Page 2072 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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we know it in the ACT and is going to be fostering drug addiction. We had the pathetic spectacle last week, Madam Speaker, of a small group of students, almost outnumbered by Liberal politicians in search of a camera, trying to do a bit of rabblerousing in Garema Place as a so-called protest against marijuana law reforms. It was indeed a fizzer, as the media quite accurately reported.
The sad thing about it, Madam Speaker, is that, as a result of the advice given to the Liberal Party and which was tabled and published in this place, we have seen the Liberals move from very sensible comments on this issue last year to generating fear and hysteria in the community. I think that is a sad thing for this Assembly and a sad thing for the process of self-government. In the past at least the two major parties have tended to take rational views of debate, and we have not really seen oppositions just opposing for opposition's sake and just being silly in order to distance themselves from the government. It is certainly not a practice that this party followed when in opposition. We were always looking for constructive solutions. Indeed, the Liberal Party was clearly looking for a constructive solution on this issue last year, but decided, on advice from outside, that here was a cheap political issue on which to generate a bit of heat, but not much light, and to try to whip up some frenzy.
Madam Speaker, the Government has never been proposing to legalise marijuana, despite the rhetoric of some members opposite and some community groups that members opposite might think might be worth a few votes for them. What we have said is that we have to look realistically at the issue of substance abuse in the community. My colleague Mr Berry only yesterday proposed another Bill on that subject which received very favourable attention in the Chronicle newspapers. We have to look sensibly at the issue of substance abuse and we have to realise that different substances are used or abused in different ways. We have to accept, in the mature manner in which Mr Humphries proposed that the debate be conducted last year, that cannabis is a substance which is widely abused in the community.
All surveys over recent years suggest that most Canberrans, and most members of the Australian community under, say, 35, have been exposed to cannabis at some stage. Are we going to say that all of those people should be dealt with as criminals and should have criminal records? The on-the-spot mechanism for dealing with cannabis has been in place for many years now in South Australia. While maintaining strict penalties for trafficking and for other forms of drugs, you can deal with personal use quantities of cannabis by way of an on-the-spot fine. We have been on record for some time as suggesting that an on-the-spot fine as a concept for personal use quantities of marijuana is a sensible proposal, as indeed Mr Humphries, back in 1991, seemed to be suggesting.
We, of course, debated this issue last year. We had some hysteria yesterday from the Liberal Party suggesting that this was some secret agenda of the Labor Party's, that nobody had said anything about this. Yes, I can understand opposition members laughing. It was a fairly laughable proposal from Mr Kaine. I well recall this issue being debated very fully in the Canberra media late last year when Mr Collaery was proposing this change.
Mr Kaine: Give the kids drugs; that is funny?
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