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

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) illicit drugs can cause untold harm in our communities and on our streets; and

(b) the Government:

(i) is committed to targeting the supply, demand, and harm caused to our communities by the scourge of illicit drugs; and

(ii) has made significant investments in our law enforcement agencies to do all they can to keep drugs off our streets;

(2) acknowledges that:

(a) in the last two years alone, our agencies have detected and intercepted more than 12.5 tonnes of narcotics that have been attempted to be imported into Australia; and

(b) Australian law enforcement officers continue to confront Australia's drug market and combat the criminal syndicates that peddle illicit drugs; and

(3) calls on all members of the House to promote greater awareness of the harmful effects of illicit drugs on individuals and communities across Australia and support our law enforcement agencies in keeping drugs off our streets.

Firstly in this motion, we note that illicit drugs can cause untold harm in our communities and on our streets and that the government is committed to targeting the supply, the demand and the harm caused to our communities by the scourge of illicit drugs. Secondly, we note that the government has made significant investments in our law enforcement agencies for them to do all they can to keep drugs off our streets. We acknowledge that in the last two years alone our agencies have detected and intercepted more than 12.5 tonnes of narcotics that have been attempted to be imported into Australia. We also acknowledge that Australian law enforcement officers continue to confront Australia's drug market and combat the criminal syndicates that peddle illicit drugs. Thirdly, we call on all members of the House to promote greater awareness of the harmful effects of illicit drugs on individuals and communities across Australia and to support our law enforcement agencies in keeping drugs off our streets.

The Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, which I am the chairman of, have been having a very extensive inquiry into the scourge of crystal methamphetamine and its effect across our country. We have seen some very alarming evidence in our inquiry. We have been to hospitals, and we have heard how the emergency rooms of hospitals are being greatly disturbed and affected by people coming in affected by crystal methamphetamine. We have heard in Saint Vincent's Hospital Sydney about patients coming in and physically ripping monitors off the wall, something that requires superhuman strength, and throwing them across the room. We have seen that in the hospital emergency rooms they have to have special lock-ups, almost detention cells, where they can put these people into virtually a special padded cell within the emergency room to try to keep them away from other patients. We have seen the amazing work that our doctors are doing in this area in the emergency wards, and we give all credit to them. We also heard from parents who lost their kids to the scourge of drugs in most tragic and heartbreaking circumstances—loving parents who gave evidence before us, telling the circumstances of how drugs took the lives of their children.

We also heard evidence from our law enforcement officials. What they told us, which was quite surprising, is that the street price for crystal methamphetamine in Australia is the highest in the world. They said that nowhere is the drug's street price for drug dealers as high as in Australia, and, because it is so high, it is attracting criminal gangs and smugglers from all over the world who are targeting Australia. The drugs come from multiple sources—through China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. Drugs are being manufactured in these countries, many of which have drug problems of their own, and imported into Australia.

The difficulty for our customs and border protection forces is that the drugs are physically so small and difficult to detect. So, whilst we congratulate the great work of our law enforcement officials, one of the particular concerns I have is the source of supply. Even if we were able to have a real clampdown and cut off that supply it would only boost the price and attract more and more people into the market. Ultimately we have to work on education. We have to work more on educating our young people and help them to realise the harm that these drugs do to them. That is certainly not an easy task. We heard from specialists in this field who explained to us the difficulty of trying to educate the young, who have immature minds that do not have fully developed powers of reasoning and logic, who are being taken by the scourge of these drugs. We need to continue to work on this. I believe the key focus going forward must be education.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

I want to thank the member for Hughes for putting forward this motion about such a critical issue. Illegal drugs affect every single person in this chamber through the communities that we represent. Every electorate between mine, as the member for Hotham, the electorate of the member for Hughes and the electorates of the member for Herbert and the member for Holt behind me—all of us represent families and communities who have been touched by illegal drugs.

A lot of the focus of the comments from the member for Hughes today was on ice. I think that is appropriate. Certainly in the conversations that I have with law enforcement there is no doubt that there has not been a drug in this country for a long, long time that has had the vast repercussions for communities that ice has. Ice does not discriminate. In my electorate I have families from very different walks of life who have been touched by ice.

Unfortunately, it is not just about the people who are affected and their families; it is often about the criminal behaviour that results. The member for Hughes mentioned the impact on first respondents. This is something else that I hear a lot about in my discussions with people around Australia. The fact that we have people who have devoted their lives to helping the sick and protecting the community who are then subject to what is pretty serious danger from people who are addicted to this horrible drug is just not tolerable. That is why I am very supportive of having a rich discussion in this House about what it is that we need to be doing to help protect the community better, and I think that there are some things that we can do along the lines of what will be discussed today. Before I talk a little bit about the specifics of the problem, I want to acknowledge the incredible work that is being done by law enforcement, not just on ice but across the spectrum of illegal drugs.

The motion notes that in the previous two years our agencies have detected and intercepted 12.5 tonnes of narcotics entering our community. That in itself is an extraordinary achievement. And just last month we saw the Australian Federal Police and Border Force seize 540 kilograms of methylamphetamine in Sydney. This was one of the 10-largest drug hauls in Australia's history, and stopped $300 million worth of drugs from entering the Australian market. These are important notes about the impact that law enforcement is able to have on this problem, and I think a testament to the hard work that is being done behind the scenes on this.

But despite these busts, what I hear when I talk to law enforcement people around the country is that we are fighting an uphill battle—against ice, in particular. In fact, I often hear from law enforcement that they will make a huge drug bust, take millions and millions of dollars worth of drugs of the street and then they will look to the market to see a price response—for the price to go up—but they see nothing. That tells us something very important, and that is that we are probably not yet winning that war against the supply that is heading out into our streets and that addicts are able to get in touch with.

There is pretty good data that tells us that this problem is actually getting worse over time. The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program report found that current methylamphetamine levels are consistently increasing and that they are at historic highs. We do know, and the people involved with this problem are well aware, that the worst state for this by far is Western Australia, where we can see the highest levels of methylamphetamine use around the country.

We have some Queensland members of parliament who will be speaking on the motion today. I note that the evidence of their discussion is that the methylamphetamine price has halved in South-East Queensland in the last year. We have also heard reports that guns are increasingly being used to trade ice. So I think there is very much evidence there that this is a significant problem which is creating a lot of crime around it.

I want to say that it is important in this parliament that we do all we can to help law enforcement to tackle this problem. One of the things that I have talked about consistently since I have been shadow minister for justice is the issue around Australian Federal Police funding and cuts that have been made to this organisation. We saw in the 2017-18 budget, released just a few weeks ago, that the AFP is losing funding and staff over the forward estimates. Over the next year alone, the Australian Federal Police will lose 151 staff members. Now, we have a united front in this parliament for tackling of illegal drugs, but we do need to call out the importance of resourcing this problem. I would ask the government to take that into account when they are looking at how to tackle this terrible scourge which is affecting families right around the country.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the member for Hughes for raising this motion and focusing the attention of those of us in this place on the continuing impact of illicit drugs on our community.

Drugs destroy lives. They diminish a person's mental capacity; they alter a person's behaviour and personality; they lead to mental health disorders, to violence and to crime; and their effect on families and communities can be devastating. I remember as a child the campaign spearheaded by the former First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, to encourage children just to say no. I remember John Howard's 'Tough on drugs' strategy, spearheaded by Brian Waters of the Salvation Army, which is at the front line of dealing with this issue. But we do not seem to hear those sorts of messages as much as we used to.

Instead, dance parties are held all over the country and have become venues for dealing in ecstasy. Casual cocaine use in fashionable suburbs among professionals is on the increase. Marijuana is decriminalised in some jurisdictions and, as we have heard from previous speakers, the ice epidemic is in every single community. And whilst smoking and alcohol use rates declined significantly between 2001 and 2016, illicit drug use rates over the same period have remained fairly constant.

There is perhaps an erroneous view that the war on drugs is too hard; that young people are not listening and that we should give up trying. That is not a view I accept. At the end of 2016 I conducted a community survey in Berowra. Over one-third of respondents listed the scourge of drugs as a major concern. And while some of the traditional messages are not working, I want to suggest a new angle on the campaign to highlight and to reduce drug use dependency, and that is the mental health risks associated with illicit drug use.

This is an issue that the public is not hearing enough about. I want to talk about this issue because I made mental health one of the key issues that I want to work on during my time in this place. Drugs, including cannabis, methamphetamines and ecstasy potentially have severe and lasting damaging effects on the mental health of substance users. There is dramatic impact on brain development and cognitive function. A substantial body of international research links substance use and psychiatric disorders. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health in the United States found that over 40 per cent of adult drug addicts also suffered from mental health disorders. It found that those with a substance use disorder in the past year were more than five times more likely to attempt suicide.

Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in Australia. Some people think it is a safe drug, but they are wrong. The National Drug Strategy Household Survey found in 2004 that more than one in three Australians aged over 14 had used cannabis in their lifetime, and in 2016 more than 10 per cent of Australians had used cannabis in the past year. Research shows that cannabis is linked to mood disorders, depression and psychotic disorders including psychosis and schizophrenia. I am particularly concerned about the impacts of drug use, particularly cannabis, on young people as the brain continues to undergo critical growth and development during this period. A German study of 2,400 young people found that exposure to cannabis during adolescence and young adulthood increases the risk of psychotic symptoms later in life. Further studies in Australia and the United States found the use of cannabis increased the major risk of depression by a factor of four and was associated with an increase in suicidal thoughts. So much for a safe drug!

The dangers associated with drug use in our communities are not limited to cannabis. Methamphetamine users exhibit major psychological and behavioural problems, including psychosis, anxiety, depression and cognitive problems. A 2014 inquiry by the Victorian government found dependent meth users are three times more likely to suffer impairment in their mental health functioning, with rates of major depression and anxiety disorders substantially higher than in the general population.

Hospitalisation rates connect illicit drugs with admission for mental health conditions. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found in 2014-15 that 7.3 per cent of mental health related hospital separations without specialised psychiatric care were due to psychoactive substance use, with more than 7,000 hospitalisations recorded. I know from my involvement on the boards of hospitals in Victoria and New South Wales, which run mental health units, that many of the patients in these units have multiple drug-induced psychoses. These patients can be violent, putting the safety of other patients and staff at risk. We need to hear more about the mental health effects of drug use.

Every year we hear in the media the reports of somebody who has died from a drug overdose. A former constituent of mine, Tony Wood, was at the forefront of the campaign to stop young people dying. His daughter, Anna, died 20 years ago, and he said:

We hoped Anna's death would make a difference, but we are not making progress against drugs. I think the pro-legalisation lobby has a lot to answer for. They keep on about harm reduction. They say just take the stuff safely.

But there is no safe way. You just don't know what will happen when you take drugs.

The reason Anna took ecstasy was the same reason most kids take drugs: they are fashionable and available. We have to stop them being fashionable.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also thank the member for Hughes for his motion.

The damages caused to social cohesion by illicit drug use places a heavy burden on government authorities, while also affecting the productivity of the nation.

That is a statement taken from a briefing paper prepared by the New South Wales Parliamentary Research Service which I believe encapsulates the heart of this issue about illicit drugs. According to the 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, 43 per cent of Australians reported having used illicit drugs at some point in their lives, whether it be for experimentation or dependency purposes. This statistic is a snapshot that shows the prevalence of illicit drugs in our community, with almost one in every two Australians having some exposure throughout their lives.

Illicit drug use is the cause of considerable concern across Australian society, particularly for young people. Although only a small proportion of people use illicit drugs on a dependency basis, the related harms to people using drugs in our community are nevertheless of very significant concern. Illicit drug use affects not only the individuals involved but also their families, their friends and businesses; indeed, it impacts on government resources. The obvious harm to individuals from drug abuse includes chronic illness, serious mental health issues, depression and in some cases, as we all know, death. Bear in mind that these health issues are born out of drug use. Also, there is a significant economic and social burden placed on our government resources—and, ultimately, the taxpayer—that flows from drug crime in our communities.

Studies have shown that many parents who are involved in drugs often put the needs of their drug dependency well ahead of welfare for their children. This should raise serious concern for all of us that live within communities. The risk is even greater when parents are involved in the manufacture of illicit drugs or the cultivation of hydroponically grown marijuana in domestic environments. Earlier this month, Strike Force Zambesi arrested a 43-year-old woman after they seized 58 cannabis plants from her Fairfield West home in my electorate. What was more concerning about this story was: in the home at the time of the search—when the drugs were found—were her four children. They were living in the house. Crime syndicates often prey on vulnerable people, many of whom have run up significant gambling debts to loan sharks. They are referred off to drug syndicates and they are entrapped in this illicit drug crime. Drug crime also has an impact on businesses. It is about not just whether a person can hold down a full-time job but whether a person will put others at risk, or, alternatively, whether they are involved in areas requiring high-level decisions or cooperation with others. These are concerns to the community as a whole.

Drug use in my electorate was once very, very high. Cabramatta was once known as the heroin capital of the nation. Cabramatta has certainly come a long way over the years, thanks to our police. Drugs still remain a concern, with ice, specifically, being problematic to our local area. The prevalence of methamphetamine has certainly been on the increase over the last five years. Presently, Cabramatta accounts for 26 per cent of all drug possession incidents. That is up 41 per cent over the last five years. To put this in some perspective, of the 64 search warrants executed by Cabramatta police between July 2015 and June 2016, police located drugs in 57 of those 64 incidences. I have nothing but pride in our local police, particularly their use of the MERIT Program, the Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment Program. This has accounted for many young people being saved from a dependency on drug life.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Melbourne Age reported on September 30 last year that almost 40,000 frontline workers will be trained in how to deal with ice-affected people, in an admission that the drug epidemic is taking a toll on an unprecedented number of workers. The paper had earlier reported that:

The devastating impact of the drug ice has hit Victorian schools, with agencies fielding calls from desperate principals wanting help.

Students are turning up to class ravaged by ice, or crystal methamphetamine, with some teachers now working in pairs for safety.

Australia's approach to the challenge of illicit drug use has broadly fallen into three, possibly four, phases. Approximately a decade in length beginning in 1985, the first phase was a response to the outbreak of HIV AIDS. In an endeavour to reduce injury while not stigmatising the inflicted, a policy of harm reduction was adopted. Deliberately or otherwise, the previous approached was changed. Drug use was seen as a legitimate lifestyle choice.

The policy drift away from prevention was reversed by the Howard government in 1998. Implementing a tough-on-drugs program, the national government placed greater emphasis on the reduction of illicit drug supply and prevention through education, diversion and treatment programs. The implementation of a balanced model, more akin to the Swedish approach, drew local critics who regarded addicts as victims. Since the Howard era, drug policy in practice returned to the earlier harm reduction model. While prevention is given lip-service, the emphasis remains on decreasing the injury to individuals rather than tackling the supply and the use of illicit drugs as such.

A fourth phase has hopefully replaced the third following widespread community concern about the ice epidemic. The National Ice Taskforce, established by the Howard government in 2015, found that more than 200,000 Australians were using the crystalline form of methamphetamine, commonly known as ice, in 2013 compared to fewer than 100,000 in 2007. It found that the distress that the ice causes to individuals, families, communities and frontline workers is disproportionate to that caused by other drugs. It proposed both primary prevention and effective treatment.

So, looking at these four phases, what has been the impact of the previous various approaches? First, illicit drug use increased from 39.3 per cent of people aged 14 years and older in 1995 to 46 per cent in 1998. In 2001 it had fallen back to 37.7 per cent, rising to 38.1 per cent in 2004. But, since 2007, it has climbed again, to 41.8 per cent. Secondly, the death rates from opiate overdose for persons aged 15 to 54 increased from 36.6 deaths per million in 1988 to 101.9 in 1991. From 1999 to 2004 they fell back to 31.3 deaths per million. In 2004 there were 320 overdose deaths. By 2011, the number had risen to 715. Thirdly, hepatitis C infections also increased significantly, to a peak of 14,000 new cases in 1999, before falling in the following years. Fourthly, the use of methamphetamines has escalated to alarming levels over the past decade. We know that, for some people, tragically, ice can trigger psychological disturbances or violent or aggressive behaviour. Long-term use may damage the brain and cause impaired attention, memory and motor skills.

So we see that, in terms of the intensity or the incidence of use, the use of these drugs has largely replicated the approaches that have been taken over the last 20 to 30 years or so. When the policy has been one which has been lax on drug use, adverse consequences have gone up and when it has been a tougher approach, particularly on prevention and supply, use has gone down. Evidence reveals that Australia's recent approach is far from world's best practice and is failing many individuals and families. Therefore, a return to a policy of education, prevention and early treatment and rehabilitation is overly warranted.

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hughes for moving this motion as illicit drug use is a very important issue in our contemporary times. Before being elected as the member for Herbert in the 2016 federal election I worked for 15 years in the community and mental health sector working across north and western Queensland from Palm Island to Mount Isa, where I saw firsthand the devastating impact of illicit drugs on individuals, families, emergency services and communities. The reality is that the management and control of illicit drugs in communities requires more than a law and order solution. Addressing the issue of illicit drugs also requires a social and health solution. Illicit drugs have a huge emotional and financial impact on the health of the drug user themselves, their families and their communities. The use of illicit drugs has had an extremely negative impact on my electorate of Herbert, where youth crime has been a major issue which has often involved desperate young drug users.

I acknowledge the difficult and hard work carried out by Australia's law enforcement agencies in tackling illicit drugs. This motion has revealed that, in the previous two years, our agencies detected, intercepted and prevented more than 12.5 tonnes of narcotics from entering our community. In fact, last month, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force seized 540 kilograms of methamphetamine in Sydney. This was one of the 10 largest drug hauls in our country's history and stopped an estimated $324 million worth of drugs from entering the Australian market. These are significant achievements and are a testament to the commitment and hard work of our law enforcement officers.

However, despite successful interceptions, our agencies are fighting an uphill battle as Australia's drug problem is getting worse and worse. This year's National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program report found that methamphetamine levels have been consistently increasing and are currently at historic highs. Increasingly, the highest methamphetamine levels were in fact in the Minister for Justice's home state of Western Australia. The Crime and Corruption Commission's Illicit drug markets in Queensland: 2015–16 intelligence assessment has stated:

The demand for illicit drugs and the huge profits to be made from supplying them in Queensland, particularly in regional areas, has made Queensland an attractive market for interstate and internationally based crime groups to expand their criminal activities. Our previous assessment of illicit drug markets conducted in 2012 identified that organised crime groups were starting to establish themselves in areas previously unaffected by traditional drug supply chains. Since 2012 there has been greater targeting of regional areas such as Toowoomba, Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Townsville and Cairns, particularly by interstate-based crime groups.

Methylamphetamine continues to be rated as the illicit drug market that poses the highest level of risk (Very High)—due to the high level of organised crime involvement and the significant harms the drug causes to individual users and the community. The main change in this market since 2012 has been a shift in the form of methylamphetamine, with increased supply and demand for high purity crystal ("ice") rather than powder, and an increase in imported final product compared with locally produced methylamphetamine.

But these are not just figures. There is a human cost to every shipment of ice: every criminal syndicate that gets their hands on a source of revenue and every addict that easily gets another hit. In my community I have seen an illicit drug user released on parole, and within a matter of days he had murdered an elderly woman in her home in a bungled home invasion. On 5 April 2017, the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, the Shadow Minister for Justice, Clare O'Neil, and myself conducted an ice forum where we talked with ambulance officers and policemen and women who are often put in situations where they have no idea how offenders will react upon engaging with them either on the streets or in their homes. The violence towards first responders is simply unacceptable. Clearly, we need to do more.

On 8 May this year the Prime Minister and the Minster for Justice announced an additional $321 million in funding for the AFP and an extra 300 AFP personnel. Sadly, in the 2017-18 budget we saw that despite this announcement the AFP is actually losing funding and staff. Next year the AFP budget will be cut and they will lose over 150 staff. Again, instead of supporting law enforcement and intelligence organisations, this government is cutting funding to important bodies. Illicit drugs are having a significant impact on our communities from crime, domestic violence and health perspectives. This government must fully fund agencies and organisations to address this serious issue because not to do so is a failure that will simply have a negative impact. (Time expired)

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to compliment each of the speakers and thank the member for Hughes for bringing this illicit drug motion before the House. We have heard speakers from both sides of the House put their heartfelt cases forward as to what needs to be done in this space.

I will not detain the House longer than I have to, but I do want to make a plea to the users and the potential users—our children in our community, our children of the state and our children of this nation. I ask the question first: what is the draw? Why are the youth of today drawn towards such a horrific drug? We have heard from the previous speaker, who worked in mental health. It must be horrifying.

I have the story of Nathan, an incredibly talented young footballer who was potentially going to be signed up by the Broncos. That was his goal. He was conducting a second and third year of apprenticeship. By all stretches of the imagination, he was exceeding in his field. He got tied up with ice and spent some time in the mental health facilities in Rockhampton. He was convicted, sentenced and did time in the Etna Creek jail. Nathan will never be the same. I know this about Nathan because he is my nephew. It is a terrible scourge. My sister went through just hell. You often hear people say, 'He was a good kid.'

My plea to law-abiding children of this country is be strong; do not make the mistake. It is a terrible drug. Just say no. Get high on life through sport or the warmth of your friends or whatever, but, if you have got a choice, just back out of the drug scene. There is no upside to it. The only people who prosper out of the drug scene are the pushers, who take your money to make more drugs. Stop the cycle; just say no. It is so difficult. My request is so simple. It is a plea not only to make our communities safer but to not destroy lives. It is a plea for the kids to just back out of it, to say no.

If you are tempted and you need to speak to someone, there is a lot of support out there in the community for you. Strangely enough, go and have a chat to an emergency services worker, your local sergeant or an ambulance driver. I am horrified when I catch up with our emergency services personnel. They are increasingly saying that the younger women that are affected by drugs are now becoming the aggressor in engagements.

Drugs have been around for ages—the sixties, the seventies, the eighties—but this is a terrible drug. In summary, my plea to our kids is: just back out of it; do not take drugs.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion on this important issue of illicit drugs as well. We are really faced with two policy frontiers. The first is there has been a lot of discussion around random illicit drug testing of jobseekers. The second is the issue of caregivers. This is primarily the responsibility of the states and territories, but I want to put to this chamber the importance of testing caregivers, which the Queensland government performed earlier this year. What they found was that, of child notifications in Queensland, 60 per cent of caregivers were ice positive—not six or 16 per cent.

The drug ice or the simpler versions of amphetamine have come within five years from being an also-ran to now passing alcohol to be the No. 1 clear and present danger in raising children. In Queensland alone, with 9,000 children requiring protection and only about 3,000 of them finding foster care arrangements, we have to be genuinely concerned about the thousands of children in Queensland living with ice-addicted parents. Before we get too hostile about random drug testing and say that we are selecting or picking on a particular demographic, I would ask for the counterargument: how exactly do we break this nexus of ice addiction where children are involved, where children are in the house?

We have about 20 deaths in Queensland each year that are difficult to explain. Often ice is not mentioned as a precursor because it is deemed a mental health issue, so of course the general public does not know the extent of the challenge. But where children end up at the bottom of a pool because the parents are sleeping off ice upstairs, where children are locked in bathrooms in nappies that have not been changed because adults are walking in and out of the house trying to pay off drug debts, the state has to do something. Under current law, a housing agency can have a suspicion because of a complaint which is passed to police, who can do a welfare check but cannot enter the dwelling. It is preposterous that every second police officer cannot even do a drug test because they are not credentialled to. They are limited to—do not be so bemused—driving past the house and waiting until the occupants jump into a vehicle in order to be able to use current laws around operation of a vehicle. This is an incredibly serious challenge. Currently we are let down, even though the technology is there to test. We need to engage in this area or we will see more than 60 per cent of those at risk of ice addiction leaving children utterly exposed.

The other fad I want to talk about is pill testing, particularly at music festivals, where it is trendy for anyone slightly to the Left of the political spectrum to say what a fantastic idea it is to be able to pill-test. Pills do not belong at music festivals. Pills do not belong in your pockets at music festivals, and no-one should have to tolerate a person consuming illicit drugs sitting next to them at a music festival that is run by an entity responsible for the safety of attendees—basic common sense. But as a doctor I say to you: before you do colorimetry at a music festival and tell festivalgoers, 'Your E's are safe,' let us remember colorimetry has a 15 per cent false-positive rate. What does a musical festival goer do when you test one pill and tell them, 'Your bag of 20 is no good'? What does the person do? They return to the music festival and sell them because they are no good. No-one surrenders bad pills. How do you test a pill if its heterogeneous content is such that you test one side of a pill, or one pill in a batch, and it is completely different to the other? These are amateur-cooked tablets. You cannot just test one part of a tablet and say the whole batch is okay. What happens when someone says, 'That pill is okay,' so a young Australian takes five of them—because they are 'okay'? True testing of these drugs requires laboratory analysis, which, apart from being $300 a test, cannot be done in the time required at a music festival.

A focus on harm reduction is incredibly short sighted when, in fact, there is no harm reduction when you identify a pill as not safe and the owner simply goes and resells it to someone else because it is not. In these pills they substitute the ice derivative with other, more lethal elements in order to give the high but save their money, because it is cheaper and easier to manufacture. This is the challenge. What is in these tablets is not talcum powder; it is actually more dangerous, with a lower lethal dose, and it is utterly random. Colorimetry does not pick that up. Colorimetry just says there is a little bit of ice in that tablet, so it is okay. That is all colorimetry does on the spot. Pill testing at music festivals is a joke. We need a way to help families where there is ice addiction—and, first of all, remember the greatest challenge here in this ice addiction issue are children themselves.

Debate adjourned.