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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4935 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Reduction of deaths from overdose and from the spread of infectious diseases is the main aim of safe houses. Having all staff trained in resuscitation and at least one on every shift having expert medical training in relation to drug abuse would serve this aim. After many thousands of supervised injections, no-one has yet died in an official safe house.

Education in safer injecting methods is far more effective in an actual injecting environment than in the more abstract context of NSEPs [Needle exchanges]. This therefore reduces the spread of infection from injection.

Then they talk about inappropriate disposal of used needles and syringes. Chief Minister, considering this report, will your Government continue work on ways to ensure a reduction in the spread of infectious diseases and ways to reduce deaths that are associated with the advent of safe injecting rooms?

MRS CARNELL: Thank you, Mr Moore, for the question. Mr Moore would be aware, as would the Greens and Mr Osborne, that we have had round table discussions on this very important issue. The only people who would not be aware of that would be the Labor Party members because they refused to turn up. Mr Berry was disinterested in the issue.

Mr Speaker, with regard to safe houses, they have been brought up in a number of reports, I think, in New South Wales as well. The issue of safe houses has been discussed. It was as a result of those reports that we had the first round table discussion. Other people who turned up at that or who have been part of those discussions are the police. The police are attempting to come to grips with this really difficult issue as well. The reason the police were there, as they explained, is that it is their job, too, to minimise the harm associated with drugs; to ensure that young people are not injecting in unsafe circumstances, in back alleys, out the back of the theatre, or wherever it happens to be. I was very impressed that the police felt committed enough to an issue, which is difficult because of where it stands within the law, to be there and to be very active participants in these discussions. At this stage no decision has been taken, although the people at that particular round table discussion asked that ACT legislation be looked at to see how it fitted with the concepts that had been put forward in New South Wales at that time, and now in Victoria as well.

Mr Speaker, I have to say, from this side of the house, that it is a very hard one, but we are committed to minimising the harm associated with drugs. We are committed to saving the life of any young person in this area if it is possible to do so. Those discussions will continue. As Mr Moore knows, there is not a simple yes or no on this one. There are lots of legal hurdles to get over. Mr Berry has made it clear that he is not at all interested in this, to the extent that he even took on the issue in the Estimates Committee as well. Certainly, if we are the Government in the new Assembly, we will continue with those discussions. We will, in a new Assembly, present the legal work that has been done to that round table group. I am confident that the police will stay involved. I hope we can come up with some sort of an arrangement that does balance the competing interests in this very important area.

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