Page 2755 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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a reward/punishment system, but is an essential step in ensuring safe and effective treatment. This Government believes that the policy is essential for safe and effective treatment.
Madam Speaker, the Government has taken a strong view in relation to this matter because unilateral decisions on most important social matters are unacceptable. The MCDS has set very clear guidelines in relation to methadone programs. Mr Moore has clearly indicated that from his point of view they are not up to scratch. I am not sure what Mrs Carnell's position is, but I know that at least one of the Liberals supported the guidelines at one time. Things may have changed. Mr Moore wants to continue with his social laboratory. That is fine. But the people of the ACT must know what you are up to. You are not prepared to move with the rest of the country in the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy; you want to do your own thing here in the ACT.
Mr Kaine: It would be great if they knew what you were up to, Minister.
MR BERRY: We know. We will follow the guidelines. Madam Speaker, I table the Government's response to the report by the select committee.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.26): In response to what has just been said by Mr Berry, I have to raise a fairly serious matter in the Assembly. I have reason to believe that we have among us an imposter, a person who purports to be a member of this Assembly but who in fact is not. It seems to me that the man who sits directly opposite me, who pretends that he is the Minister for Health, is in fact not the Minister for Health. I have listened very carefully to the comments that Mr X - let us call him Mr X - has made today and I have looked very carefully at the comments that the person I know to have been Wayne Berry made in this place and in the community last year. I do not believe that they are one and the same person.
Indeed, Madam Speaker, I believe that what we have here is either a case of extreme personality change, schizophrenia perhaps, or different people - one who sat here last year and told the Assembly how wonderful the dispensation of methadone from community pharmacies would be and today a different person who comes here and says, "What a shocking idea! It will lead to deaths. We will have all sorts of terrible things happening in this community if we allow methadone to be distributed by community pharmacists". What did the real Mr Berry say last year? On 25 August last year there was an article in the Canberra Times about a great fanfare of activity from the new Labor Government. The article states:
Canberra's chemists are ready to issue dependent drug users with methadone shots.
Details of a pilot scheme to issue the drug by prescription in an expanded methadone program were made public yesterday by the Minister for Health, Wayne Berry.
There was even a picture of him in the paper, a picture of the real Wayne Berry. It is a striking resemblance but not quite good enough to fool us on this side of the house.
Mr Moore: Did he have a moustache?
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