Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have a long history of campaigning for medicinal cannabis to be accessible and affordable to the Australian community and we welcome reforms that assist in achieving that goal. We're very proud to be here in the Senate as a party and as a political movement that has worked alongside advocates for the greater access to medicinal cannabis for decades, as well as campaigners who are working right now to bring us to where we need to be in relation to the broader based legalisation of cannabis more broadly as part of proper drug law reform. The Greens were part of the push in this place to start treating medical cannabis as a therapeutic drug, and I want to pay a really heartfelt tribute in my contribution today to our former leader Richard Di Natale, who championed medical cannabis and drug law reform more broadly.

We know that medical cannabis is an important drug. It is an important drug that is used to treat or alleviate mental health conditions. Let's say this really clearly: medical cannabis is a medicine, and it should be accessible in an affordable way for people who need it. It is not good enough to say, 'This is theoretically available, if you can jump through the many hoops that exist and if you can afford the many additional charges that come with it.' That does not, in fact, constitute an actual framework that is accessible to the people who actually need it. We also clearly know from the evidence that has been given by so many in our community that this medicine is used to relieve serious health conditions, such as epilepsy in children and adults; to treat the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and chemotherapy, particularly chemotherapy-induced nausea; and, of course, to ease the various symptoms and experiences of those during palliative care.

We in the Greens knew that Australia needed to make this drug available as a therapeutic drug, but most Australians who need medical cannabis still have no real way to access it. It was very clear, from the work that Richard did and that advocates have done for a very long time, that we needed to make this available as a therapeutic drug. Yet we sit here in 2023 in a reality where most Australians who need medical cannabis still have no real way to access it. As I said, if there is a theoretical legal pathway, that is fine, but, if that legal pathway to access a medicine is full of institutional and administrative barriers and is, critically, very expensive, then it is not practically available to the broad swathe of the community that actually need it. This is resulting in a reality where there is still a black market in Australia for medical cannabis because the government has not taken the necessary steps to make it fully available and to treat it as a legitimate therapeutic drug. I'm very happy to be joined in the chamber by Senator David Shoebridge, who is doing fantastic work on the broader question of the legalisation of cannabis in Australia and the ways in which the federal government must engage itself in that work.

The Senate enquiry that examined access to medicinal cannabis in Australia, which reported in 2020, made a series of landmark recommendations to significantly improve the lives of Australian patients. The Community Affairs References Committee, which was led by Dr Di Natale in his former role as our health spokesperson, heard many of the failings of the current arrangements for accessing legal medicinal cannabis products in this country. The committee recommended that, if current arrangements were not sufficiently improved in the next 12 months, the government should consider establishing an independent regulator for medical cannabis. It has now been 36 months since that recommendation was handed down. The arrangements have been improved in that period of time, but they do not go far enough. People are still relying on a black market to access medical cannabis simply because they cannot afford it—not because they don't need it, not because they don't qualify for it, but because they simply cannot afford it, this critical medicine that they may need in the management of their epilepsy, in the management of their multiple sclerosis, in the management of the terrible nausea that comes with chemotherapy and to ease them in that palliative phase of health care. They can't access it, because they can't afford it. The government must provide a pathway for medicinal cannabis to be supplied under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We in the Greens know this, and the community knows this. The current pathway through which people are required to travel is too expensive and too complicated.

In the previous sitting week, I moved a second reading amendment to the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022, which we considered. This amendment called on the government to ensure that affordable medicinal cannabis products are made available to all patients who require them for therapeutic use and to consider and implement the outstanding recommendations of the Community Affairs References Committee's 2022 inquiry. I put that amendment to the Senate at the previous sitting, and what was the result? Both parties voted it down. This is really not good enough, folks. We've got a situation where people need access to medicine, and those people have taken the time to give evidence to a Senate committee. That evidence is often given in the context of really serious health conditions. They shared with this place what needs to change, and that committee said these changes need to come into place in the next 12 months or the government needs to act. Thirty-six months on, we have had a little bit of action but not enough, and we have seen no leadership from the government in this place on that issue, when there are recommendations sitting before them which they could so easily enact.

It is far past time for the Labor government to ensure that medicinal cannabis is affordable for the Australian public. The lived experience and the research support it. So do all the families who actually need to access it and who have cried out during so many of these investigations and reports. The Greens will continue to fight for access to and affordability of medical cannabis, alongside our broader work to legalise cannabis for all Australians, which Senator Shoebridge will shortly outline for the chamber.

Lastly I will say this for everybody who may be watching this debate feeling a bit frustrated by the inaction of this government: I think there is deep, deep cause for hope here. We saw many community campaigners across the country push for years to see the rescheduling of MDMA and psilocybin for the treatment of PTSD and depression. The TGA and the government of the day dug their bloody heels in on that one, year after year. The Greens worked with the community—and I particularly want to give a shout-out to the wonderful campaigners, scientists, advocates and mental health professionals at Mind Medicine Australia for their continued advocacy on this issue—and we won. In February, we won. The TGA was forced to do a 180 degree turn on this and to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA for the treatment of PTSD and depression, opening up an incredible field of practice for the treatment of those really, really debilitating conditions. So this can be done. Continued pressure will see change. By continuing to work together with the community, the Greens are committed to seeing an accessible and affordable pathway for medicinal cannabis for everyone.