Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Askew has referred to part of my answer from yesterday. The majority of my answer yesterday was to point out that this is completely a state and territory issue. Whether or not drug use is criminalised is 100 per cent an issue for state and territory criminal law. As I said yesterday, most of us come to this place to debate serious national matters that concern the Commonwealth of Australia. We are, of course, taking the matter of the trafficking of illicit drugs seriously, as I mentioned yesterday. This bill was passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly in October 2022, and a number of Liberal Party members of the ACT parliament voted for that legislation. Most interestingly, this morning on the radio the ACT Liberal leader, Elizabeth Lee, said:

The Canberra Liberals will always stand up for territory rights and I am very concerned about any step to diminish that.

I do not agree with this action taken by the federal Coalition to seek to overturn legislation that was passed by the ACT Assembly.

So this stunt from the federal Liberal Party doesn't even have the support of the ACT Liberal Party! Did you pick up the phone and talk to the ACT Liberals before you decided to ask questions about this? Did you pick up the phone and talk to the ACT Liberals before you decided to introduce a stunt of a private senators' bill this morning? Your own party doesn't even support what you are doing. We know you don't have any ACT Liberals in the Senate anymore. You don't even have a Liberal Party member for the ACT in the Senate anymore—