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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This bill will provide seriously or terminally ill patients, whose doctors believe medicinal cannabis will relieve their suffering, with rapid access to these treatments.

The bill makes two crucial amendments to the Customs Act 1901 and the Narcotic Drugs Act 1967 to give faster access to medicinal cannabis for those patients with illnesses from which they are reasonably likely to die within a matter of months, or from which premature death is reasonably likely to occur in the absence of early treatment.

This bill:

1) Allows access to Australian medicinal cannabis products through Special Access Scheme Category A; and

2) Ensures the government cannot block Special Access Scheme Category A access to imported medicinal cannabis products via import licence conditions.

The Special Access Scheme (SAS) of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provides a pathway to provide for the import and/or supply of a therapeutic good that is not registered on the Australian Register for Therapeutic Goods (ARTG), for a single patient, on a case by case basis.

The SAS allows doctors to prescribe the most appropriate treatments to their patients even when that treatment is not yet registered.

While there are different categories under the SAS, category A only applies to those patients whose doctor believes their condition meets the definition established by the regulator, specifically "patients who are seriously ill with a condition from which death is reasonably likely to occur within a matter of months, or from which premature death is reasonably likely to occur in the absence of early treatment."

The regulatory requirements for the category A pathway involve a notification to the TGA by the doctor, and reflect the seriousness of the condition of patients who meet the eligibility criteria for this category.

Any unapproved therapeutic good can potentially be prescribed by a doctor and supplied via the SAS except drugs in schedule 9 of the Poisons Standard (where the manufacture, possession, sale or use is prohibited by State or Territory law). Schedule 9 drugs cannot be accessed through the SAS Category A process.

When the TGA rescheduled medicinal cannabis treatments from schedule 9 of the Poisons Standard to schedule 8 in November 2016, these treatments became eligible for supply via category A of the SAS for those eligible. However, the Government cynically sought to cut off this access to these terminally ill patients by blocking category A access for Australian produced medicinal cannabis in the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Act 2016, and introducing a disallowable instrument to block category A access for importation of international medicinal cannabis.

On 13 June 2017, the Senate voted to disallow the instrument blocking category A access to imported medicinal cannabis. This made it unlawful to prevent importation of medicinal cannabis via category A of the SAS. Despite this, the government wrote to all those suppliers with import licences, telling them that they would not be permitted to import under category A due to a condition in their import licence. They included in that letter a veiled threat that their licence would be in jeopardy should suppliers seek to import under category A.

This action by the government is condemned, and the first amendment this bill makes ensures that the government cannot block importation under category A by relying on conditions of import licences.

The disallowance motion that the Senate supported in June this year related only to imported medicinal cannabis treatments. In introducing the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Act 2016, the government blocked category A access for Australian medicinal cannabis treatments.

The second amendment this bill makes is to ensure that Australian medicinal cannabis, along with imported medicinal cannabis, is accessible via category A of the SAS. This not only ensures that emerging Australian medicinal cannabis suppliers are not disadvantaged; it also ensures that when Australian medicinal cannabis treatments become available, terminally ill patients will be able to access them rapidly.

This bill is about securing access to medicinal cannabis for those Australian patients who need it most, in the face of needless cruelty and red-tape from this government.

I commend it to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.