past-year and past-month drug use amongst Portugal's general population has decreased. The continuation of drug use and the proportion of the population that have reportedly used drugs and continued to do so has decreased. So, in fact it was the opposite of what was thought would happen. The concern was that if you did go down the track of decriminalising drugs for small quantities and take people through these drug dissuasion courts then this would result in rampant drug use throughout Portuguese society, and in fact the exact opposite was found.

There is no easy solution to the problem of drugs in our society. We need to continue to support our law enforcement officials and those who work in the harm reduction field. But, most of all, we need to work on the education of our young people—improving education standards and informing people of the serious detrimental effects to their lifestyle, to their health, to their economic wellbeing and to their overall prosperity if they go down the track of taking these illegal substances. With that, I refer the report to the House. I'd also like to thank the secretariat and thank the other committee members, especially from the Labor Party, who attended the hearings. We worked together in a bipartisan spirit. I think it's good that we can do that in this place, and we should try to do more of it. I thank the House.

See this speech in context