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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 2819 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

As I think everybody in the ACT is probably aware, Mr Moore has been a very strong advocate within the ACT community for a long time for harm minimisation in relation to the treatment of drug abuse. He is quite rightly recognised for the strength of his commitment to that model. The harm minimisation model is also a model which the Labor Party, in its consideration of the issue, has adopted and endorses. I have indicated to Mr Moore that the Labor Party is prepared to work with the Government in a cooperative way to advance the harm minimisation model as an appropriate model for the ACT.

We have a number of questions about it. We believe, as Mr Wood has said, that it is very important in developing a harm minimisation model that we look in detail at what it means. Indications of that are the extent to which we should take the model and the very real need for the people of the ACT to be accepting of each aspect of a broad-ranging health minimisation approach to the problem of drug abuse within Canberra and the Canberra community.

Having said that, the Labor Party accepts that the policies based on prohibition have not worked. The ministerial statement which the Minister has made makes the case very strongly, so far as he is concerned, as to why prohibition has not worked. Perhaps that is not a debate we need to have at this stage.

The paper that we are discussing covers three main areas. It initially is concerned with issues of sexual health and a blood-borne diseases strategic plan. It deals in some detail with HIV/AIDS and particularly about the issue which I think the Canberra and Australian community is facing in terms of infection with the hepatitis C virus.

As is noted, in Canberra there have been 1,554 hep C notifications since 1989. We are averaging about 300 new cases of hep C being notified in the ACT each year. It is quite easily the most common infectious disease that we have. As people know, there is no vaccine currently available for hepatitis C. I read in the last week or so in the Sydney Morning Herald, I think, that it is now estimated that there are probably 200,000 people in Australia infected with the hepatitis C virus. That is an infection of epidemic proportions. The extent to which the Minister focuses in this paper on sexual health and a blood-borne diseases strategic plan I think reflects the fact that we as a community really do need to take this issue of hepatitis C infection extremely seriously. It is a major health problem for the Canberra community and it is a major health problem for Australia. It is one that I am not quite sure that we have yet come to appropriate grips with.

I think there is a debate that we do need to have. Mr Moore has dealt very openly with the issue of hepatitis C infection, but it seems to me that there are almost certainly some gaps in response to that. I think the paper recognises that there are significant gaps in service provision in relation to hepatitis C. It seems to me, having regard to the rate at which hepatitis C infection is spreading throughout the community, that there really does need to be an intensified effort in relation to the spread of hepatitis C and education about the risk factors relating to hepatitis C. That in itself, I think, justifies the commitment in all Australian jurisdictions, and particularly here in Canberra, to the needle exchange program that we have. Hepatitis C is, I understand, very simply transmitted through blood.

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