Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a disgrace. This is an absolute disgrace what the government is doing here. I agree with Senator Brown when she quotes Mr Hunt in the Sydney Morning Herald saying it was reckless and irresponsible. It's not the people who brought this bill to the House that are irresponsible; it's the Minister for Health and the government. I don't give a damn we are seeing that they are thwarting the will of the Senate. I don't care they're thwarting the will of the Senate. They are thwarting the will and the rights of sick people in Australia. They are thwarting the will of sick people.

Before I jumped the shark and came here to the Senate, I worked for Saturday Night and did a lot of stories about medical cannabis. And I have talked to mothers of little kids who have had hundreds of thousands of convulsions that were cured by the efficacy of medical cannabis. I have been to Nimbin, to the Mardi Gras for the last two years for this very issue, to talk at a conference on medical cannabis, why it should be allowed and why it should be easily imported. I talked to man who had a brain tumour, and what keeps him peaceful, what keeps him out of pain is medical cannabis. And what is wrong with that? Everything else was not working for him. A mother brought her baby to Nimbin to see us and said, 'Here he is and now he's well.'

For the government now to do the shameful thing, to thwart the use of it, is a disgusting thing. If down the track, as Senator Di Natale says, we build up an Australian industry of medicinal cannabis, I'll be the first person to join the government in saying, 'We stopped the imports; we are building the Australian industry up.' I would love to see Norfolk Island become the producer of medicinal cannabis the same way we have morphine coming from poppies in Tasmania. That would be fantastic if we could do that and I would support the government to say, 'Okay, now we have got a business running here.' As Senator Hanson said, we want to build up the local industry, and I'd go along with that.

But, right now, the government has callously, methodically and indecently blocked the will of the Senate, blocked the will of the people, blocked terminally ill people and people in pain from getting access to something that eases their pain, makes their life better, makes their life bearable, and I think the government and the health minister should be ashamed of themselves. They ambushed some crossbenchers the last time around. They ambushed the Xenophon Team when we got this letter from the health minister suddenly tabled by Senator McGrath at the last minute. I don't want to see that happen again. What has to happen today is we must pass this. You must make it right, make it work for the last time, so that families of terminally ill people, mothers of kids with fits can get access to a health product that works, that is proven to work. That should happen in this country as we speak.