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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (5 November) . . Page.. 3610 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

and I have moved ground a little bit on some things, but I still stay opposed to some of the things that Mr Moore likes. On other issues in the Assembly I have changed my mind, but only because I have looked at the issues.

I think what we are seeing today, Mr Speaker, is why the general public holds politicians in such poor regard. They can see through what Mr Berry is doing here. Quite honestly, the Labor Party has been pathetic over the last month on the issue of drugs. I never know what they are supporting from day to day. I wake up one morning and I see a newspaper column and I think, "Great. They are with me". Then the next day they are not. If you are going to be the next Chief Minister, Mr Berry, I expect you as Leader of the Opposition to be a leader, a consistent leader, and not a hopeless joke.

MS TUCKER (11.37): We will be supporting this motion and all amendments to it. I will speak to the motion first. As a member of the Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform, I listened to a number of experts on the issue of drug education over the weekend. It was an interesting coincidence that we had the Prime Minister's statement at the same time. It was quite clear to me that the Prime Minister's stance was extremely inappropriate and ill informed. Research has clearly shown that prohibition does not work - it has not worked - and that education must focus on the relative harm and how to minimise that harm. Obviously, taking that to the extreme, you can minimise harm by not taking part in the activity at all; but, if we are to reduce the deaths from drugs, we have to acknowledge that that is only part of the spectrum and certainly not the only response.

So many of us indulge in risky behaviours. Driving a car is risky; drinking alcohol is risky; having sex is risky; smoking cigarettes is risky. What does the community do in response to these activities? We do not ban them. We seek to educate the community to minimise the harm associated with them. A lot of money and energy goes into showing people how to minimise the risks in driving a motor vehicle. We have safe-sex campaigns. We have health warnings on cigarettes. We have vast educational campaigns on alcohol as a legal drug. We know that to ban these things would be to send them underground and make matters much worse. Such an initiative would be quite useless.

Howard's line is very ignorant of the research that has taken place. It is important that we make strong statements to counter what could end up being a move which takes us back years. The Prime Minister's statement is interesting in the language it uses. The heading is "Tough on Drugs". He says:

I am pleased to announce a tough new campaign to combat the drugs menace facing Australian families.

How emotive is that? There is no touch of caring or compassion in that statement. There is no acknowledgment of why young people will use drugs in an inappropriate way. It is just about being tough and stopping it.

It is for "young people who have been targeted by drug dealers". Once again, this is very aggressive language. These young people are portrayed as being totally powerless, and as being got at by drug barons. Surely, as Michael Moore said yesterday and as one of

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