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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2762 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

We know that the Prime Minister might say, "No, the Daily Telegraph has said that I should disagree"; so, instead of taking care to make decisions, the Prime Minister will just override a ministerial council. I find this particularly frustrating, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker.

Mrs Carnell: Hear, hear!

MR MOORE: Indeed, I know the Chief Minister does too. I find it particularly frustrating because on many occasions Ministers have come back to this Assembly and said, "I have introduced legislation because it is agreed by the ministerial council". I have said to Ministers, "This is a dangerous thing to do because you really should get agreement from the Assembly first. However, I will look at it on its merits and I will take very seriously that it has been agreed to by Ministers around Australia". Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have taken that particularly seriously, but no longer. Why should we take it seriously here when the Prime Minister can be so dismissive? It is not just dismissive in any sensible sense. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet made a decision to override the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy without having taken advice from the people who knew what the heroin trial was about, and that is the issue that I speak of, of course.

The scientist involved in preparing the trial offered to brief the Prime Minister. The Australian Medical Association offered to brief the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. But did they listen to them? No. They just used a gut reaction and said, "This feels bad" - to take a populist view driven by Piers Ackerman, of all people. Anybody who watched Media Watch last night would have had to chuckle about the impact that Piers Ackerman had, and the fact that he had applied for a job at Fairfax and not been given a look-in. No wonder, when you read his junk. That is what it is - absolute junk. He followed a series of editorials in the Daily Telegraph, and what were they? In fact, Media Watch shafted them last night, and appropriately so too. What were they? Junk, because they just carried so many mistakes.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I do not mind a sensible debate. I have always enjoyed a sensible debate on issues involved around the heroin trial, such as the issue of harm minimisation. This very strategy that the Chief Minister has talked about today is based on harm minimisation. The first goal of harm minimisation is not to seek a drug-free society; it is to minimise the harm, to reduce morbidity, to reduce mortality, to reduce crime. That is what the issue is about. If, as part of the process in trying to achieve these things, we can get people off drugs, then of course it is an important issue.

I must say that one of the most welcoming things I heard in the last few months was when Mr Kaine put out a press release on the issue and said, "Yes, provided there are some adjustments made to the heroin trial". Indeed, if the ministerial council did go along the same sorts of lines as Mr Kaine suggested, he would be supportive as well. Some people would describe that as a backflip, but it is not. It is no more than the backflip that I made in 1989-90 when I decided that we were going down the wrong path and we needed to change. Almost every other person that I know in the drug law reform movement who looked at the issues said, "No, we are going down the wrong path with prohibition;

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