Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today five proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Hanson:

Dear Mr President,

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice today I propose to move that, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

In view of the overwhelming public and professional support for the use of whole plant medicinal cannabis, the need for it to be listed in schedule 4 of the Therapeutic Goods Act, so it may be prescribed by an authorised health professional and available for purchase from the pharmacy.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

In view of the overwhelming public and professional support for the use of whole plant medicinal cannabis, the need for it to be listed in schedule 4 of the Therapeutic Goods Act, so it may be prescribed by an authorised health professional and available for purchase from the pharmacy.

As all members of this house know, for more than five years I have been a very strong advocate for the use of whole plant medicinal cannabis. It came off the back of a woman I met who was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Surgery was out of the question and conventional drugs had left her for dead. Imagine a doctor saying, 'Sorry darl, everything we've done just won't stop the cancer,' or, 'Sorry darl, I can't prescribe you anything stronger to deal with the pain you're suffering; you are already on the most potent,' or, 'Sorry darl, your child will have to be kept in a comatose-like state because there are no other drugs that will stop the seizures.'

Secretly, the majority of people in the Senate support the use of whole plant medicinal cannabis, as I do. The problem is that too many of you are too gutless to take the necessary steps to make any change and come into line with the thinking of most of the general public. Why? Because you fear what your pharmaceutical mates might come out and say or, worse still, you fear they'll pull your political donations.

You might ask yourself why One Nation would bring to this chamber a matter of public urgency regarding whole plant medicinal cannabis. The truth is that up to 100,000 Australians are being forced to break the law by sourcing medicinal cannabis oil from the black market. These people are our next-door neighbours, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters or our uncles and aunts. They are everyday people caught in a world of pain and suffering. They are people who can't wait any longer. It's almost as if the cold weather down here in Canberra freezes the hearts of elected members. Unless you've suffered the effects of chemotherapy, epilepsy, tremors, PTSD or one of the dozens of other symptoms medicinal cannabis can assist you with, you really don't know what I'm talking about. I have no doubt you all know someone going through these symptoms, so I ask you all here today: why are you preventing the use of a natural drug?

In my home state of Queensland, the Labor government and the health department are denying medicinal cannabis oil to a nine-year-old girl by the name of Caitlin, and instead want to dope her up on oxycodone, OxyContin, tramadol and diazepam. Each and every time this girl is forced to take pharmaceutical drugs of this nature, her body shuts down. Medicinal cannabis oil is the only thing that gives her any quality of life. Right this minute, nine-year-old Caitlin needs an urgent operation to extend the growth rods in her back and the health department refused to allow her mother to administer medicinal cannabis oil while she's in the hospital. Even Caitlin's own doctor has written a letter of support to allow her to keep using cannabis oil, which the Labor government and the Queensland health department refuse to acknowledge. This is just one case of the 100,000 people forced to source illegal black-market medicinal cannabis oil.

Every day, my office, my website and my Facebook page receive contact from people asking why they cannot access this pain-relieving product. Why are we so behind the eight ball in Australia in this field compared to many other countries in the world? And, yet, this government went to the election on a platform of innovation and jobs. I'm telling you right now: medical cannabis oil is innovative. It will get people back to work sooner. It will stop so much suffering and mitigate the tears that flow every single day from helpless family members who sit and watch their loved ones in pain.

I have to highlight that there are very few people in politics willing to put their heads on the chopping block and fight so hard on this matter. I take my hat off to Steve Dickson, who did that just last year when he came to One Nation because of this very subject. No-one in his former party were willing to step up and speak out on this subject, and I want to thank Steve Dickson for continuously helping me keep this matter in the public arena and pushing for legislative reform.

We know that the Australian government has approved the growing, harvesting and manufacturing of whole-plant medicinal cannabis. So why can't everyday Australians get access? It is not because the product goes off, because it can be kept unrefrigerated for up to 12 months. I'll tell you why Aussies can't get access to medical cannabis—it's because of the onerous paperwork and bureaucracy. Every single one of us in this chamber today has the ability to change that. That's what we were elected to do—to make decisions for the greater good of everyday people. Bureaucrats weren't elected; we were. Pharmaceutical companies were not elected; we were. I'm not interested in synthetic products produced by greedy pharmaceutical companies, and neither are the public. We want access to the real deal. Please, no more excuses. No more telling me, 'We're doing our best to give sufferers access,' because the public are telling me they can't access it.

I'll leave you with one parting comment before we break for Easter. This weekend marks a time when Christ gave his life for the sake of ours. I'm not asking for any of you to give your lives today. I'm just asking you to give your vote to support medical cannabis oil and help save the lives of others.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the urgency motion put forward in this place by Senator Hanson. I want to place on the record that Labor have consistently fought for improved access to medical cannabis in circumstances where it's clinically desirable for patients. We've been listening to patients. I've met with patients. I know that the shadow health minister Catherine King has also met with patients. We have put forward our own clear thoughts on these issues. But what we have seen coming from the government, on the other hand, is them very much dragging their heels on this issue. When they finally established a national scheme, it was so complicated and had so many barriers to access that people simply gave up. This goes some way to highlighting the kinds of issues that Senator Hanson has raised in the Senate today. Instead of prioritising access for patients, what the government did at that time—and still does—was stigmatise desperate Australians who were unwell, who were dying or who had serious conditions such as epilepsy and were trying to overcome the barriers in the system to access medical cannabis.

But I want to be clear about the motion that's before us today. It is simply a statement of opinion before this place. Being so, it's an attempt by Senator Hanson to try to hide her failure to stand up in this place for better medical access to cannabis.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're pathetic! You're absolutely pathetic!

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm happy for you to interject, Senator Hanson, but the critical matter is this: when, in May, this Senate voted to disallow the government's restrictions on access to medicinal cannabis, under category A of the Special Access Scheme, in recognition that access to category A has always been tightly restricted to people with a terminal illness, and only if it's clinically appropriate, Senator Hanson and her colleagues voted with the government against the disallowance. So Senator Hanson voted that medicinal cannabis should only be made available and tightly restricted to people with a terminal illness. Those are not the circumstances which you've brought to the parliament today. I'm very glad to hear you've had a change of heart. But I need to call you out on it because it was disappointing to advocates and families, at the time, when you voted against easier access to medicinal cannabis for those who needed it. So today's attempt, I think, from Senator Hanson, is an attempt to hide those failures.

Even though the Senate did successfully disallow the government's regulations—the government and One Nation voted together; the Greens, the Labor Party and others voted to disallow the regulations—the government has not responded appropriately, and I would call on Senator Hanson to use her close relationships with the government to put some real pressure on them. Terminally ill patients should, at that time, have been given easier access to a prescribed therapy to ease their suffering. But what we've seen instead from the government in the months since is an attempt to block the parliament's will and to continue to deny relief to dying Australians. Labor supports today's urgency motion and, indeed, the principle of urgency on this topic, because the government deserves to be sent a clear message that more needs to be done, and we want to send a message of support to all of those people who are suffering from their failure to act. We think the status quo is simply not good enough.

We know that there are people for whom access to medicinal cannabis is clinically desirable for their conditions. I spoke to a young woman with epilepsy in Western Australia. She buys her medicinal cannabis on the black market, because it's the only thing that gives her any respite from regular epileptic fits, but she has no clear pathway to purchase it in a legal manner.

It's important to note that, even if today's vote is successful, it won't actually change anything for people seeking improved access to medicinal cannabis. Senator Hanson's urgency motion fails to recognise some significant things about the way our system works currently, and things that simply have to be fixed properly for people to get access to medicinal cannabis. One thing I'd like to highlight to the chamber is Australia's international obligations under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961. What patients seek, as to access to medicinal cannabis, is a considered policy—that's what we need: to provide access, through a GP, to a regulated, quality supply of medicinal cannabis. And that is not what this motion before us puts forward today.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you'd better read what's on the sheet!

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can read the motion. It says that there's professional support for medicinal cannabis and that it needs to be listed on schedule 4 of the Therapeutic Goods Act. But let's be clear: there are different schedules, and, I'm not sure as to whether it belongs in schedule 4 or a different schedule. We have tightly controlled opiate drugs, which are also very desired on the black market for drug use, that are prescribed, and, as far as I understand, they don't belong on schedule 4, so we need to look very carefully at which schedule these drugs belong on.

We need to make sure that people have a clear, accessible pathway. I have spoken to patients in Western Australia who, despite the supposed process of the TGA and the supposed processes of state governments to give people access to medicinal cannabis, could still not find a prescribing doctor. And the paperwork attached to being a prescribing doctor and putting yourself out there and finding a supplier—which you can't find regularly through a pharmacy—has proven just too great for too many patients in getting access to the medicinal cannabis that would help them and their children and their families.

So Labor, in 2015, made a very clear commitment that we wanted to work with state and territory governments to ensure there were nationally consistent laws to allow successful access to medicinal cannabis for those who are terminally ill or who have other clinically identified medical conditions that medicinal cannabis may benefit. What we've seen in the Turnbull government is a government that is too slow in catching up and in adopting a similar policy to Labor's. And it's been even slower, I have to tell you, in implementing anything. You've been too focused on getting headlines and have forgotten about patients. Let's be clear: this is not about allowing free access to a drug for recreational use—although I would like to put on the record how proud I was to be part of the Gallop Labor government that back in the early 2000s decriminalised cannabis in small quantities because of the large social toll that it was taking on the community in terms of putting people on a criminal pathway.

But that's not what we are debating today. It is about ensuring that there is a legal and regulated market so that family members and carers aren't forced to rely on the black market to relieve the pain of their loved ones. We have seen in report after report that patients are facing barrier after barrier. It's almost impossible to find a prescribing doctor. When I spoke to patients in Western Australia, they could not identify any, despite the fact that doctors now have a right to prescribe this drug. So they've given up hope that things will become easier and they don't believe what the Turnbull government says. They've trusted them before and things have not improved. (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak to this urgency motion about access to medicinal cannabis. It's an issue which is a personal passion of mine and a key priority of the Australian Greens. It's long past time that Australians got access to medicinal cannabis treatments—treatments that we know work, treatments that have the potential to relieve pain and suffering, treatments that can prevent nausea, treatments that can ease the symptoms associated with conditions like multiple sclerosis, treatments which do have a role in pain management.

This government should be ashamed of its record when it comes to giving access to medicinal cannabis. For many years, we've seen people who have championed this cause—people like Dan and Lucy Haslam, who had to lobby the government about the unbearable suffering caused by Dan's chemotherapy. Dan had bowel cancer. He was having chemotherapy. He had nausea and it wasn't relieved by a range of anti-nausea agents. Medicinal cannabis was the only thing that provided him with some relief to allow him to continue to eat and have some quality of life while he was receiving treatment. Sadly, Dan has since passed away. Of course, the great tragedy is that, even if Dan were still alive, he would not be able to have a consistent legal supply of medicinal cannabis to ease his suffering—even now.

Several years ago, the Greens decided that we needed some action here. We introduced the Regulator of Medicinal Cannabis Bill, which was cross-party legislation. It was a clear example of how the community, working together with their parliamentary representatives—and, of course, the Greens were front and centre in that change—allowed us to put pressure on the government.

The government, rather than accepting this as the most logical and rational approach to how we regulate cannabis—that is, to create a separate body to deal with many of the issues that are unique to medicinal cannabis—gave us their Narcotic Drugs Amendment Bill. That has effectively been a regulatory nightmare. People have to jump through hoops. There are so many obstacles that one needs to pass before one can get access to medicinal cannabis. You only need to look at the number of people right now who are being prescribed medicinal cannabis by their medical practitioner, which is only several hundred, to know that this scheme isn't working. The TGA medicinal cannabis experiment has failed, and we need a new approach.

Of course, this parliament gave the government the benefit of the doubt when they said that they were serious about reform in this area. Instead, we've got this disaster of overregulation and red tape and the continuation of an ideology that stops people from getting access to this treatment. We've tried to modify the government's proposal. In fact, we've done it through a disallowance motion. Indeed, we were successful in our disallowance motion, through the Medicinal Cannabis Legislation Amendment (Securing Patient Access) Bill 2017, in the Senate last year.

I have to remind the Senate that it was Senator Hanson and One Nation who voted against that piece of legislation when it was put before the parliament. That was legislation that would have given compassionate access to people who needed medicinal cannabis. Of course, I'm pleased that after the Greens had that vote recommitted—thanks to former Senator Jacqui Lambie, who made it clear that she had been unable to vote on that legislation—One Nation changed their position and we were successful in getting that disallowance through the Senate. We have continued to advocate for a process that removes barriers to access to medicinal cannabis under Special Access Scheme category A, ending the duplication in the regulatory process and ensuring that clinicians are informed. But the bottom line is we need to overhaul the system.

We'll support this urgency motion, but, sadly, this is a motion that gives patients false hope. Even if this motion does pass, it won't have any effect. What we need to do is have this government change the law. That is the only way we'll start to see people getting access to medicinal cannabis. It's so clear that the only model is to create an independent pathway—one that's separate from the TGA—that says, 'If you are suffering from a terminal illness, indeed, if you are suffering from a range of other conditions for which the evidence base is clear, then a doctor will be able to prescribe you this medication, because we know it's effective and we know it works.'

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support what the previous speakers have said. I suspect I'm probably the only person in this place who has been to medicinal cannabis conferences at Nimbin for the past two years. I never though I would be saying this, but I appreciate it that Senator Hanson, although she did vote against it, is now voting with us. I think she had been spooked by a last-minute scare that was sent through the government from the health minister at that time.

I won't go over all the old ground. I do agree with Senator Di Natale: the government has to change its law. We've got cannabis oil companies on the stock exchange. We've got the Victorian government supporting marijuana being grown in Victoria. I've had to forward a plan that Norfolk Island should become like Tasmania and do with medical marijuana what they do with poppies in Tasmania.

When you're in Nimbin you talk to people, you hear other cases. I talked to a woman whose daughter had 900 epileptic convulsions. She has to risk criminal prosecution to get oil for her child. I met a man in Nimbin, an elderly man with brain cancer, who risks criminal prosecution to get access to that product. That is why it is wrong. It is time for us to change. The government has been obstructionist. We did get disallowance motions through, but they are not following the spirit of the Senate. They are not following through with the spirit of the law. They don't care about people who are desperately in need of this treatment.

One of the last things I did before I jumped the shark was a big story on medicinal cannabis on a Sunday night television program. Some of the stories there were absolutely horrifying. I plead with the government and I plead with the health minister: go and look at that story. Go back there and see the sorts of cases we had of people and their children suffering. I met one man in Nimbin who'd been to jail because he grew marijuana and made cannabis oil for his neighbour. He did time in jail for it. I plead with the government: stop being obstructionist. Get on with it and change the bloody law.

Question agreed to.