Page 4441 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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ACT will enthusiastically involve itself. As I said to Mr Moore the other day, with the establishment of the clinical school in Canberra, we are in a very good position to take part in those trials. With the level of expertise in glaucoma research and cancer research here in Canberra, we are in an ideal position to take part in that process. I welcome that process; but I do not welcome slapdash, ad hoc - to use the words of Dr Brendan Nelson - attempts at legislative reform, as occurred here yesterday.
I will not approve the use of drugs without some serious research backing it up. I will not approve the use of cannabis, any more than I would approve some quack cancer cure from the Cook Islands, which we read about from time to time. Like any Health Minister in Australia, I regard myself as having a fairly high level of responsibility for approving substances to be trialled out there in the public. What you two did yesterday - you, Mr Moore, and Mrs Carnell - and what the sheep that followed did was to put through this jurisdiction an extraordinarily radical law which removes all safeguards for this type of research.
Mr Moore: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is a very sensible point of order. This Minister is clearly reflecting on a vote of the Assembly. He has been doing that continuously, and he really needs to be called to order.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Connolly, I am sure that you are aware of those standing order provisions. Please continue.
MR CONNOLLY: And I am aware of my responsibility, as Health Minister, for the health of this Territory and, as Attorney-General, for the enforcement of the law in this Territory. Madam Speaker, there will be some serious research done next year. It will be auspiced through a very distinguished group of scientists under the National Drug Strategy Committee. It will be oversighted by Health and Justice Ministers from all States and Territories of Australia and nationally. Madam Speaker, that is the way in which this Labor Government intends to proceed with the important issue of cannabis law reform and the important therapeutic issues. We do not adopt a slapdash, opportunistic, political stunting approach to this type of issue.
MRS GRASSBY: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I ask the Minister: When was the ministerial council to hear the results of the research by the national task force on cannabis?
MR CONNOLLY: We received those reports in September. We expect the group of researchers to convene in early 1995. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy will be meeting again in April 1995, when these research proposals should be finalised. Madam Speaker, that research will be conducted under Part IV of the Act. Mrs Carnell said that we had to have a law like yesterday's; otherwise a person with the drug would be subject to prosecution under the Act. Madam Speaker, I will not give you a legal opinion; but I will say, "Read section 160 of the Drugs of Dependence Act", which makes it abundantly clear that, when research is authorised, prosecutions do not lie. You are wrong again, Mrs Carnell. Three strikes and you will be out.
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