David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health, Senator Nash. The government has made a regulation that denies category A patients access to marijuana via the Special Access Scheme. This scheme allows for medicines that are not on a register to be supplied to patients who are seriously ill and reasonably likely to die within a matter of months, or where premature death is likely in the absence of early treatment. So, rather than expedite the availability of medicinal marijuana as a matter of life and death, the government has made a regulation that lets people suffer and die while the regulation process and category B processes meander on. Minister, isn't this playing with people's lives?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his question and for some advance notice of it. The changes that the coalition government made last year were in response to concerns out in the community around access to medicinal cannabis. I think they have been very positive changes, and they certainly have been well received. What the government has done is provide the missing piece to the puzzle, if you like, in ensuring that we have a domestic supply of medicinal cannabis, and that was what was missing prior to the changes that were brought in last year. Previously that lack of availability of therapeutically approved medicinal cannabis had been a real barrier to people who were accessing treatment.

In response to the senator, the health minister's office advises that the medicines that are traditionally used in the Special Access Scheme category A are unregistered products that are generally unregistered overseas, have been subjected to a full safety, quality and efficacy assessment, and come with product information that allows the medical practitioner to assess the risk of any adverse effects and manage drug interactions and dose response matters. They are not available for unregistered medicinal cannabis products. So it is then appropriate, and people would expect, that there be some form of clinical oversight from the general practitioners when choosing to use unregistered medicinal cannabis products. Under Special Access Scheme category B, under which these products are approved, where the doctor can justify their clinical decision to prescribe that medicinal cannabis product, I am advised that approval can be given in as little as two days. So, even under the current requirements, there can be a very quick approval process from the TGA so people are able to access those products.

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

Senator Leyonhjelm, a supplementary question.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The regulation also makes unlawful the importation of medicinal marijuana by people for the treatment of themselves or their immediate families while medicinal marijuana remains unregistered. Isn't this more restrictive than what applied before the enactment of the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Act 2016? Why does the supposed legalisation of medicinal marijuana consist of so much new prohibition?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can advise the senator that it is actually not more restrictive than what applied before the enactment of the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Act that we brought in last year. It is actually consistent with the pathways that were available prior to that legislation, when cannabis was a schedule 9 product. So it is not actually more restrictive; it is actually consistent with the previously existing pathways, and that was our policy—that the product be available under the pathways that were in place at the time. There is no new prohibition. The changes to the Therapeutic Goods Regulations were necessary to maintain the agreed level of regulation and oversight, as per the government's announcement.

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

Senator Leyonhjelm, a final supplementary question.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The regulation also requires people seeking licences for cultivating, researching or importing medicinal marijuana to disclose all prior convictions rather than just those convictions from the last 10 years. This unusual disclosure requirement currently only applies to people applying to work for law enforcement agencies. Do you see the cultivation of medicinal marijuana as akin to working for a law enforcement agency?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I think people across Australian communities would want the government to ensure that any licensing of somebody being able to grow medicinal marijuana would be subject to a 'fit and proper person' test. We know that in relation to the poppy industry—which of course we have; my good colleagues in Tasmania know well about that—there are already existing stringent requirements when it comes to licensing. So it is not an unusual disclosure requirement; it does already apply to the poppy industry, as I have indicated.

The exemption, as I am advised, applies only to applicants for licences to assist in assessing whether they are fit and proper to hold a licence. The requirement is different, as I understand it, for employees, which is not as stringent, but I think people across Australia, when we are dealing with a product such as marijuana and looking at the licensing arrangements for the growing of that product, people would absolutely expect a 'fit and proper person' test.