Page 325 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 1991
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Mr Humphries: What was that?
MR STEFANIAK: Sorry. I was about to say that the next time you go away I could be the Acting Health Minister because I am pronouncing these things properly, but I did stumble on that one.
There are alternatives to these two drugs - povidone-iodine or one of the imidazoles in the case of crystal violet, and relaxation therapies in place of chemical sedatives - which are examples of more restrictive scheduling to better protect public health. They will, of course, still be readily available if a medical practitioner decides that they have a use for the treatment of individual patients.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (4.10), in reply: I think it is worth commenting that the two Bills presently before the Assembly relate to the updating of the ACT's scheduling of drugs to bring it into line with a national program to harmonise the scheduling of drugs. This apparently is only a small and technical step towards the better administration of drugs. I think it should be noted that to have such legislation enacted does bring the ACT further down a path on which it has lagged for some time.
I do not need to remind members of this place that the ACT has lacked appropriate legislation in this and related fields for quite some time. It is most disturbing to see that the ACT's legislative framework should have been so neglected over so many years.
I was one who believed that the ACT was generously and assiduously taken care of by the Federal Government; but the state of legislation in the ACT was a rude reminder that that was not the case and that there are many areas in which the ACT's legislation, in a technical sense as well perhaps as in a substantive sense, has been wanting. This is one such area. We, as a Government, have a strong commitment to the policy that there should be consistency and harmonisation in the scheduling of drugs throughout Australia. In line with the National Health and Medical Research Council's recommendations, this proposed updating of the ACT poisons list aims to achieve this consistency.
Drug schedules obviously are lists of drugs that are categorised according to a number of factors, such as proposed use, potential for abuse, safety in use and the need for the substance. Certain categories of drugs are available to the general public without prescription and, of course, others require a doctor's prescription to be obtained.
The National Health and Medical Research Council obviously has been central in providing leadership in the standardisation and harmonisation of drugs throughout this country. The role of the NHMRC, as a peak advisory body in
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