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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1637 ..

That is Dr Gabriele Bammer, a lady whom I respect highly for her opinions and an adviser to the minister on this issue. I agree with everything that she said. It is clear, then, that we must fully understand from the outset what the objectives of this trial are to be, what we expect to gain from it, how it is to be conducted, and how it is to be assessed. Although the minister has announced that the trial will begin and has now funded it, he has made no statement about these important matters which, in my opinion, are prerequisites for the trial. I repeat that Dr Bammer thinks so, too. Dr Bammer, in the paper to which I have already referred, highlighted the necessity:

In other words, what is the baseline for this trial? I presume that the minister has followed this good advice. I ask him now to table the results of his work, to establish the baseline for this trial. He has not done so.

Of crucial importance is the determination of the assessment criteria to be used to judge success or failure. Ill-defined, unquantifiable notions of success will not suffice. The general community out there is not going to be convinced by some soft assessment that is subjective in nature. It might make a few people feel warm and fuzzy, but it will not convince the electorate that the trial has been a success.

The minister has offered several justifications for the trial over a period of years. He and other proponents have said, for example, that the aim is to reduce the incidence of disease caused by unhygienic use of sharps, that the trial will reduce the level of public danger arising from the number of used syringes left in public places, that the trial will reduce drug-related crimes, such as robbery and burglary, that the trial will make Civic centre more attractive by reducing drug dealing in our city streets, that the trial will reduce the risks associated with overdosing, and that the trial will encourage addicts to use a "safe" facility, rather than using public toilets, public parks, their cars or their homes.

These are what the minister and others have been putting forward for years as the basis for such a trial. If the achievement of these objectives is to be an expected outcome, and I believe that it should be, then we need to be able to assess success or failure in each case. That necessitates the before and after comparison stipulated as being desirable by Dr Bammer. So, where are the baseline statistics?

Given that the trial is about to begin, where are these statistics that are to be used in the comparison? Who is to maintain comparative, cumulative data in the course of the trial? In what form and where are those statistics to be maintained and collated? Will staff at the safe injecting place be maintaining statistics? Will the police? Will the emergency

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