Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Payne for what is a very important question and acknowledge the great interest she has in relation to the issue of illicit drugs, and particularly precursors, because not many people in the Australian community understand that precursors are an extremely important part of the fight against illicit drugs, especially amphetamine type stimulants. Precursors are the ingredients which go to make amphetamine type stimulants and in particular I refer to pseudoephedrine, which is found in many cold and flu medications.

Senator Payne has asked about the strategy that we have in place nationally and internationally. Last night I addressed the 10th National Chemicals Diversion Congress dinner and acknowledged the outstanding work that is being done nationally by state and territory police working with the Australian Federal Police, the various departments of health and the private sector.

It is important that we put in place a regional strategy in relation to the fight against precursor chemicals, and the reason is that we are finding increasingly in the Pacific region and the South-East Asian regions clandestine amphetamine laboratories which are capable of manufacturing very large quantities of amphetamine type stimulants. I have now set up a Pacific precursor working group which will deal with strategies in the Pacific area to deal with those island states which are now encountering organised crime and the manufacture of amphetamine type stimulants. I point to a recent seizure we had in Fiji of a very large clandestine laboratory.

As well as that, we have set up the Asian collaborative group on local precursor control. I was very pleased to see that at last night’s congress we had attendances from countries such as Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Cambodia, Bangladesh and others. This demonstrated, I believe, a commitment in the region to deal with this in a strategic manner.

It is important that we deal with this issue in a collaborative way. As recognised by the United Nations recently, we have a very high rate of manufacture of amphetamine type stimulants in our region—if not the greatest amount in the world. Through the collaborative group, it is our intention to engage our regional neighbours in the fight against precursor chemicals.

Nationally, we have a plan in place through our chemical precursor working group, which has now been in existence for four years. We have rescheduled pseudoephedrine products to restrict their availability. Across Australia now, pharmacists have 60 per cent less pseudoephedrine products than they did last year. That is great progress in this matter. I acknowledge the work that the pharmaceutical industry has done as well as that of pharmacists.

Another thing that the pharmaceutical industry has done is develop a decongestant which has phenylephrine in it. That is not an ingredient that can be used for amphetamine type stimulants. It does the job, but it does not have that ingredient in it. This lessens the opportunity for pseudo runners to be used by organised criminals to obtain this medication and then divert the precursors into the manufacture of amphetamine type stimulants.

This is an important strategy. It is important that we fight both regionally and nationally. I want to acknowledge the great cooperation we get from law enforcement in the region and from the states and territories in this regard.