David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Greens, I indicate our strong opposition to another coalition attack on self-government in the ACT and another highly emotive febrile attack from the shadow Attorney-General when it comes to sensible, evidence based law reform in relation to drug use. The Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Act 2022 passed through the ACT Legislative Assembly after a nine-month-long inquiry. They received dozens and dozens of submissions and hundreds and hundreds of survey responses. The position of the ACT public in those submissions and those survey responses was overwhelming support for the ACT's reforms to decriminalise personal possession of a limited number of illegal drugs—not to legalise it but to decriminalise it—to provide a modest civil penalty if somebody is found in possession of illegal drugs and to permit the police to confiscate the drugs in the circumstances.

They're the laws that are backed in by pretty much every public health advocate and expert. They're the laws that have been backed in by report after report by both the New South Wales coroner and the so-called ice inquiry established by a Liberal premier in New South Wales. They're the laws that were backed in after a nine-month inquiry by the ACT Legislative Assembly which held five days of public hearings. They're the laws that the federal coalition want to overturn based on an extraordinary, anti-factual, deliberately inflammatory and misleading political attack from the coalition. What's fascinating is that the coalition, which, in this case, is being led by the shadow Attorney-General, is obviously hostage to the far right wing of the coalition and the Liberal Party. And part of who they've taken hostage are the poor Liberals in the ACT, who have said, time after time, 'Stop doing this because you keep burning the brand in the ACT.' Those people who might have been open to supporting the coalition in the ACT if they stuck to some kind of fact based, non-Trumpian approach to politics are being completely burnt off. They are once again seeing the federal Liberal Party use this Trumpian-style, evidence-free, angry form of divisive politics to try and tear down self-government in the ACT. And the poor old ACT Liberals in the assembly are saying: 'Please stop! Please stop! But obviously nothing's going to stop the Trumpian rise of the Liberal Party here.

There have even been calls from the leader of the Liberal Party in the ACT who said unambiguously and clearly that they don't want this to happen, that it's an attack on self-government. There's an internal war being played within the Liberal Party, led by the shadow Attorney-General, who has complete disregard not just for the concept of self-government in the ACT not just for the rights of hundreds of thousands of ACT voters to choose their own government and to map their own path, but also complete contempt for her own party who have asked her to stop this. The message coming from the ACT Liberals is: don't do it! But because of this internal culture war in the coalition, the shadow Attorney-General is pressing on regardless.

Let's be clear about what the ACT laws do. They decriminalise; they don't legalise. They follow the evidence. They were adopted by overwhelming support in the ACT Legislative Assembly. They're backed in by the great majority of the public in the ACT. They follow international best practice, such as Portugal, which has decriminalised personal possession of drugs for the past two decades. They mapped forward a pathway that, instead of treating people with addiction problems as criminals and putting them into jail—losing their jobs, hopes and future and driving them down further pathways aimed towards addiction—treat it as a health issue. The ACT Legislative Assembly has backed this by providing millions and millions of additional dollars in drug and alcohol treatment and putting in other safety measures supported by evidence, such as pill testing.

The real reason the coalition in this place is so angry and insistent about this is that they know it's going to work. They know that none of their scaremongering is going to come true, and they know that we're not going to see a rise in drug use in the ACT; we're going to see a diversion of resources away from police and courts and jails in health and addiction services. Every time that happens, Australia becomes a safer place; every time that happens, lives are saved. That's what they're really angry about—that this is actually going to work.

The disrespect for the people of the ACT that is inherent in the Australian Capital Territory Dangerous Drugs Bill is tangible. The Leader of the Greens and the Attorney-General in the ACT Legislative Assembly, Shane Rattenbury, said that the coalition's attempted federal intervention again treats Canberrans as 'second-class citizens'. He went on and he said:

We've seen a constant pattern of paternalism from the Liberal party when it comes to dealing with the ACT. Our citizens have elected their members of parliament in the territory. They deserve to allow those processes to operate.

Well, he's dead-on. He is absolutely dead-on when it comes to that.

I also want to acknowledge the hard work and the principled work of Johnathan Davis, our Greens spokesperson for this in the legislative assembly. He has constantly called out the lies, constantly seen a pathway forward so that the ACT can lead the country in this reform. I wonder if the shadow Attorney-General has been to Portugal and had a look at that jurisdiction. It is a small jurisdiction, surrounded by the EU, in some ways a kind of parallel to the ACT, a small jurisdiction surrounded by New South Wales and the rest of Australia. But, if you go to Portugal and you talk to the reformers and the policymakers in Portugal, which I had the benefit of doing earlier this year, they will tell you two things. They will tell you that, when Portugal decriminalised and moved from police, courts and jails to public health and addiction services, what they saw was a significant reduction of drug use on the streets, particularly in Lisbon. They saw resources going where they were needed. For the last two decades, they say, the sight of public drug-using in Portugal has basically disappeared. There was quite a disturbing level of public drug-taking at the time the reforms came through. The reforms were the way of dealing with that. And, for the last two decades, far from the weirdly unfactual, dystopian future that the coalition paints for the ACT, the lived experience in Portugal has been 180 degrees different. The public drug-taking has radically reduced, the streets are safer, people with addiction problems are having their health concerns treated, they're getting the treatment they need, and there has been no increase in drug use in Portugal—none. In fact, for a series of highly addictive drugs, the drug use has radically reduced in Portugal. That's two decades of lived experience.

Has the shadow Attorney-General gone to Portugal? Did the ACT police go to Portugal? No, they didn't. They went to San Francisco apparently. I don't know if the shadow A-G has been to San Francisco. It may not be her town. But they refer to San Francisco. What do we see in San Francisco? In some suburbs in San Francisco, we see the tragedy of the fentanyl disaster that's sweeping through the United States—a legal drug in the United States, being driven by some of the worst elements of the pharmaceutical industry. It is a legal drug being pumped out en masse by the pharmaceutical industry, which knew about its incredible addictiveness and potent impacts and was allowed to do that by federal regulators in the United States, in an environment where there are no constraints on acquiring what would be a prescription drug in Australia—and, in fact, with big pharmaceutical companies actively out there advertising, promoting and selling fentanyl. What we're seeing in the United States is a tragic failure of their privatised health scheme and their free-market mentality and the worst of big pharma, pumping out a legal product which is destroying communities in San Francisco. Did we hear the truth about what's happening in San Francisco and other places in the United States from the coalition? No, we didn't. We heard it being somehow equated with illegal drug use—use of heroin and methamphetamines.

No, in fact, it's the coalition's mates in the pharmaceutical industry, who donate to the coalition, who are creating that tragedy and disaster in the United States, along with their free-market mentality and their free-market-mentality approach to health care. It's those things that are creating the tragedy on the streets in the United States, not a rationally based, sensible, evidence based set of laws on personal possession of illegal drugs.

But of course, in the Trumpian world of the federal coalition, the truth is the first casualty, isn't it? There are optional facts, alternative facts, that they put forward. This is one of their alternative facts. They look at San Francisco and pretend it's not big-pharma, legal-drug, free-market craziness. It's anti socialised medicine, they'll no doubt tell us next. It's ignoring the truth; it's pretending that that is, in some ways, related to what's happening in the ACT. These are bald-faced lies from the coalition.

So what do we see here? We see another attack on self-government from the coalition because they don't believe that Canberrans and the people of the ACT should be able to map out their own future—largely, because they politically disagree with them. It's appalling to see them do this again. It's appalling to see their disrespect for the people of the ACT.

But we also see this Trumpian, evidence-free, febrile attack on sensible, considered, rational laws that decriminalise personal drug use and divert the resources of the state from police and courts and jails to health and addiction and a public-information campaign, to make the people of the ACT safer, to save kids' lives, to take people off a pathway to addiction and put them into treatment and treat them like our fellow citizens who deserve our support and respect and not like criminals.

Shame on the coalition for bringing this bill. I look forward to seeing it defeated in minutes.