Page 4306 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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That returns me to an issue I raised earlier on, and that is the quality of the community debate and community debate generally. There is no question that community debate must go on, otherwise we will not move far and we will be caught in the difficult situation that other countries - Mr Moore referred to the United States - have experienced. I do not think that Australians want to go backwards; they want to go forwards on this issue. But we have to go ahead with all Australians, not just those of us who know and understand the problem, or think we do. We have to take everybody with us, from this end of the country to the other end, to ensure that there is a universal commitment to a better place as far as the use and misuse of drugs is concerned.
Mr Deputy Speaker, from the Government's point of view, we are contributors to the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, and we are energetic contributors. Mr Connolly and I will continue to be so. We know that while we put energy into that process there will be change. There is an element of gradualism in it, but I think that most people accept that as a fact of life on this score. Without a gradual approach we will not be able to take the Australian community with us, and I am sure that that is what we all want to do.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.35): Madam Speaker, I rise, very briefly, to speak on this matter. I was interested to read a statement by Bill Clinton during the last election campaign in which he claimed that the definition of insanity was repeating over and over again something that has never worked. I do not think any of us would doubt that prohibition has never worked. Certainly, in the area of control of illicit drugs, it has not worked, and I think we have any amount of information to show that that is the case. It is true that we have spent more and more money, and dedicated more and more technology, but really we have not produced better results at all. The problems associated with drug use and prohibition are many, but it is very hard to look past the deaths associated with illicit drug use. Certainly, during the seventies and the eighties, the number of deaths has gone up. Over the last 10 years the number of deaths associated with illicit drug use has gone up even more. In fact, it has increased by some 33 per cent. Nobody, in any position in Australia, can say that that is all right; it simply is not all right.
Other problems involved with drug use are issues like the incidence of hepatitis B and hepatitis C, not to mention AIDS. Hepatitis B and C are a fact of life for some three-quarters of injecting drug users in Australia - a situation that, again, is simply unacceptable. It also is going to continue to cost Australia dearly, both socially and financially, over a prolonged period. The cost of crime associated with illicit drug use is something that we discuss, even in this house, quite regularly. The cost of housebreaking, of theft generally, to every community is huge. The incidence of that directly related to drug use is quite mind-boggling. The cost of enforcement, again, is huge. I understand that the cost is approaching $300m a year, and enforcement does not seem to be working very well. Of course, there are the unintended consequences, such as corruption. We certainly saw some of that during the Fitzgerald inquiry in Queensland - corruption of the police, the judiciary, and politicians, in some circumstances.
All of these situations are simply unacceptable. So what do we do? I think that Australia has been very progressive in this area when you look at the overseas situation. Australia, as a whole, has embraced harm minimisation. The early introduction of syringe exchange is something, I think, that most governments - not all - in Australia can be proud of. I am very proud of my pharmacy colleagues in this area. They embraced syringe exchange in
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