Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This report was released during the break and there are some very critical points in the audit which, unfortunately, are not positive. The total budget funding for the National Ice Action Strategy for actions that the Department of Health has responsibility for implementing was $451.5 million over six years. The object of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Health's implementation of the National Ice Taskforce. The ANAO found that the Department of Health's implementation of the National Ice Action Strategy was partially effective. The department's planning for the implementation of the NIAS was not effective, it found. It said the department drafted but did not use or update an implementation plan and risk register, aside from monitoring progress of the actions it was responsible for implementing. It said an approach to measuring performance was not established. We are talking about the National Ice Action Strategy—over $450 million.

The ANAO said actions recommended by the department's program assurance team to ensure performance and accountability measures are in place have not been progressed by the program area. The ANAO said the department's delivery of actions outlined in the National Ice Action Strategy was largely effective but the department has delivered, and is in the process of delivering, the 19 actions it has responsibility for and Australian government funding for the alcohol and other drugs sector has increased. It said that, although the department monitors the activities of the primary health networks, it has not finalised a quality assurance framework that would allow it to assess whether the PHNs are effectively commissioning, monitoring and evaluating drug and alcohol services. Four hundred and fifty million dollars, folks! It goes on to say:

That's how much the department is paying attention to the ice strategy and that very important issue. Are we spending over $450 million effectively? This is the same government that now want to drug-test income support recipients when the evidence from health and addiction experts overwhelmingly is that it will not work. They say they're trials. Trials? In my mind, it means evaluation, but they haven't even evaluated the over $450 million they've been spending on the ice strategy. How do we know what's effective? We also know that we don't have enough services in place. We know because we've been listening to the community. We've been out there talking to the community. Experts appeared at the very short inquiry on drug testing. The committee actually tabled its report at the end of last week. What we heard throughout that inquiry is that there just aren't enough services on the ground—that the $10 million that the government's promised will hardly touch the edges.

My question is: how can you put in place drug-testing trials when the biggest expenditure for a long time on this matter of addiction has not been monitored? We actually don't know what's working. I cannot understand how you can put that much money in place and just leave it there, not monitor it and say, 'Oh, yes, but we want to now test this process.' All the drug, alcohol and addiction experts, as well as a person who appeared before the committee and whom you hear from very regularly, say that it won't work. Is it more about demonising people on income support? I've got to say that this government are very good at demonising people on income support. Heaven forbid, you could actually raise them out of poverty and give them a raise in Newstart—'We'd much rather demonise them and drug-test them. We won't bother evaluating it properly, because we're not very good at evaluating anyway.' It's a flawed approach. We should not treat Australians that way. We will never support drug testing. We do support spending money on drug and alcohol addiction, but let's spend it properly and make sure we know what works.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.