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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2389 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

In other words, Mr Speaker, the legislative preconditions, the administrative work and the other necessary administrative arrangement are in place or well advanced and we are in a situation where the minister has, in the recent past, been indicating publicly that he expects the injecting place to open its doors, I think the last I heard him say publicly, by the end of August.

Mr Hargreaves: By next month.

MR STANHOPE: By next month. Yet we hear no explanation of why the trial can no longer proceed. We have no justification for this bill, no justification at all for the passage of this postponement legislation.

Mrs Carnell and her ministers always make great capital out of their efficiency and effectiveness. How could it be efficient to abandon the work that has already been done towards commencing the injecting place trial? How could it be effective to postpone, for 18 months as a minimum and almost certainly forever, a trial that Mr Moore has been telling us is in a position to commence within the next few weeks?

Mr Deputy Speaker, the Labor Party will not be supporting this amendment and we would not support any amendment aimed at delaying the commencement of the trial. The trial can commence; it can proceed. The Labor Party will not support this bill. The trial is in a position to commence within the next few weeks, as we understand it from the minister. The Labor Party not only will not support this amendment, but also is not prepared to endanger progressive drug law reform by running any election campaign on such a divisive issue. (Extension of time granted).

I reiterate that there has been no justification for this proposed amendment to the act. It has not been justified because there cannot be any justification. There is no need for abandoning in this way this significant and important piece of progressive drug law reform which did have at least some semblance of bipartisan support to it. There is no justification for seeking to undermine all attempts that this Assembly has made in the past to implement progressive drug law reform proposals. This is walking away from any attempt at bipartisanship on the most difficult issues facing our community.

I think everybody here would admit that there are no more difficult and intractable social issues facing our community than the issues that arise out of substance abuse, particularly heroin abuse-issues that lead to degradation, to death, to despair and to the appalling crime rates and other social problems that flow from drug abuse and substance abuse cultures. They are the most intractable, difficult and heart-wrenching issues facing our community and we need a legislature with the courage and capacity to work in a bipartisan way on those issues.

Today, we are risking losing that, potentially for years, but this side of the parliament can have no faith in working with those on the other side of the parliament on any difficult or progressive issue if at the last minute they are prepared to abandon it in the crass and political way that they have in this case. They are determined to force it to an election.

It is the most appalling form of politics that you would in such a cynical way force to the next election as an issue something as sensitive and difficult as progressive drug law reform, that you would seek to divide the community on an issue as difficult as this one

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