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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 9 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 2618 ..

Mr Stanhope: How many do you pick up a year, Minister?

MR SMYTH: Let me get to that. I am glad you asked that, because I know that you at least take this seriously. I would compliment you for your efforts in raising the awareness in the community on this, unlike some of your peers. The sharps hotline relies on the community helping to locate potentially dangerous syringes so that they can be removed quickly. I would like to congratulate the staff that go out and do that work and the public, who make it much easier for us through their assistance. The most recent sharps statistics, those from 1997-98, show that more and more people are using our needle chutes and fewer and fewer are leaving them in public places.

Mr Speaker, there has been a 43 per cent increase in the number of sharps being appropriately disposed of and a 15 per cent decrease in the number left in public places. The number of sharps picked up in public places by the city rangers was 5,314 on call-out, and CityScape picked up another 2,197 in the course of their duties. However, like all in this place, I would hope that whatever that figure comes to and how far it drops we never become complacent about sharps found in public places. Through you, Mr Speaker, I would urge anyone who finds needles or certain wastes to call the sharps hotline on 6207 5959.

Mr Speaker, finally I would like to say that it is not the Government who has got its priorities wrong here. People who do not give the hotline specific details about needle locations make it harder for us to collect these needles quickly and safely. I hope everybody would put community safety ahead of any other issue on any day.

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, I am horrified to learn that Mr Hargreaves would not tell the hotline where these sharps were located.

MR SPEAKER: Just a moment. Is this a supplementary question?

MR HIRD: Minister, does this sort of behaviour - that is, wasting Public Service time - happen very often?

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I am not suggesting that Mr Hargreaves acted this way to deliberately waste public servants' time. I would advise Mr Hargreaves, and indeed all Canberrans, when calling the sharps hotline simply to note the surroundings so that we get a detailed location for these sharps. In answer to the question, I am pleased to say that the majority of the calls to the hotline are quite specific about where sharps can be found. That does not waste the staff's time. It minimises the exposure, the time that the public may have to stumble on these, and it assists us greatly in our efforts. The community efforts in locating these needles are totally invaluable, and I would thank them.

I am told - and I think we will all be amazed to hear this - that on one occasion another MLA, then a candidate, used the hotline during the recent election to test whether it worked. He called the hotline to report that sharps had been found. When the staff arrived quite promptly to collect them, the then candidate told them that there were no sharps; that he was simply testing whether the service worked. How ridiculous!

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