David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members opposite for their consideration in changing the order of speakers today. I would like to speak to this report because it is such an important issue in the community of Wakefield and in fact across Australia. I would like to make a few opening remarks dealing with the sentiments that have been raised by various witnesses throughout the progress of the inquiry but also the responses from some people looking at the recommendations from the inquiry.

First and foremost, I would like to say that the tone that came through consistently, from most witnesses and certainly the people that we talked to who have been affected by drugs, is that this is about being tough on drugs and not tough on users. It is about being tough on the dealers, the people who are pushing drugs, tough on the smugglers and tough on the people who, for whatever reason, would actually promote the use of drugs in some manner. But it is about dealing with great compassion for the people who are trapped in drug use and for those who are affected by drug use and all of the associated issues in our society.

This inquiry very clearly highlighted the fact that the effects of drug use touch so many people—first and foremost the users themselves. There was ample evidence about the destruction to their lives—not only their lifestyle but the quality of their lives, their potential for the future, their health, their mental health and their relationships, most importantly. Secondly, there are their families. This is not just their immediate family members, such as a spouse; particularly we heard from parents who are bearing the brunt of still loving their child, trapped in the addiction of drugs, and trying to balance providing support and love for their child whilst managing the, in some cases, almost unmanageable violence. There is the use and abuse of families that so often seems to accompany people who are trapped in an addiction that they cannot control. There is the effect on siblings where one child is using drugs—the effect on the remainder of the family as they seek to live a somewhat normal life while the parents are trying to fight that battle and hold that balance. Very disturbingly, as my colleague has just mentioned, there is the effect on children of drug users and the debilitating start they have to life when all of those factors start coming to bear in an environment that, while it should be supportive, nurturing and setting them up for the rest of their lives, is actually destroying the very foundation that normal, balanced children should have at the start of their lives.

At a broader level, there are many victims of crime. There is much crime that is associated with drugs, and the Australian Institute of Criminology just this year has shed some further light on that. It has highlighted that people in police detention for various offences are four times more likely to be illicit drug users than the general population. That is a huge number of people, and includes users of drugs such as cannabis. Well over half of the adults in custody have tested positive to cannabis, whereas a quarter have tested positive to methamphetamines and about 10 per cent, or just under, to heroin. There is a high degree of connection between people who are using drugs and the crimes that they commit. If you look through the range of crimes, you can see that there are crimes of violence and property theft which come from the addiction and the desire to obtain more. In some cases, particularly with ice, there is the violence that comes purely as a result of the drug. So there is a large effect on society which is directly impacted by drugs.

Lastly, there is the impact on the taxpayer, who is increasingly footing the bill that is coming from the mental health impacts on those who have been using drugs. This is even for drugs that, going back a couple of decades, many in our community were pushing and advocating as quite safe. There are even some today who are still saying that those drugs are safe, yet the evidence is clearly against that. The high proportion of people in our jails who have that link to drugs means there is an additional drain on the taxpayer for supporting the policing, the justice and the jail system. Lastly the need for rehabilitation and work on the health of these addicts means that there is a large amount of funding and resources required just to treat the results of drug use.

Before I get on to the recommendations of the report, I would like to thank the witnesses who were prepared to come forward, particularly those who were drug users themselves and families who have been affected by drug use. It is no easy thing to come before a formal committee, people who are strangers to you, and to bear your soul about the things that have affected you and your family. I commend them and thank them for being prepared to do that.

I would like to turn briefly to some of the recommendations from the report. Recommendation 1 states:

The Commonwealth Government continue its allocation of significant resources to policing activity as a highly effective prevention method.

I strongly support this recommendation. I particularly support the fact that we have increasingly seen high levels of cooperation between the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, state police, state crime commissions, the Taxation Office, Australian Customs and AUSTRAC. I think it is important that we continue to see this high degree of combined activity across levels of government so that we can tackle the scourge which is the illicit drug trade in Australia.

It is important to see that out of that come the initiatives like the proceeds of crime funds which go back into the community to try and help overcome some of the problems. I welcome some of the money that has come back into South Australia, for example, into the Baptist Community Services, where the Westcare Drug Intervention Program has been able to train Indigenous workers to help them target people with a history of abuse and the effects that flow from that—the family breakdown, the homelessness and the mental health issues.

Recommendation 4 talks about funding going to organisations which support a drug-fee outcome versus a drug use or management outcome. There has been a fair bit of controversy around this and I think sometimes people have been in vehement agreement but have been working with different definitions of terms. The one comment I would like to make is that this recommendation is identifying in clear terms that there are some individuals and some organisations who genuinely believe that drug use can be managed. They see that management as being a long-term outcome. Some of the recommendations and some of the evidence that came through from witnesses highlighted the incredibly damaging effect on their preparedness to say no to drugs when they had a body, purportedly a professional body there to help them, telling them that they could make the choice if they wanted to use drugs occasionally or on a regular basis and that it could be managed. They provided that message and that message took away and undermined many of the other messages which are being sent out to people in our community, particularly our young people, that say drugs are damaging and they are addictive.

I think it is important that we do work with organisations that are prepared to use a range of methods. They may include some methods that provide substitutes or support for people to keep them healthy and alive, but the end aim of those organisations must be to see people come off the drugs and be drug free. I think that is the important message to come out of that.

Recommendation 5 deals with the difficult issue of care for children and the balance that has to be achieved between what is in the best interests of the children and, where possible, maintaining the connection between the biological parent and the child. There is a huge network of people in our community who selflessly give of their time to provide foster care for children. I would like to take this occasion to bring to the attention of the House Susan Buckskin and William Sansbury, people in Wakefield who have been fostering for over 21 years and have just recently been given a Foster Carer National Recognition Award.

The feedback I get from people in Wakefield and from broader South Australia, where I have been working with foster carers for a while, is that the long-term impacts of frequent moves and relocations—going back to the parents, then back to foster care and then back to the parents—is damaging for children. I have spoken to a number of foster carers who are strong advocates of reconnecting children with parents wherever possible, where it is safe and in the child’s best interests to do so. But they also tell me about the need for an acceptance of the fact that longer term foster care arrangements or indeed adoption must be considered in the mix. We must not exclude longer term care for these children, because for some of them that will be the only option that gives them a start in life that is fair and reasonable.

Recommendation 16 deals with education. I think it is disturbing when we look at reports such as the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime report, which looks at some overseas evidence, and the Drug Advisory Council of Australia report, which looks at the fact that the use of drugs by teenagers in Australia is some four times higher than in countries like Sweden and that some 29 per cent of Australian teenagers between 14 and 19 in 2004 had tried drugs. We got evidence from young people who were witnesses saying that they experimented. There is that natural teen desire to go outside the bounds and do something that is perhaps frowned upon, and part of it is because they do not have compelling evidence that says: ‘This will damage you.’

As we look at some of the campaigns which have been run overseas that highlight issues that are important to young people—things like their appearance, their health and their ability to participate in activities that they want to participate in—that kind of very hard-hitting education campaign is something that we, as a matter of priority, need to invest in so that our young people are equipped with the knowledge that they need to make choices about their own health and their own future.

Recommendation 17 talks about a consistent message. This just builds on recommendations that came out of the ministerial council on drugs back in December 2006, where one of the resolutions adopted was to discourage the use of terms such as ‘recreational’ and ‘party drugs’. Yet I notice that as recently as last week the media in particular were still referring to people taking recreational and party drugs. I believe that this recommendation and the one following it are sound in that where we can exercise authority we should do, to constrain government funded bodies from using those terms and to seek earnestly the support of the broader media organisations to refrain from those uses because it sends a mixed message to our young people.

If we are serious about telling young people that, based on the evidence, based on the life experience of so many people here in Australia, drugs damage them then why do we accept that people in our community, particularly in the media, are sending messages that these are party drugs or recreational drugs? They are messages that say: ‘These things are okay to use because we say recreation is good for you. We say that it’s okay to let your hair down occasionally, have a party.’ Those terms are completely at odds with the facts and the outcomes that these young people will experience. I cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for the media to come on board in the interests of our young people and our community and in the interests of the children to come who will be affected by young adults who become drug addicts and then become parents—they have a role to play in this and they cannot just step back and continue in their current practice when the results of that are so clear.

I commend this report to the House. I commend it to the government and to the broader Australian community. I ask them to look at the fact that this is about being tough on drugs but it is also about having compassion—real compassion—that says we are prepared to take some action and put some resources individually, as a government and as corporations, including the media in Australia, to get a better future for young people and those who have been affected by drugs in Australia.

Harry Quick (Franklin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, like other members of this committee, welcome the opportunity to say a few words about what has been a somewhat controversial report. At the outset, I acknowledge in the background four members of the secretariat—I should put my glasses on—who have travelled along the road with us, have been there, have heard our discussions, our concerns and our internal debates about whether this recommendation or that recommendation should be unanimous and have seen three members of the Labor Party put forward a dissenting report on six of the recommendations.

I would also like to acknowledge the chairmanship of this committee: the honourable member for Mackellar has done a wonderful job in bringing all this together. The winnable war on drugs: the impact of illicit drug use on families report has an illustration of six faces before and after. It is a bit like those cigarette packets where you have this big warning, ‘Don’t participate.’ Just looking at this and some of the other photos of people who sadly have fallen victim to substance abuse is horrific.

As the longest serving member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services, having been a member since 1993 when I first entered the parliament, I have seen many excellent reports. This is another one of those. This committee has a wonderful reputation for dealing with issues that are important for and to Australian families. Despite our different experiences and backgrounds, the 10 members of the committee have worked cooperatively to produce this fine but somewhat controversial report.

We heard extensively from witnesses, received I think 188 submissions and travelled not quite the length and breadth of Australia. As I said, I have been on this committee longer than anybody and I was there when it produced the Road to recovery: report on the inquiry into substance abuse in Australian communities, an inquiry which went across two parliaments. To her credit, the chairperson said: ‘That report was about drugs, licit and illicit, and the impact on Australian society. Why don’t we look at the impact of illicit drug use on families?’ We saw it, warts and all.

Sadly, I think people on both sides of politics have recognised that the government’s response to the Road to recovery report was a pretty pathetic response to an issue that governments of all persuasions, both state and federal, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on. It is not an easy issue to resolve, because, once you are addicted, quite often you do not succeed in getting off the drug the first time. You are a repeat offender in the nicest way. As someone who has dealt firsthand with many families of drug addicted young people and, in some cases, drug addicted parents, I have seen them wanting to get off, trying and failing. Sadly, in my state we have the great number of six detox beds for the whole state. If you do want to get off drugs, you cannot get into a detox bed, let alone get into rehab.

In the 31 recommendations, we are urging all the participants, both state and federal, the agencies and the NGOs that are involved in picking up the pieces of these people—there were some wonderful ones that we received evidence from—to work collectively and collaboratively to ensure that those who do want to get off drugs can enter a service as soon as they want to try, rather than be told, ‘Come back in three months and perhaps there will be a detox bed for you,’ or where you may have done your detox, but you cannot get into rehab for another couple of months and you re-offend. I think it was in Darwin that we had someone come in off the street—a young chap if I remember rightly—explaining just how hard it is to succeed.

I guess there are two sides to every story, and we have heard evidence about the arguments between the zero tolerance and the harm minimisation advocates. As the chairperson has said, there is a bit of an industry out there, and it is interesting to see both sides of the spectrum. One of the things I have tried to do in my almost 15 years here is to listen to both sides of the argument, because we are arguing about people’s lives. If we are going to expend a huge amount of money, we need to ensure that that money is spent wisely. I would like to think that none of us have all the answers. We need to work to ensure that not one child in the future decides to pop that pill or to stick that needle in their arm. We need to provide the resources to ensure that those young people—in many cases, young adults and mothers and fathers—do not try those things, because, once you are addicted, it is a huge battle for you to get off drugs.

We heard some horrific evidence in Western Australia—from people who work in the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in Perth—about young drug addicted babies. The chairperson and I were the only two members of the committee to go over and hear that evidence, of hundreds of babies born to drug-addicted mothers. I could never imagine anything worse than a helpless child being brought into this world drug-addicted because of drug abuse by the mother. I think that is about the worst case of child abuse you could ever have—a child being drug-addicted from its first breath in this world.

One of the good things about being on this committee is that you hear things firsthand. I would like this report to be in most people’s bookshelves so that, when they think the whole world is going along swimmingly, they can just pick it up and have a read of some of the evidence.

One of the contentious issues is the default option for adoption of children of drug addicts. We heard some wonderful evidence. If people read nothing else in this report, they should read the last 23 pages of the report, and the evidence from Mrs Rowe, one of those people who pick up the pieces and try and give these young children a start in life. All credit to her—someone who has not just done it once or twice but has fostered in three states as she and her husband have moved around.

I would like to read a couple of quotes from our report. The first is from page 79, where a grandparent—another group of people who pick up the pieces—says:

Our daughter fell pregnant and gave birth to a still born child 16 months ago at 20 weeks gestation… During this pregnancy I tried to alert welfare officers at [a medical centre] of my concerns as to the suitability of the couple as parents given their lifestyle however I was reminded of the privacy act and the fact that it was none of my business… My daughter once again was pregnant and gave birth to a premature baby three weeks ago. This child is still in intensive care and all medical expenses are being covered by the public health system. Once again an attempt was made to make welfare aware of the situation and concern as to suitability as parents. This time they did give us a hearing as they too had been building up their own picture at regular check ups and were also concerned. However, the matter was reported by the hospital welfare officer who was told that not enough evidence was available to raise concerns at this stage. I am assuming therefore that until some physical evidence of abuse is available nothing will be done. This child is extremely small and our concern is that a death may occur.

On page 81 there is evidence from Dr Judith Cashmore of the University of Sydney Law School, who states:

Unfortunately, what tends to happen is a lot of children get lost in the foster system. Unless the birth parents relinquish their rights to the child, many children end up in foster care, going from one foster home to another, because the parents do not want to sign on the dotted line to give up their rights but do not want the kid, either. These children would do amazingly in a permanent family but there is such a ‘blood is thicker than water’ mentality out there…. I do not know if it is blatantly anti adoption or just pro blood relation. I personally feel that some of this may be a swing back from the stolen generation pendulum. It was so extreme 40 or 50 years ago—I have a close friend who was one of the stolen generation—and, to me, it is like it has swung so far the other way. Now you put the kids back with their biological parents regardless of the child’s safety.

Mrs Rowe, also on page 81, states:

They just think blood is thicker than water, that the kids should be with their parents. I think they need to know their history. It is not necessarily good for them to be there; in most cases it is not. I cannot see that it is good for children to be with parents in a situation that means you do not know when you come home from school if you are going to be fed or not.

This default option is a contentious issue but I—unlike the other three Labor Party members—agree: I think the child’s interests are paramount. I have seen it firsthand, in my former life as a teacher and now, as a federal member who has an electorate office in what I lovingly call the ‘ghetto’ in Bridgewater, a pretty low socioeconomic area. I have seen firsthand the intergenerational impact of neglect and abuse of children, especially in this area, and I think it is incumbent upon us as members—national legislators—to get it right.

Sadly, in a way, this report is being tabled at the end of a three-year term when we are about to have an election. This probably will not be one of the key issues on the front pages of the papers or on television or radio, but I would like to think that whoever comes back as a government after this election will look seriously at this. I know the honourable member for Mackellar and other members of the committee who will return—I know they will—will ensure that, whoever the minister is, either Labor or Liberal, this report will be addressed, its 31 wonderful recommendations will be taken on board seriously, and discussions with the state governments and the agencies will see that fewer and fewer of our young people and our families are impacted on by the scourge of illicit drugs.

This will probably be my last speech in this place. I would like to thank, once again, the wonderful members of the secretariat, who have been there a long time; they are the unsung heroes. To the other members of the committee: I thank you for your generosity and your support. As I say, I look forward with interest to seeing that lots of these 31 recommendations are implemented. Thank you.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak again without closing the debate.

Leave granted.

I would like to begin by thanking the members of the committee, including Mr Quick, who has just spoken so passionately, and by acknowledging that the majority of the committee who worked on this report are speaking to it. It is a report that is full of some of the saddest stories I have ever heard.

The secretariat have worked very hard on this. I think the report we have produced is one that is going to have a long life, because it has truly exposed issues that I think governments themselves would not necessarily raise. During a committee meeting this morning, we heard Mr Quick’s words, but also those of Mr Cadman, the member for Mitchell, who said that perhaps part of the value of the work of these committees is that we tackle issues which governments and oppositions might like to leave behind, and we put the spotlight on areas which are, indeed, very upsetting to individuals but which, nonetheless, must be addressed.

I would like to begin by reading an extract from one piece of evidence given to us. Many of the other members who have spoken have quoted what witnesses have told us, because no-one can tell their story better than they can. This one begins:

She started doing ice and the effect of the psychotic drugs over the past three years has been devastating. Paranoia, delusions, madness. I wasn’t living too far from the Cross then and I’d be [walking] in the street and there would be my daughter, my daughter in this crazy out of her head state digging in a park. With a shovel digging for buried treasure …

That is a daughter who has been lost to a mother. In the evidence to the committee, the strains put on the families of drug users came up again and again. What we found is that much of the drug debate up to this point has put the accent on the drug user, the drug addict, without properly assessing the impact and the collateral damage to families and, particularly, to small children.

We heard evidence in Western Australia which Mr Quick mentioned. We heard that out of 5,000 births in that particular hospital 350 children were born to drug addicted parents. We heard that something like 120 of them were heroin addicts and were fed methadone through the course of the pregnancy. So when the children were born they were addicted to methadone—25 of those children did not go home with their parents and another 30 of them were taken back three months later. But there is no longitudinal study to see what the impact on those children is. Nobody knows what has happened to them. I will quote again from Anne Bressington, who gave evidence to us. She said:

... five years ago I took over the care of a little boy who was born addicted to drugs. His mother was a chronic drug addict and prostitute ... She came to me knowing she was unable to care for this child. ... He is now five years old and the first nine months of his life were absolute hell, absolute hell. We do not hear about how many babies are born addicted in this country. Now he was not just a heroin baby; he was a methamphetamine baby, a methadone baby, a dope baby, a pill baby. God knows how he turned out normal. ... He is five now and twice a year now he still wakes up with his sweaty little hands and feet and he does not feel well: his appetite changes, his behaviour changes and do you know what? He has learned to manage that. He says to me, ‘This is not one of my good days.’ At five!

There is evidence from the United States that we really need to get access and circulate here that these children are genetically changed, that their DNA now is different. They will not have the opportunity of their parents to muck around with these drugs for a little while before they become addicted; they are born addicted. They live with that central nervous system disorder. If he has one cone when he is 12, 13 or 14, he is gone. If he has one drink, he is gone. If he has one shot of heroin, he is gone. What are we creating?

We heard stories of children who come home not knowing whether they are going to eat, whether they are going to be fed—stories of children who go to foster parents and the foster parents have to teach those children that it is normal to have three meals a day, to eat at a table and to have a shower once a day. There are children who knew none of this. We heard of the child who would come home and look after its parent who was a drug addict and of children who are forced back to those drug addict parents because within the bureaucracy there is an aversion to adoption and there is this ‘biology first’ principle that somehow children must be forced back into these circumstances.

We took evidence from one foster carer of some 24 years experience who is foster caring for two little children who have disabilities. These are two of six children born to a drug addicted mother, with five fathers. The eldest child is 15; the youngest is one. They are cousins because two of the fathers were brothers. One of the children is dead—the mother fed it methadone. The court said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute but no prosecution came. In November that mother will reapply to get those two children back because the magistrate has the power to grant it. The fact of the matter is that these two children have been in and out of care—to and from the mother—any number of times. It is always the children who suffer.

When those children were last put into care, through the network of foster carers the foster carers who have them now sought to find them because they wanted continuity in the children’s lives, and they managed to get those two children, to foster them again. She told of seven children who are in foster care where the foster care parents want to adopt them. There is a caseworker in the department who is very sympathetic and who is going to try and let that happen, but she knows she will come up against this bureaucratic attitude that adoption is bad, that biological parenting is the best. It is not.

When we were doing our inquiry into overseas adoptions, we took evidence about what was the case in the United States in some states, where, if it was shown on the best evidence available that the parent was never going to be able to parent their child properly, the child was surrendered for adoption. So we have recommended that, where a child is so identified by child protection agencies, there should be a default position, which is that the child should be surrendered for adoption—unless the protection agencies can come up with a plan which can be shown to give a better outcome for the child. In other words, we really need a policy which is in the best interests of the child.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Children first.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Children first. But every individual child has to be thought of not as a prop to help the addicted parent get over the addiction or have a better life but as deserving to have some hope of having a good life and not becoming part of the future generation of addicts.

We found that there is out there what we have called the drug industry elites, who have captured those terms ‘harm minimisation’ and ‘harm reduction’ and think it is okay: ‘Drugs are here. Get used to it—and if we reduce drug usage that is an end in itself.’ They say that by doing this you remove the moral judgement about whether drugs are good or bad. They promote an amoral system where they can have counsellors or other folk who advise people that they can have drugs; just manage them better. It is in their evidence to the committee. It is in the Hansard. What we are saying is no; there needs to be a harm prevention policy, and the prevention policy needs to prevent young people becoming addicted in the first place. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has shown that 77 per cent of people who first start on drugs do so out of curiosity. But, up until the recent spate of commercials that the government has put to air, where has been the counteradvice to kids to say it is not okay?

One person who is part of the drug industry, Mr Dillon, is an advocate who goes around talking to schools, even in my electorate, giving the soft option message. It has got to stop. Kids have to be informed that what they are risking is their mental health, their appearance, their teeth, their skin, their very fibre and indeed their DNA. They have to know the truth of it.

The Lancet, which wrote in 1995 that cannabis, no matter how much you smoked, would not affect you, have now finally said that they were wrong. On 28 July this year they wrote:

In 1995, we began a Lancet editorial with the since much-quoted words, ‘The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.’

They say:

Research published since 1995 … leads us now to conclude that cannabis use could increase the risk of psychotic illness.

They say now:

… governments would do well to invest in sustained and effective education campaigns on the risks to health of taking cannabis.

People who advocate the legalisation, taxation and regulation of cannabis are stuck, like Dr Wodak, back in 1991, when he wrote an essay talking about available heroin and that you can best deal with things by regulation and taxation. Stuck in that old thinking, he was still giving it to us in his testimony before the committee. It is wrong. It is the people who are prepared to admit they were wrong in the Lancet who are the people who are prepared to give kids a break.

We know that kids who are lost from overdose, kids who are lost because of drug use, are loved by their parents. On Friday, when I went back to the office, I did not leave until quarter to seven in the evening because I was returning calls to heartbroken parents who were saying, ‘Thank God the message will go out.’ We have a moral obligation. These policies that we have put forward are based on higher principles. They are morally based. We have a moral obligation to let people know what will happen to them. For those who do slip, we need to have access to detox and to rehabilitation in a timely manner. So often, they will ring up and be told, ‘Ring us back in a fortnight or three months,’ and it is too late. So we have advocated that we set up a one-stop number, an 1800 number. It is modelled shamelessly on the system I put in place in aged care called Carelink, where you break the country into regions and task an NGO with keeping alive all the services that are available in that region. When you ring up, you say where you live and you will be transferred to the person who is responsible for that information, and you get immediate contact.

We have recommended that naltrexone go on the PBS. We visited Dr George O’Neil’s clinic. It is a way of detoxing quickly with an implant, not tablets, which allows people to then go into rehabilitation, because you cannot have rehabilitation unless you are detoxed, and the two have to be put together simultaneously. We know that parents continue to love their children but we know what impact a child who is a drug addict has, not only on the parents but on their siblings, and the appalling effect on babies just has to stop.

This report is a plea from the heart. This report is very specific about what needs to be done to prevent harm—not just to reduce it or minimise it but to prevent it, with the ultimate aim of always making the individual drug free and not sentenced to a lifetime of methadone, which will probably take 46 years off your life expectancy, and not turned into a hag with their teeth falling out. If you think the mouth of a tobacco-smoking person is hideous, look at the mouth of a methadone user. We need an anti-drug campaign—which we recommend—which is of the same reach, intensity and spend as the anti-tobacco campaign. We must get that message across. This is a report which has a life and must live, whoever wins this election.

Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The title of this report The winnable war on drugs: the impact of illicit drug use on families by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services is apt, because I believe that the war on drugs is winnable. The recommendations from this report provide a frame of reference for changing the future direction of how we tackle the challenges of individuals and families as a result of addiction to illicit drugs.

I stand today with a degree of credibility, having worked as a social worker for 25 years in Western Sydney. For 10 of those years, I spent a considerable amount of time visiting prisoners on a voluntary basis. I worked face to face with families and individuals who had this challenge. Over the course of the inquiry, what became evident was that the rhetoric, the language, the communication of many people who are trying to help people get off drugs—‘harm minimisation’ and so on—is setting a bar that does not place value on individuals and families across this nation.

We had a young man by the name of Ryan present to us his story. After a 12-month rehab program and long support by his family—and the broader family of his church—he is now living a healthy lifestyle. He is married, he is working and he has a great future ahead of him. But he told us about the number of times that he had tried to access services—hospital, detox or rehab—and time and time again he was told: ‘Methadone is an option. This is an option. Try this.’ He was basically told, ‘This is not something that you’re going to break.’ We need to recognise that people actually have a future and there is hope for every individual and family. No-one ought to be put on the scrap heap. No-one ought to be told that there is no way for you to become free of your addiction and develop a healthy lifestyle and a healthy future, where you can work, have a family and enjoy all the benefits that most of us take for granted.

I want to focus on a couple of the recommendations, starting with recommendation 2. I think a longitudinal study is definitely overdue, particularly focusing on the comparisons of outcomes for alternatives to methadone, including buprenorphine, naltrexone and supervised detoxification and withdrawal, with regard to which options are in the best interests of the child.

When this inquiry was beginning, I had the opportunity to speak to some policemen who work in my local community. One of them, a homicide detective, brought to me a story of a baby that had died as a result of drugs—and it was not the first incident that I had had related to me. That four-month-old baby did not make the choice to ingest those drugs itself. A four-month-old baby cannot do that. An adult, a parent, gave that child the drugs. That baby is dead. Its future, its potential, is completely removed off this planet. That is the most important thing: our children. What are we going to do? Are we going to continue to relegate our children to this lack of future?

Recommendation 3 focuses on the need for the Minister for Health and Ageing to disallow the provision of takeaway methadone through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for drug users who are parents and have children living in their household. I heartily agree with that. It needs to happen as soon as possible. We need to save our children. We need to give them an opportunity for a future.

Recommendation 4 focuses on the Department of Health and Ageing, as part of the next funding round for the Non-Government Organisation Treatment Grants Program, giving urgent priority funding for residential treatment services to provide for children to live with their mothers. I hear from so many single mothers that have challenges fighting addiction to drugs. They desire to come off drugs and there are very few places available. In fact, in Sydney there is only one place, Jarrah House, and the waiting list is very long. I may have a single mum in my office or be visiting them, and I ring Jarrah House and it takes months to get them in. In many cases when that person has come in, they want help, they are ready to do something there and then, and that is when they need the help. The help needs to be available at that point in time.

Many of the recommendations here focus on the importance of a one-stop shop. I think there should be an integrated service, where people not only come and ask for help but then get the detox. There are not enough detox places. We need to have sufficient places. From the detox, people need to be linked directly into rehab. Right now it is just a battle for people to get any kind of help when they want help. It is just not good enough.

Recommendation 6 says that the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs should include in the legislative instrument covering the implementations of the income management provisions of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Act requirements that the child protection authorities must notify Centrelink when a child protection substantiation detects any illicit drug use by a parent and that this notification shall activate the income management regime provisions.

I think this is critical. While I have a great deal of compassion for many parents who are struggling to get off drugs, I think it is not good that their income support is used to supply their habit and the child is left without food or a roof over their head. I think it is important that we make sure that the child and their needs are a No. 1 priority.

Recommendation 8 includes the following:

The Commonwealth Government develop and bring to the Council of Australian Governments a national illicit drug policy that:

• replaces the current focus of the National Drug Strategy on harm minimisation with a focus on harm prevention and treatment that has the aim of achieving permanent drug-free status for individuals with the goal of enabling drug users to be drug free;

It is about setting goals for the best possible future. That has to be the goal of every funding contribution we make. The goal has to be for them to be drug free, not drug dependent for years. Recommendation 10 is to:

• amend the National Pharmacotherapy Policy for People Dependent on Opioids to specify that the primary objective of pharmacotherapy treatment is to end an individual’s opioid use; and
• renegotiate funding arrangements for methadone maintenance programs to require the states and territories to commit sufficient funding to provide comprehensive support services to meet the revised National Pharmacotherapy Policy for People Dependent on Opioids objective.

While for some methadone is a form of treatment that helps them to maintain their lifestyle and then be able to step off drugs, for many that is not the case: after a decade or, in some instances, two decades or longer, they are still taking the same high dose of methadone: 110 millilitres. I have had so many people like that in my office over the years and there has been no sign of reduction. Having talked to their treatment supervisor or to the clinic, I have noted there is no plan in place for that individual to actually reduce their dose. While they are on methadone, often they engage in use of other illicit drugs and this further erodes not just their health but the health and lifestyle of their family and the safety of their children in many instances. So I think it is absolutely critical that we focus on encouraging, where there are methadone programs, those programs that actually focus on reducing a person’s dependence on the drug and providing them with those additional services and support, including those from their family, so that they can reach the goal of a drug-free lifestyle.

Looking at further recommendations, recommendation 22 focuses again on strengthening families through treatment:

The Department of Health and Ageing include, as part of the next round of illicit drug treatment funding agreements, requirements that:

• treatment organisations collect and report data on their success rate in making individuals drug free after they have completed their initial treatment; and
• give priority to funding those treatment approaches that demonstrate their success in making individuals drug free.

I acknowledge here that, for many people who have managed to secure that drug-free lifestyle and have to fight and work for it, it takes great determination and an incredible amount of support and resources. For many of those people it has required more than one attempt. The first attempt does not always work, but I think there needs to be some measure to ensure that, through the programs that are supported and funded, that is their goal.

Finally, I would like to make a comment about recommendation 5. Having worked in the child protection area for a number of years, I think the statement needs to be made that the state is not the better parent. In many instances, permanent care orders are not effective. With permanent care orders, the parent can take the state department or the foster family back to court, and time and time again the child gets moved in and out of care, from a stable family environment back to their parent and back to the state. If you talk to any foster care body, whether it be a state or non-government organisation, you will find there are not enough foster care placements available for all the children who are impacted by their parent’s use of illicit drugs. I think that the option of adoption needs to be carefully looked at. Obviously, we need to be certain, as much as possible—as much as anybody can be certain—that the parent will not be able to provide a long-term, safe, secure, healthy environment for their child and that it is in the best interests of the child that an adoption be pursued. That is a good recommendation that focuses on the child.

Every individual and family can live free of the impacts of illicit drug use. These recommendations provide an opportunity for us to set a framework for the future that will improve the chances for individuals and families to achieve that outcome of a drug-free lifestyle. If even some of these recommendations are implemented, it will head in the right direction. We cannot sit by. After all my experience, I think we cannot remain silent. Families, individuals and children do deserve much better. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mr Danby) adjourned.