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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 545 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

As members are aware, the Supervised Injecting Place Trial Act was passed here in the ACT Legislative Assembly on 9 December last year. One of the requirements of the Act is that an advisory committee be appointed by the Minister for Health and Community Care to make recommendations regarding the establishment, operation and evaluation of a supervised injecting place. As you may have seen in the media, the advisory committee has now been appointed. Members will be aware that this committee comprises representatives, including business and community representatives, with a wide range of expertise. This level of expertise will ensure that the recommendations developed by the advisory committee will be sound, thoughtful and balanced.

Mr David Butt, the chief executive of the Department of Health and Community Care, chairs the committee and the deputy chair is Ms Maureen Cane, executive director of Assisting Drug Dependents Inc. The committee met for the first time on Monday, 21 February 2000. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members for making themselves available so quickly and for the organisations that nominated them for expediting the process of their nominations so efficiently, even over the Christmas break. I understand that this first meeting was extremely positive and set the scene for an inclusive and sharing process in implementing the legislation. The members of the committee come from a wide range of backgrounds and organisations but are united in their desire to see a safer, healthier Canberra.

As you know, the responsibilities of the advisory committee are wide-ranging and include making recommendations regarding the location of the supervised injecting room facility; operation and day-to-day protocols of the trial; and the evaluation of the trial. The Department of Health and Community Care will support the committee in its work. At its first meeting, the committee was briefed by the department on its responsibilities under the legislation and the budget for the trial. The cost of operating the facility in a full year is expected to be $725,000. This includes costs for the evaluation components both before and after the trial.

The advisory committee also considered the issues around the evaluation of the trial. To enable a thorough assessment of the supervised injecting place at the conclusion of the scientific trial, it is essential that the baseline data be collected prior to commencement of the trial. In order to collect this baseline data, the Department of Health and Community Care has contracted with the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health and the International Survey Project at ANU to conduct the pre-trial evaluation measures. The remainder of the evaluation for the trial will be put to open tender. Specifications for this tender cannot be written until after the advisory committee has considered the evaluation issues thoroughly.

The pre-trial evaluation process involves a mapping of the current visible drug scene and a community attitude survey. The mapping exercise will determine the current physical drug scene in the ACT. Elements making up the physical drug scene include congregating of drug users and their associates; drug dealing; injecting in public; acquisition of clean injecting equipment; disposal of used injecting equipment; public nuisance in the localities of concern; police-user and police-dealer interactions; and overdoses.

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