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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 360 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Let us not forget that we do not have a blemish-free record on the way that we have handled other drug-related matters.

Mr Humphries: Who is "we"?

MR BERRY: This Assembly. Take the "grow it down the backyard; treat yourself to marijuana" experiment. The whole world was laughing at us on that score. Mrs Carnell, who was one of the advocates of that particular proposal, is now the one that is pushing this line: "We are going to press for these changes at a Federal level". She has a job in front of her, I would expect.

I think the people of the ACT would be duly concerned about some of the priorities of this Government. When you look at the preparatory phase, we are talking about $821,000-plus being spent. In the second pilot, $1.5m is to be spent. Regrettably, this all comes at a time when Mrs Carnell is getting stuck into the public sector in the ACT. The community would be starting to worry about her priorities - and not surprisingly, I would think. Overwhelmingly, the community would be concerned about the basic services which ought to be provided. I think the planning has left something to be desired.

Labor's position is, as has been said, one of cautious support for the issue. You will have gathered, from the speeches which we have made thus far, that we do not have much confidence in the ability of the Chief Minister to deal with the issue. We hope that she can win back our trust; but I think she has a long way to go, given her performance thus far.

I would like to refer to a few things that Mr Moore said. Mr Moore has long said that prohibition does not work. I have to say that chanting the mantra does not change the truth. In many ways, prohibition is an important part of our social structure.

Mr Moore: I gave one example of where it does work and what the parameters have to be.

MR BERRY: Yes. In fact, prohibition does not work for people dependent on heroin, that is true; but for the overwhelming majority of society it does work. From my point of view, those sorts of claims about prohibition do not really help the debate.

Mr Humphries: That is like saying, "For all those who do not smoke, anti-smoking campaigns are completely successful". It does not make any sense.

MR BERRY: Prohibition never stopped everybody smoking, but it stopped most of them.

Mr Moore: No, it did not. We have not had prohibition of smoking. If we had prohibition of smoking, you would see an increase in use.

Ms McRae: It works 100 per cent in buildings.

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