Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i)   today is the 15th annual International Overdose Awareness Day, commemorating all those who have died or been seriously injured due to drug overdose, and

(ii)   six people lose their lives to preventable overdose in Australia each day; and

(b) calls on the Government to address the rising rates of harm associated with drug use by implementing and appropriately resourcing evidence-based harm reduction policies, including:

(i)   greater access to needle and syringe programs across the country with an urgent roll-out of trials inside prisons,

(ii)   expanded access to medically supervised injecting facilities across Australia,

(iii)   promoting awareness of the life-saving opioid reversal drug Naloxone, and highlighting its availability over the counter in pharmacies, and

(iv)   working with state and territory governments to cease the use of drug sniffer dogs at festivals and urgently introduce trials of pill testing for the upcoming festivals season.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a one-minute statement.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like all members of this chamber, my heart goes out to all families who have been affected by drug overdose. While I agree with the majority of the points in this motion, I will not support it, because of the final call to action found in point (b)(iv), which tries to stop the use of drug sniffer dogs at festivals. More families would feel the heartache of losing loved ones from drug overdoses if we listened to the Greens. The Greens policies on illegal drugs do harm. Their attempt in this motion to make it easier for our younger people to access dangerous drugs is plain reckless. My policy of giving parents the power to involuntarily detox their drug addicted children will truly lessen the chance of harm and overdoses. Getting rid of drug sniffer dogs would cause the same outcome as the Greens policy to decriminalise ice. Both would lead to more addiction, more harm and a hell of a lot more misery.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I firstly want to say that I understand that Senator Lambie's comments are made from personal experience, and I want to acknowledge that and acknowledge the harm that comes with the abuse of illicit drugs. It is an area in which I have worked, and my motion here today is informed by evidence. Sadly, we have too many young people dying from overdoses, overdoses that are entirely preventable. That is why we need to have harm reduction framing our response and it is why we need to have some courage in this place to listen to the evidence and to follow the evidence. Sadly, drug sniffer dogs have been shown to encourage more harmful drug use. We have people who take increased quantities of drugs before going to festivals and, when they see a sniffer dog, they often ingest larger, more harmful quantities of drugs in order to escape arrest. That is the consequence of sniffer dogs. We need to be guided by the evidence on this front.

Question agreed to.