Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism. Will the minister advise the House what the government is doing to protect families across Australia, including in regional communities like mine, from the scourge of the insidious drug ice?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mallee for that question. I acknowledge that he has been one of the members who initially raised with me the issue of ice addiction, particularly in rural and regional Victoria. I also would like to inform the House that the final consultation of the National Ice Taskforce is actually occurring in his electorate today.

Since the establishment of that task force, under the chairmanship of the former Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay, both the task force members, Minister Nash, members on this side of the House and I have been consulting the community, and we have had consultations, significantly in every state and territory, about the menace of ice and what we can do about it. By the time the National Ice Taskforce gets to hand its interim report to the Prime Minister around the middle of this year, communities across Australia would have been able to have their say.

Separately from these consultations the task force has received 1,300 submissions from people who are concerned about the scourge of ice. Minister Nash and I have had frank and useful conversations with our respective state and territory counterparts. These consultations will inform a report to government and ultimately the development of a national ice action strategy. The strategy will seek to improve coordination and collaboration by all levels of government across law enforcement, health and education. We are doing this because the government is determined to do everything we can to target the creep of ice. We are concerned about it because, according to statistics about the use of ice, 200,000 Australians have used it in the past 12 months and, overall, we know that one in 14 Australians have tried methamphetamine. Because of these high levels of use we also know that 60 per cent of the most serious organised crime figures in Australia are involved in the distribution of ice, and the high price that we pay for the drug is acting as a honeypot effect, luring in organised criminals from all over the world to involve themselves in its distribution.

As the member for Mallee has reminded us, this is not just an issue for the inner-city areas of our biggest cities, as some other drugs are. This is an issue that, very sadly, is permeating our rural and regional communities as well. It is vital that our parents and young people understand that this drug is extremely addictive and that using it can have very significant consequences. The Australian Crime Commission says that they are more concerned about this drug than any other illicit drug type. They are concerned about it because of the violent, menacing and irrational way that people behave when they are under its influence. This is why we have rolled out a public education campaign. It goes hand in glove with the very significant work that our law enforcement agencies are doing on disrupting the distribution of ice.

I also raised it with my state and territory colleagues at the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council, where we agreed to have a national strategy that will stop the legitimate precursor chemicals from being diverted into the production of ice. We are doing this to stop our young people, in particular, from going down the dark path of addiction, and we will continue to work with communities about what we are going to do to stop ice affecting our communities around Australia.