Page 2076 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Kaine: How many people have been prosecuted for this in the last year under your Government? The answer is none.
MR CONNOLLY: No, that is nonsense, Mr Kaine; that is utter nonsense, and you should know better. Making such ignorant and ill-informed statements does not reflect well on the Leader of the Opposition, who ought be the member opposite who commands the most respect from government benches. Mr Humphries, in fact, was leaping up and down, foaming at the mouth, the other day when the Director of Public Prosecutions annual report was tabled. He was running around to the community saying, "Look, look, shock, horror! There have been more prosecutions for drug offences in the ACT". Your deputy was saying, "Shock, horror! You are prosecuting too many drug offences". Well, he was not saying that; what he was saying was that drug offences are rising - and you are saying that we do not prosecute drug offenders.
Mr Kaine, we prosecute drug offenders, particularly drug traffickers, with extraordinary vigour. The annual report of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which was tabled in this place the other day, has been passed to me by my highly efficient staff in the last 30 seconds. It indicates that for supplying cannabis, which is the passing of cannabis to another individual, there were 31 defendants, 92 charges, 42 pleas of guilty, 50 pleas of not guilty, 70 convictions overall, and a number of other matters stood aside. The total poisons and narcotics charges showed a slight increase from 1990 to 1991. So we continue to pursue these vigorously.
I will run through the cannabis offences. There were four charges of using cannabis, but that is not the offence we are talking about. There were 36 charges of possessing cannabis. For possessing cannabis for supply or sale there were 31 charges. Supply cannabis is the key because the supply offences are the ones that carry the maximum penalties. The supply offences are the ones that are directed at the traffickers. In the case of cannabis they are the people who are of most concern. We all know that traffickers often prefer not to sell cannabis because it is a bulky drug. They much prefer to sell substances like amphetamines. They try to target those substances at the groups who may be consuming cannabis, and if we can attack them we can stop the movement onto more difficult drugs. (Extension of time granted)
Mr Kaine: How many of those were there?
MR CONNOLLY: There were 92 charges of supplying cannabis, resulting in 70 convictions. I do not have the equivalents for the previous year, but in virtually all matters the bar chart in that report showed a slight increase. That is to be expected, given that that has been the pattern for the last 10 years - a slight increase every year. So any suggestion from members opposite that we are in any way going soft on drug traders or drug traffickers is simply nonsense. By the way we were able to refute that so quickly, I think any future such assertion will not reflect credit on members opposite.
Madam Speaker, to summarise, what the Government is proposing is an amendment to Mr Moore's Bill which takes up the on-the-spot fine mechanism with a minor amendment which I will be dealing with at the detail stage and applying that to the existing penalty regime. In other words, Madam Speaker, there is no change - no change, Mr Kaine - to the existing penalty regime.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .