Page 2088 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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bring forward some amendments to the Act? They did not because they did not see it as a problem. So, when they stand up and talk in their sanctimonious fashion about the position of the Liberals, let us look at their motives and where they are coming from. Although Mr Berry and Mr Connolly defend their position, they are in fact softening the law on this drug.
Mr Moore: Nonsense!
MR KAINE: They are softening the law on this drug.
Mr Lamont: Nonsense! We have increased the penalties.
MR KAINE: The penalty is to be a $100 fine. What you are saying - Mrs Carnell put her finger on it exactly - is that it is no different from a parking offence. If you are caught with a bit of marijuana in your possession or you are smoking it, not only will the existing penalty in the law be imposed, but it will be just an on-the-spot fine. If that is not softening the law, what is? It is putting it in the same category as a parking offence. That is not what the law says at the moment. The law says that if you have this in your possession or if you are using it, in no matter what quantities, it is a criminal offence. You are decriminalising it; you are softening the law. No matter what you say, no matter how you dress it up, that is what you are doing. How anybody in today's world can say that softening the law on drugs is a good thing is absolutely beyond me.
This same Government, which is saying that softening the law on drugs is okay, is at the same time saying that we are clamping down on the use of tobacco. The argument being put by these people over here is that this drug is no more harmful than tobacco. Let us assume that that is a correct statement. I do not believe it. I think Mrs Carnell demonstrated that that is not a fact, but let us assume that it is. How then can you be saying at the same time that we are going to discourage the use of tobacco? In fact, we are even going to ban advertising at sports events. That is the view taken by this Minister; there is to be no advertising of tobacco products by sporting organisations. At the same time the same Minister gets up and says that we are going to soften the law on marijuana. How inconsistent can you get? Either his position is right, that both are harmful, or his position is wrong. In either case he is arguing from a weak point.
I happen to believe, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, as do the members of the Liberal Party who have researched the matter thoroughly, that marijuana is a harmful drug. It is a harmful drug. Why then would we support a softening of the law that says that using it is okay and that it is no different from a parking offence?
Mr Moore: Because it will reduce the harm.
MR KAINE: The Liberal Party does not believe that and the Liberal Party will not support that. We will vote against Mr Moore's Bill and we will vote against the soft attitude of the Labor Party towards this issue. I wish somebody on the Labor Party side would get up and explain why it is that they are not pushing their own viewpoint; they are merely stepping one back from the position that Mr Moore put them in. You should keep him under control better if you do not want to debate this issue.
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