Page 4580 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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The great concern, as far as the Labor Party and the Government are concerned, is in the way in which this whole sorry mess has been executed. If you look at these amendments, the people of the ACT could be forgiven for believing that Milan Brych had been "reincarnellated" here in the ACT. You may recall that it was Milan Brych in Queensland, supported by the then Premier of that State, who suggested that he had a cure for cancer. He put forward this stunning eye of newt, scraping of bat's ear and whatever else it was, as a long lost secret for the cure of particular issues. Quite frankly, Milan Brych got the comeuppance he deserved, and I think every right-minded Australian believes that the final reaction of the people of Queensland, and indeed the people of Australia, was appropriate in those circumstances. What is being proposed by these amendments and the original motion is no less dangerous than the propositions put forward by Milan Brych.
Mrs Carnell: How?
MR LAMONT: I thank you for that opportunity, Mrs Carnell. I will now go on to explain the reasons why.
Mr Humphries: To make them up, you mean.
MR LAMONT: Mr Humphries, unlike your amendments, which quite obviously have been made up on the spur of the moment, we have given long and careful consideration to these issues. We have given long and careful consideration to them as a party, and in particular as a government. I pick up the words of Mr Stevenson, who has suggested that what we need to do is take a plant which for centuries has been known or alleged to have medicinal purposes.
Mr Stevenson: Thousands of years.
MR LAMONT: Okay, for millennia. Does that suit you? Let me say one thing to you: Despite all those eons and millennia, I still cannot walk into a doctor's surgery and say, "Doctor, I have a headache; I have a migraine. I think a quick hit of THC will get me over my problem", and have him say, "We will give you 5 milligrams and we will intravenously administer it and it will overcome the problem". If I go in looking for some other organic treatment, it will have been tested before it is made available for the purposes for which it is being proposed to be released. It is clinically tested; it is clinically controlled and investigated. But that is not what is being proposed at all by these amendments. You are not proposing that there be limited controlled clinical testing.
Mrs Carnell: Yes, we are.
MR LAMONT: No, you are not, and that is the difference. On the one hand, I believe Mr Moore when he says, "As far as I am concerned, my position on this drug is that this is good enough and this is the way it should be done". That is Mr Moore's firmly held view, and I do not for one minute deny that Mr Moore quite sincerely holds that view.
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