Page 2520 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 1993
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Mrs Carnell: Pharmacies are not doing it either, because you have not seen to it.
MR BERRY: That is a matter for the pharmacies. What I am saying to you is that you knew when I made that statement that it was our plan that the entire program would be contained within government facilities. As a result of legislation which you supported the situation has changed. It was held up as a result of the debate that went on. The Government has increased, by a large margin, the number of people who are involved in our methadone program. When the conservatives were in power absolutely nothing happened. When we came into office there were 85 people on it; there are now well over 200. This Government can be congratulated on its performance in expanding the methadone program. The conservatives, when in government, should have been condemned, and you should share some of that.
In terms of achieving the 350, I made that statement in the context of the entire service being contained within the public arena, with methadone being distributed only from public facilities and revenue being collected as a result, as you well know. It is quite misleading for you to suggest that what is happening now is happening in the same context as when I answered the question which was raised then. We still will be targeting to get our methadone treatment program up higher and we would hope to achieve those numbers, but it is made more difficult when the revenue drops as a result of some of the revenue going to other places.
MRS CARNELL: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Is it not true that the reason expansion to the three health centres has not occurred is that the Minister's costings on the program have proven to be wrong? Is it not true that he was told that they were wrong in estimates last year and chose to go ahead anyway? I ask the Minister: How many pharmacies are distributing methadone and to how many clients?
MR BERRY: It is not true that the figuring is wrong. Our estimates were made on the basis of the expectations we had at the time of revenue which would be collected from people who would be involved in the program. Early in the program some people refused to pay and we had to introduce another charging regime. That regime is targeted, again, at expanding the program as far as it can possibly be expanded. As we know, methadone is an effective means of treating opiate addiction and the ACT program has provided the access which I talked about by expanding it almost threefold. How dare you sit there and be critical of what this Government has done in respect of the methadone program. In common with other jurisdictions, the ACT has initiated a charging policy based on people's capacity and willingness to pay. We have discussed this with you, and I know that your preferred position is for the Government to subsidise pharmacies to do it.
Mrs Carnell: Not necessarily, no; we just want you to do it. Do it somehow.
MR BERRY: We are doing it. Our performance is a threefold increase. We have increased it to three times the number in place under the conservatives. They did nothing about it.
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