Page 2083 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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there may need to be provision for special circumstances to be considered in the case of issuing expiation notices to juveniles. For example, section 33 of the Children's Services Act considers some of these factors in relation to other offences. These factors include age and maturity of the child, mental capacity, circumstances in which the offence is alleged to have been committed, the role of parents in exercising effective control, and so on.
The Government will support in principle the Bill which has been proposed by Mr Moore, but it will be proposing fines which will be a stronger deterrent than those which are proposed by Mr Moore. We will continue to pursue our harm minimisation approach in relation to the use of illicit drugs. We will repeatedly take steps in relation to those matters. We will continue to inform the community in an open and honest way about the approach that we are taking. We will not use the sorts of hysteria and mischief-making comments which have been used by the Liberals in relation to this matter, just to present themselves as something different. We will be responsible in the way that we approach this issue.
If the Liberals had any guts on this issue they would take a constructive approach instead of a destructive one. They repeatedly have taken the destructive approach and, of course, as always, they attack the victims. The Labor Government is not in this business to attack the victims. We are about improving conditions out there in the community by way of the provision of better services and better laws. This change to the law will result in a better law. As I have said to Mr Kaine in the past, the heading at the top of the page does not mean anything; it is the guts of the law that matters. That is why Labor's social justice aims and objectives will produce better laws for the people of the Territory, and they will be better for the community generally.
MS SZUTY (11.22): Madam Speaker, there is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of this amending legislation will be an important initiative in the overall context of the reform of drug laws in the ACT. As my colleague Mr Moore stated during his speech when introducing his Bill, a prohibitive approach has not worked and does not work. By leaving the personal use of cannabis as a criminal offence, all we do is introduce otherwise law-abiding community members into the judicial system. At present it appears that the police are not prosecuting offences against the current legislation in this regard unless there is an accompanying offence. For that reason, therefore, the law is not being seen as a deterrent to the use of marijuana.
What I am hopeful that this amending legislation will do is make access to information on marijuana more widely available and make it more acceptable for users to admit to their medical practitioners that they are cannabis smokers. I agree that the drug can have harmful side effects and, with the decriminalisation of marijuana, these will now be able to be freely canvassed. This amending legislation is supported by many groups. The Australian Medical Association supports this move, and it is normally not regarded as being a radical organisation. Drug user support groups support this legislation.
There is a possibility that drug usage will increase with the passage of this legislation. However, the reason most likely would be, according to experts in the field, that there would be a corresponding decrease in the use of other drugs such as amphetamines and heroin. This seems to me to be a worthwhile goal for our community. Some groups, including Assisting Drug Dependents Incorporated and the ACT Intravenous League, are fearful of an outbreak of drug
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