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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2384 ..
MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.10): Mr Speaker, I think that it probably is relevant to ask the Attorney to remind us what bill it was that we were debating then or that he spoke to, because I heard absolutely no argument or justification for the need to amend the Supervised Injecting Place Trial Act.
I have to say, Mr Speaker, that it is with real regret that I find that we are debating this matter today. The basis for the regret is that what we are seeing here signals the end for the foreseeable future, probably for a significant number of years, of any prospect of a bipartisan approach to progressive drug law reform in the ACT. I think that there is no doubt about that. What the government is doing here today-the about-face, the backflip-does signal the end of any chance of this place ever developing a genuine approach to progressive drug law reform in the ACT. It has put us back years.
Members are well aware that the act that we are debating today was passed on the votes of the Labor Party. The act was passed on the votes of each member of the Labor Party, of two Liberal Party members and of Ms Tucker and Mr Moore. The two Liberal Party members, Mrs Carnell and Mr Smyth, used their conscience votes to demonstrate to their party machine that the current drug laws are not working and that a new approach was needed. They maintained throughout the debate on 9 December, and during the period leading up to the debate, that the issue of a supervised injecting room was too important to be sacrificed to the ultra-conservative members of their party and to the crossbench. During the debate, Mrs Carnell said:
There is no right answer for everybody but...there is a right answer for me. That right answer is to support a heroin trial, a safe injecting place, or any initiative that has any chance whatsoever of saving the lives of some of the extremely unfortunate young and not so young people who get tied up in the drug scene.
On the morning after the Assembly passed the bill, part of Mrs Carnell's speech was quoted in the Canberra Times. Mrs Carnell said that the injecting room would not be a panacea, but it was one of a broad range of treatments for heroin users. She went on to say:
... I believe absolutely, definitely, in my heart of hearts, that I am taking the right approach.
That was said by Mrs Carnell at the time of the debate. It was consistent with her statement of 30 October 1999 that she did not believe that her party would censure her for opposing party policy. She said to the Canberra Times that she told her colleagues "quite clearly" that she was planning to support a safe injecting room trial in the ACT. The Canberra Times reads:
"They know what my position is on this," Mrs Carnell said. "I don't think you can sacrifice a strongly held belief."
"It's something I believe in very strongly, regardless of the consequences."
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