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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (5 November) . . Page.. 3599 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Why can she not issue the direction? Because Mrs Carnell is not committed to this cause. When Mrs Carnell is able to find $300,000 for a little used futsal stadium, or any other name you would wish to call it, depending on the day, and while she holds over $750,000 in reserves - or did hold at that time - in the Health Promotion Fund, Healthpact, I will not sit back and ignore the need for rehabilitation programs and commonsense warnings about drugs.

Mr Speaker, we have got to the stage where the waiting list for people trying to get onto programs to help them kick their habit is growing.

Mrs Littlewood: Is it?

MR BERRY: At the end of June, Karralika had 25 people waiting to gain access.

Mrs Carnell: What was it when you were there? Do you know?

MR BERRY: I am not currently aware of the position now, but there were 25 people waiting. Mrs Carnell interjects, "What about when you were there?". Mrs Carnell, I moved, remember, and made a big investment in providing alternative services to heroin users in the ACT. More than three times the number of people were admitted to the methadone program under me as Health Minister. Nobody has matched that performance.

One would have thought that, with the large amount of publicity over the drug problem over the past month, Karralika's inability to deal with the demand on their service would have been addressed by a government concerned about drug use. I am sure that most members of the Canberra community, and probably nationally as well, would be surprised to know that, at the same time as the ACT Government was furiously promoting the heroin trial, drug-dependent people in the ACT wanting to kick the habit by using more conventional rehabilitation programs were unable to do so. It is an outrage that people cannot go onto drug rehabilitation programs while the Government seems to be directing most of its energy to experimental programs. We should do everything possible to help people who are trying to get off drugs and to sort out their lives.

Mrs Carnell: So you support the Prime Minister's approach?

MR BERRY: Every day they stay on drugs is another day that they are at risk of an overdose. No, I do not support the Prime Minister's approach.

Mrs Carnell: There is $21.5m for residential treatment programs. You must support it.

MR BERRY: That is $21.5m spread across Australia. What is the ACT's share? You are going to have to come up with some money, Mrs Carnell, because there is not going to be enough to go around. Every day they stay on drugs is another day they are at risk of an overdose or of resorting to crime to fund their habit. They continue in a lifestyle which harms themselves and others around them.

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