Ben Morton (Tangney, 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 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 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.

I've spoken often in our parliament, including in my maiden speech, about the scourge of drugs, and particularly ice. I have seen firsthand how drugs can burn even the closest of bonds, and I've seen the intersection of welfare and drugs in our community. The National Ice Action Strategy recognises the complex and long-lasting impact of drugs in our community. We need collaboration at all levels of government, across health, education and law enforcement agencies, to beat the scourge of ice. The Turnbull government has made investments in tackling the supply of ice and other drugs through increased international cooperation, intelligence-sharing, better controls of precursor chemicals and greater law enforcement to prevent drugs reaching Australia. The joint ministerial responsibility for delivering the National Ice Action Strategy is with the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health. COAG has agreed to establish a Ministerial Drug and Alcohol Forum of health and justice ministers from all states and territories that allows coordinated decision making in relation to drug and alcohol policy issues across Australia. Through the forum the Commonwealth is developing a new international ice strategy that consolidates existing law enforcement efforts to disrupt the supply of ice. Taskforce Blaze is a joint agency task force between the AFP and the Chinese National Narcotics Control Commission. It has intercepted more than 13 tonnes of illicit drugs destined for our streets here in Australia. The National Anti-Gangs Squad has seized $5.6 million in cash and illegal drugs, including more than 170 kilograms of methamphetamine. The AFP continues to collaborate with the states and territories to expand its rapid lab capability, which detects the supply of drugs through the international mail system.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission will also develop a national electronic system to give police real-time information about the sales of precursor chemicals and equipment used in drug manufacture. The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program is detecting ice hot spots and collecting data on how drugs are being used in our communities. The second National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program report, completed earlier this year, tested for ice and 12 other drugs at 37 wastewater treatment plants across the country, capturing data on about 51 per cent of Australia's population. The report shows a small reduction across the country in ice use, but a massive challenge remains ahead of us. The wastewater report confirms that ice remains the most highly used illicit drug across Australia. Ice consumption remained highest in my home state of Western Australia and in South Australia, although there has been a decline since the historical highs in October 2016. The report also highlighted an increase in cocaine use here in the Australian Capital Territory and in Victoria. Importantly, this regular data allows law enforcement agencies to target criminals and the supply of drugs at hotspots. The data will also ensure that we continue to monitor health responses and better target services to the communities where they are needed the most.

The government has invested almost $300 million in treatment, education and prevention, with $240 million of this investment going directly to our primary health networks for additional drug treatment services. The rollout of the Local Drug Action Teams continues. There is a $19.2 million investment to support communities to better deliver locally based education to tackle ice use in their local communities. Targeted support services to help people on welfare to beat their addiction and to find meaningful work is particularly important—it is particularly important to me.

As part of the government's welfare reforms, a two-year drug testing trial across three locations will test 5,000 new recipients of Newstart and the Youth Allowance for illicit substances like ice and ecstasy. Newstart recipients will be able to include treatment for drug and alcohol programs as part of their job preparation plan. It is no good that young people who are on drugs are going to job interview after job interview and being told no, no and no, time and time again. We need to make sure that drug rehabilitation programs are part of their job rehabilitation plan. Being drug-free is an important part of their rehabilitation. For those people identified, there will be a $10 million fund in order to assist them to get onto the path of recovery. Drug testing can help. It can be the intervention that someone needs to make a positive change in their life. It's about making sure that people with drug problems get the help they need to beat their addiction.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do we have a seconder for this motion?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for putting this motion forward for us to discuss and debate this afternoon. I commend him for his contribution. Although I have a different view about compulsory drug testing, I thought the remainder of his speech outlined a serious problem and one which we in this place understand. I want to refer mainly to the issues relating to the public health aspects of illicit drug use and drug use more generally.

We're reminded by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's Australian Health Report Card 2016 that drug use is a serious and complex problem, which contributes to thousands of deaths, substantial illness, disease and injury, social and family disruption, workplace concerns, violence, crime and community safety issues. The use and misuse of licit and illicit drugs is widely recognised in Australia as a major health problem. It's recognised by the member for Tangney in his reference to the initiatives taken by the Commonwealth government, including the $240 million for primary healthcare services.

Illicit drugs contributed to 1.8 per cent of the total burden of disease and injury in Australia in 2011, and this included the impact of injecting drug use and cocaine, opioid, amphetamine and cannabis dependence. While illicit drug use is a significant issue in the context of Australia's health, tobacco continues to cause more ill-health and premature death than any other drug, and alcohol-related hospital separations are higher than those related to illicit drugs. Illicit drug use is a major risk factor for ill-health and death, being linked to HIV-AIDS; hepatitis C; low birth weight; malnutrition; infective endocarditis, leading to damage of the heart valves; poisoning; mental illness; suicide; self-inflicted injury; and overdose.

Just on the matter of alcohol, I commend the Northern Territory government for its recent announcements about its strategy to address alcohol misuse and abuse in the Northern Territory, including the introduction of a pricing mechanism on alcohol—that is really very important. Having alcohol pricing based on having a base line on alcohol consumption is, I think, really something which we ought to be adopting across the nation.

The law enforcement approach which the government is adopting in part, as well as its public health approach to illicit drugs, is commendable. Its law enforcement approach is to address the harms of illicit drugs through a mixture of demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction interventions. However, there needs to be more done through investment dedicated to public health approaches and a commitment to community led initiatives and rehabilitation programs.

The Australian Drug Foundation has observed how grassroots community prevention programs can have a significant impact on reducing alcohol and drug problems, and community activities are best focused on a primary or upstream prevention, where programs aim to protect people from developing an AOD related problem. Additional funding is needed for these bodies and programs. A report funded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund found, similarly, that early interventions are important, and school and community based programs that engage with at-risk families and children may be critical for reducing levels of involvement in the most problematic forms of drug related behaviour.

Law enforcement data suggests that different users respond to police contact in different ways. While it may be an important catalyst in reducing drug use in some, it constitutes only a partial solution. For example, young adults who use amphetamine type stimulants may develop less favourable attitudes towards police through their substance related contact with police and that of their drug-using peers, and it is likely to be inherently negative due to the circumstances leading to their contact. Additional and diverse strategies need to be used to target different groups in recognition of the diverse reasons that people use illicit drugs—for example, a family history of drug and alcohol use is strongly associated with childhood trauma, which may in turn lead to an earlier initiation into the dangerous route of drug injection—and the fact that certain groups disproportionately experience some drug related risks. For example, people in the lowest socioeconomic status groups and people in remote and very remote areas are more likely to have used methamphetamines than people in non-remote areas.

This is an enormous problem for the Australian community but one which I believe we can address if we do it holistically, and I'm a very great enthusiast for a greater emphasis on public health initiatives.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for bringing this motion to the House. I'm very pleased to support this motion, which recognises the importance of remaining focused on the vital work of removing drugs from our streets. The government is committed to tackling the scourge of illegal and illicit drug use in our communities. The government understands, however, that there is no silver bullet when it comes to this issue and that substance abuse must be confronted in a wide variety of areas. We aren't naive about the size of the problem we face either.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016 found that some 3.1 million Australians had used an illicit drug at least once in the past year. That is 15½ per cent. It was 13½ per cent back in 2007. So we've seen an increase, between 2007 and 2016, from 13½ per cent to 15½ per cent.

Methamphetamine, or ice, is a particular problem in the country and is therefore a key focus of the government's national anti-drugs campaign. According to recent data from police, health and emergency services, the number of ice users in Australia is now significantly above 200,000, with more than 60,000 of these people using the drug at least weekly, if not more often. Importantly, we also know the flow-on effects of drug use in our society. Some 1.8 million people in 2016 reported being victims of a drug related incident. There is clearly a need to take action and turn around these shocking statistics.

The financial costs of the issue must not be left unchecked either. In 2016, the report into the social costs of methamphetamine conducted by the National Drug Research Institute found that the social cost of methamphetamine in Australia was over $5 billion in 2013-14. The primary contributors to this cost were crime, which included police and court costs, incurring some $3.2 billion; workplace absenteeism, which incurred a $290 million bill; the mistreatment of children, sadly, which cost some $260 million; and a $200 million bill for our health system.

It is clear that as a nation we must work together to solve this issue that has the potential to affect us all. I think it is important to remember in this case that it's not just those who are using drugs but also their families, friends and workmates and the broader community who may be affected. The government's national drugs campaign has three major focuses in this area: to prevent the abuse of the drug ice and provide help for those seeking to overcome an ice addiction; to empower parents to have conversations about drugs with their children; and to prevent the prevalence of party drugs within our youth.

One of the great things on the Gold Coast each year for schoolies is the team of Red Frogs that get out and provide support to kids who are enjoying schoolies week. They support them in many difficult situations, whether it's drugs or alcohol. They do get themselves into very difficult situations and the team from Red Frogs is there to help each and every year.

As part of the campaign Commonwealth health is committing more than $685 million to reduce substance abuse. In my electorate of Forde some $7 million is being spent on boosting drug and alcohol treatment services, particularly through the Lives Lived Well treatment centre in Beenleigh, as well as the Lives Lived Well residential facility out at Chambers Flat. The CEO of Brisbane South PHN opened the facility last year in Beenleigh and said it was an important stepping stone for those recovering from drug and alcohol dependence, and how right she was. Lives Lived Well provides a vital service for those seeking to overcome the devastating cycle of substance abuse. The key is that it's free and professional support tailored to the needs of the person with the drug addiction. I thank the member for Tangney again for bringing this motion to the House.

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

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

I certainly felt we were pretty close to bipartisan agreement on the importance of combatting illicit drugs and respect for the work of the Australian Federal Police, but clearly that's not the case. I also find myself rereading the motion after the opposition speaker, the member for Hotham, has suggested it was about rehabilitation beds. That was not mentioned at all in the motion. Maybe she had a motion from last year and things got a little confused when her staff wrote the speech for her. In reality, we know that rehabilitation beds are a state government responsibility—of course, that was not apparent either on the speech horizon of the opposition speaker—and the Commonwealth government is fundamentally responsible for outpatient services. That $685 million is coming in very handy in the electorates of MPs on this side of the House, but I suggest that the previous speaker simply doesn't know what is going on in her electorate, as these contracts are let to large parts of Australia—urban, regional and remote—to ensure there are satisfactory amounts of counselling available for those who wish to break this habit.

I return to what we should all be agreeing on—we need to be employing a multi-targeted approach to beating illicit drugs. I want to make reference to two very important areas. The first one is drug testing in welfare, particularly with Newstart, and then I will touch on the area of pill testing at music festivals—another fascinating Labor Party solo flight here in the ACT, where they thought it would be appropriate to on the one hand ban illicit substances in a music festival but on the other hand set up a tent to test them inside. If that complete logical inconsistency isn't obvious to most people listening to the debate, we hear that they are promoting the use of an unreliable form of technology at those festivals. I understand how the Labor Party see this argument. Illicit drugs are everywhere, they are impossible to stop, and so let's just test every drug we can because the more safe ones that are out there the better things will be. When you talk to the experts, they tell you that just finding yourself a chemist and sending them to a music festival with a day pass and a fancy spectrometer and testing all the pills you can is not going to fix the problem. Things will go wrong, often and regularly.

The first reason is, whether you use colour imagery or IR spectrometry, these are not only unreliable tests, but they are subject to interference. When you take them out into the field—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

Yes, it does. It helps having a medical degree and not one in the union movement. When you're out under a tent in the middle of a music festival, using a spectrometer, then the reality is that interference is a major concern. This is the last technology available where you don't destroy the sample when you test it. We can do liquid chromatography, but that would destroy the sample.

An opposition member interjecting—

A government member: I beg your pardon? What did you just say?

An opposition member interjecting—

A government member: You are absolutely foul.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

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

And obviously you are not going to have too many patrons coming in asking for drugs to be tested if they are destroyed in the testing process.

The second question is, what exactly happens when these drugs are tested and found to be contaminated? There are only two possibilities: contaminated or clean. Self-evidently, if someone knows a tablet is clean and they have already got some on board, there's a high likelihood they're more likely—they have an increased propensity—to take an additional one, thinking it's clean.

There is a greater concern about simple dose-related issues; MDMA is a toxic agent. People die of 100 per cent pure MDMA every year in most developing economies. What is the point of telling someone under the age of 20, with a still-developing frontal lobe, that the drug is safe and clean? What do you expect that person will do, apart from sharing it or taking more of it?

Now let's tip to whether it's actually contaminated. The drug is actually returned to the festival attendee to take back with them out into the festival. What would a young person do with a drug that has been tested as 'contaminated'? First of all, they have dropped a couple of hundred bucks on the pill, so they might want to get that money back from the person that gave them the pill in the first place. So next thing we have people roving around music festivals trying to identify the dealer or the supplier, to beat them up. Is that the conduct we want at a music festival? What about someone who slyly pops it back into the ziplock bag and onsells it, saying, 'I just got it tested over here and it's okay'—onsell it to try and reduce your losses?

None of these things were thought through appropriately by the Australian Labor Party. They just could not wait to egg on the chemist and the biochemist to get down to a music festival, pop up a shiny tent and start doing testing of illicit drugs. There's been no thought about these outcomes. I strongly support the Commonwealth for being very judicious about providing any support on Commonwealth land for these kinds of policy solo flights in illicit drugs.

I don't need to say it; the public knows that the coalition is deadly serious—through both supply and demand—about wiping out illicit drugs. Sure, we may never win that fight, but the Labor Party's white-flag approach to pill testing in music festivals is a fabulous manifestation of what is wrong with the progressive approach.

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

I want to talk about a specific illicit drug that is gripping my community, and that is ice. Ice has been one of the biggest game-changers for government, law enforcement and communities. Our rehabilitation facilities are being inundated, our hospitals are admitting users on a regular basis and ambulance officers are responding daily to ice related health issues. The facts surrounding ice prove that we have a substantial epidemic on our hands. The consumption of the illicit drug methamphetamine is the highest tested across all regions in Australia. Of the European countries with comparable reported data, Australia ranks second out of the 18 countries for the consumption of methamphetamine.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics report confirms the fear associated with Australia's high drug usage. The country recorded the highest number of drug induced deaths since the late 1990s—1,808 deaths, or about 7.5 deaths per 100,000 Australians. The death rate from psychostimulants—methamphetamine or ice—has quadrupled since 1999 and is now the third-most-common substance associated with drug deaths. Over the last five years, this has increased in Queensland. Between 2009-10 and 2014-15, the annual rate of methamphetamine related hospital admissions in Queensland increased from 3.9 to 52.8 per 100,000 persons.

Fifty-one per cent of Queensland's organised crime networks are linked with ice. From 2014-15 to 2015-16, methamphetamine related arrests increased by 31 per cent. One in every three children who came into the care of the department of communities and child safety had a parent who used ice at least once, mostly within the last 12 months. These facts are horrifying and show the grip this drug is having on Queensland. If we're going to successfully tackle ice, we need a three-pronged approach. We need to address supply, demand and harm. There is no single solution that works. We need to take a health based approach that is focused on reducing demand through prevention and early intervention and through treatment programs that are flexible and community led.

We must work to reduce the harm caused by ice. We need to invest in law enforcement solutions that can target criminal networks and organised crime syndicates. We need to invest in specialised programs that provide wraparound support for families while also ensuring protection for frontline workers. In April this year the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, shadow minister for justice, Clare O'Neil, and I held an ice roundtable in Townsville. Representatives from the Salvation Army, Queensland Police Service, Queensland Ambulance Service, Townsville Hospital and Health Service, GPs, Townsville Aboriginal and Islanders Health Services and community mental health organisations attended. We listened to horrific stories, especially some of the violence that our ambulance officers face in their work from people high on ice. Ice use does not discriminate.

One thing that was very clear is that Townsville needs a youth drug and alcohol detox facility. At the last federal election, I committed $5 million towards the Salvation Army's youth drug and alcohol detox facility. This facility would be the first in North Queensland. Unfortunately, the funding was not matched by the Turnbull government, but our community was not to be denied this facility, and, through sheer determination and hard work, the Salvation Army raised the necessary funds to build that facility for the youth in the north. However, there is no ongoing funding to deliver much-needed support services. The Salvation Army are a beacon of hope to many across North Queensland. This facility is vital for our community. What is more, families of troubled youth in northern and western Queensland deserve this facility. I call on the Turnbull government to commit operational funding to the Salvation Army's youth drug and alcohol detox facility.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the chamber today in enthusiastic support of the member for Tangney's motion acknowledging the commitment of the Turnbull government and the hard work of our law enforcement agencies, health workers and support services in fighting illicit drugs, and in particular, crystal meth, or ice. New data from the ABC shows that 1,808 Australians died from drugs in 2016. While some were drug suicides, the vast majority were accidental overdoses.

The numbers that define Australia's drug problem are distressing to contemplate. One very big number is that illicit drugs, especially ice, are costing Australia an estimated $4.4 billion annually, due mainly to health care, crime and other economic costs. Beyond the high financial cost, there is of course a horrendous human cost. The evidence of broken lives is both compelling and plain to see. Contrary to recent evidence of a slight fall in ice use, statistics for drug use in overdose deaths show dramatic year-on-year increases. Australia's annual overdose report 2016, from the Penington Institute, reveals that drug overdose deaths in Australia continue to climb, showing a shocking 61 per cent increase in the 10 years from 2004 to 2014. This is an appalling statistic, one that leads the Penington Institute to describe Australia's overdose crisis as severe. And, contrary to popular misconception, it's not young urban Australians that are accounting for the explosion in drug use and overdose deaths. In 2014, overdose deaths per capita were, and continue to be, far higher in rural and regional areas, showing an 83 per cent increase between 2008 and 2014, with the abuse of prescription drugs accounting for even more deaths than illicit drugs. Between 2008 and 2014, there was an 87 per cent increase in prescription opioid deaths in Australia, and that statistic skyrocketed to a 148 per cent increase in rural and regional areas. It's perhaps worth noting that the second national wastewater drug monitoring report, showing test results for 13 illicit drugs at 37 different sites across Australia, capturing data for about 51 per cent of our population, found that ice remains the most highly used illicit drug in Australia.

This motion correctly acknowledges that the Turnbull government is deeply committed to turning the tide on Australia's drug problem by allocating significant resources to a sophisticated, multilayered approach that addresses both supply and demand and also harm caused by illicit drugs, especially ice. The government's National Ice Action Strategy does just this. On the supply side, the government is improving resources for law enforcement to police our borders and streets and to stop the supply of ice and other illicit drugs. On the demand side, we're investing almost $300 million to boost funding for treatment, after-care, education, prevention and community engagement—all aimed at reducing demand and delivering effective support to help users quit. Commencing in November 2015, Taskforce Blaze, an ongoing joint operation between the Australian Federal Police and the Chinese National Narcotics Control Commission, has provided incredibly successful results and is helping stop the flow of ice into Australia. To date, some 13 tonnes of drugs and precursors, including six tonnes of ice, have been stopped as a result.

Like other members of this House, I too have seen evidence of what drugs do to families and communities. Just last May in my electorate of Fairfax I joined the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection with senior law enforcement officers, including from the AFP, Queensland Police Service and Australian Border Force, for a special roundtable briefing on the drug problem. My eyes were opened not just to the extent and cost of the problem but to the dedication and resourcefulness of our enforcement border agencies. Each and every one of us have a job to do to help resolve this scourge of drugs. (Time expired)

Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the member for Tangney that illicit drugs are causing untold harm in the communities of Australia. The effects of harmful drugs like methamphetamine have been taking a significant toll on our cities, regions and remote areas. But what I can't agree with him on is that this government is taking reasonable steps to curb this. Time after time, this government has demonstrated it's not listening to the experts on how to best manage the damaging effects of drugs and drug addiction. Just look at the measures the government has introduced to begin drug-testing recipients on welfare. The government stand behind this measure despite overwhelming consensus from experts in the community that it will do more harm than good.

Good policy actionable policy that would achieve its goals needs to be supported by evidence, but that is not how the government operate. If they were interested in formulating policy that reduces the rate of drug addiction in our society, they would have consulted healthcare professionals, like those from the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians or even the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. But they didn't consult with them. We know this because each of those organisations, as well as many, many more just like them, have expressed really significant concerns about the drug-testing trial. These experts have warned that the trials will not assist people to overcome addiction but will instead push them into crisis. This could mean poverty, homelessness or potentially even crime. But the government won't listen.

I represent a really, really vulnerable electorate. There are a number of people in Longman who struggle with substance abuse. It's these people, their families and their communities—our communities—who are being let down by this government. But fortunately for the people of Longman they have a fantastic state local member in the Hon. Mark Ryan. Earlier this year, I attended the Ice Regional Community Engagement Summit in which the Hon. Mark Ryan, in his capacity as the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services, was heavily involved. It made it very, very clear that, while the federal coalition government would rather demonise those suffering from addiction than help them, the Queensland Labor government, under Premier Palaszczuk, is taking meaningful steps forward, like an $18 million package to be implemented over four years, to increase awareness, support families and better equip those frontline services to respond to ice use and its harmful effects in Queensland.

This is in addition, of course, to the $43 million investment to increase specialist alcohol and other drug services; the $6 million to establish new, and enhance existing, drug and alcohol brief intervention teams; and the additional specialist alcohol and other drug treatment clinicians across six hospitals and health services. The Queensland government's approach is based on reducing supply, reducing demand and reducing the associated harms.

Whilst this Liberal government is using people suffering from addiction as a political tool to justify cuts to welfare, the Queensland Labor government recognises these addicts for what they are—people. They're people who need help, people who need support. Demonising these people is an easy option, so it comes as no surprise that that is what this government is doing. But, if anything, its approach is likely to exacerbate the problem we are seeing in our communities. What this government needs to do right now is show a little compassion. As I said, Mr Deputy Speaker, we're talking about people, people who need support. This government needs to show compassion and recognise that only through awareness, treatment and support will we be able to reduce the effects of drug addiction, not just now but in the long term as well.

I will support any actionable evidence based measures that will help ease the effects of addiction on our communities, so I'm more than happy to stand here and support the Queensland Labor government's plan, which the Hon. Mark Ryan presented at the recent summit in Longman. But the federal coalition government—they've got a lot to learn.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next day of sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:22