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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2764 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The heroin trial was not bad science or poor science or half-baked science, as the Daily Telegraph suggested. In fact, it was the Daily Telegraph that described this Assembly as "half-backed". They called us "half-backed" because they made a spelling mistake in their own editorial. There they are describing us as "half-backed" when they are such a "half-backed" paper themselves, a half-baked paper themselves, that they made a spelling mistake and added a "c". I do not think they are half-backed; they are fully-backed by Rupert Murdoch and all his money.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, it seems to me that when we are looking at the broad drug strategy in terms of illicit drugs and licit drugs we must ensure that we use a harm minimisation approach. (Extension of time granted) Somebody senior at the Canberra Times said to me the other day that on my tombstone, if he ever has a say in it, these words should appear: "Michael Moore made it harder to smoke tobacco and easier to smoke cannabis. Michael Moore made it harder to be born and easier to die". Whilst I recognised the humour of what he was saying, in that case I was able to explain. I sometimes have difficulty in explaining what is consistent about my policy in terms of my approach to drugs when I appear to make it harder for people to smoke tobacco on the one hand but easier for people who smoke cannabis or use heroin. I do not intend to make it easier for those people, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. What is consistent about the approach is that it is a harm minimisation approach. The first and foremost goal of such an approach is to reduce the harm associated with the use of whatever the substance is, whether it is alcohol, tobacco, heroin, ecstasy or cannabis. That is the goal that will give us a consistent approach and will give us improved health outcomes, measured in terms of morbidity and mortality and other broad health measurements and outcomes that are set out in the Ottawa Charter.

I have with me a press release put out by Wayne Berry, MLA, Leader of the Opposition and ACT Labor. He says that his party now are going to have no more to do with the heroin trial because it is time the ACT Assembly focused on issues that we can affect rather than those we cannot, and he says the same about euthanasia. I think we can affect this issue. It is just a matter, as far as I am concerned, of the heroin trial having been postponed for a short while. Of course we can affect it. I am not a quitter the way Wayne Berry is. He clearly is going to be a quitter on this issue and on the euthanasia issue, and we will talk about that a bit tomorrow. I am not a quitter. I will keep going at it. I must say that I am very surprised that Wayne Berry has decided to be a quitter. It is not something that I ever perceived about him before, but there it is in black and white and I do not know what else to think about it.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Prime Minister, in appointing his task force to look at drug strategy, has made a most strange decision. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy was appointed to consider the very issue that he is considering. They have spent huge sums of money. They have an agreed position from right around Australia, with just a few adjustments to the edges. Where they have not got an agreed position, they have taken a vote and have a majority view. The Prime Minister seems to think that he can appoint a couple of senior public servants from his own bureaucracy to deliver what he wants, so that he can be seen to do something to cover up for his own bungles.

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