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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2763 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

we will need to change". It does require careful thinking, careful understanding, and a little depth in understanding the issues and what we are trying to achieve - a depth that the Prime Minister simply does not have because his whole approach is just too wishy-washy.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Prime Minister's reaction is particularly interesting because he turned around and he appointed a Yes, Minister-style inquiry to look at it. His task force on drugs is being headed by a senior public servant within his department. I believe that that group of public servants, that Yes, Minister task force or Yes, Prime Minister task force, will not consider public submissions made to them. They will report in a very short timeframe - I expect within the next couple of weeks, and I have good information to that effect - and that report will never be made public. Why would it not be made public? Because it will be a joke. Because it will be ripped to pieces. What can a few senior public servants hope to achieve in a report in terms of three weeks' work, when we have reports from such people as the royal commissioner Justice James Wood in New South Wales, the work that was put in by Professor Penington in Victoria, work by the Fitzgerald royal commission in Queensland, work by a New South Wales parliamentary committee, and work by a parliamentary committee in South Australia, all of whom were supportive of the heroin trial, and all of whom were supportive of a range of options of which the trial was but one?

The good news from the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy - Mrs Carnell referred to this in her statement - is that there is a whole range of strategies being developed. I would like to take us to one of the issues that have been raised on drug strategy recently. We hear a great deal about UROD, ultra rapid opioid detoxification. I would encourage members to read peer review assessments about that particular form. It is not a magic bullet. It does appear to offer some hope in a small spectrum of people who are undergoing rehabilitation and who may be able to use rehabilitation. The good news about the methods used under UROD is that the drug they use is naltrexone, and naltrexone will be used as part of a study in the ACT as well as, if my recollection serves me, in Victoria or New South Wales. I cannot remember. It is one or the other.

The interesting part is that the organisation that promotes UROD is an organisation that has already made somewhere between $30m and $60m out of the process. Of course they are enthusiastic about it, and I would be enthusiastic about it as well if I were making that kind of money, and we must not dismiss it, because it does appear to offer some help for some people in this spectrum. But it does not appear to offer an alternative to the heroin trial. It does not appear to offer help for those people who have had two or three attempts to become drug free.

Ultra rapid opioid detoxification should go through a series of clinical trials. I spoke to a principal of the organisation CITA on this very matter when he was visiting Canberra last Friday morning. He said that they wish to take it through clinical trials. I am very pleased with that and I would encourage that, but I would say that it should go through the same sort of research procedure as any other research organisation. It should apply for funds through the Government in the normal way, as, indeed, the heroin trial did.

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