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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3358 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

A favourite trick in downplaying the problem is to count only the number of reports of discarded needles and the number of needles collected by various officials. This method does not take into account the vast number that are undiscovered by members of the public and go unreported or those discovered at workplaces, such as recycling facilities and building sites. The number discarded each year is not just a couple of thousand; rather it is many thousands, and growing.

I do not accept that taking intravenous drugs, such as heroin, is profoundly normal behaviour; nor do I consider that the small percentage who have chosen this lifestyle should hold the rest of the community to ransom because they just throw away their used injecting equipment, instead of properly disposing of it. Unfortunately, in this case, in reducing harm for the few, harm has been maximised for the many.

Just as needle distribution was intended to change a drug user's behaviour away from risky injecting practices, this legislation is an attempt to change their behaviour away from unsafe disposal practices. To that end, a requirement of our needle distribution facilities to operate on an exchange basis could have at least two benefits: one, a reduction in the number of discarded needles and, two, it would bring drug users into regular contact with health workers.

I note that the latter point was one of the two reasons for establishing needle distribution outlets in the first place, but that principle seems to have been set aside in comments made over the past couple of days. Of course, allowing drug dealers to take away 100 or more needles at a time to distribute to their clients further erodes this important point. I wonder how many members were aware before the beginning of this week that we have drug dealers working for the government. I know the health minister was not; nor was I. That was certainly an unwelcome surprise to me.

Mr Speaker, I would like briefly to address some of the comments the health minister made about this bill earlier in the week. Among other things, he said that his focus was on reducing the risk of blood-borne diseases, especially for unborn babies, that it would encourage unsafe injecting practices and that there has been no recorded incident anywhere in the world of a person catching HIV or hepatitis from a discarded needle.

Mr Moore: I never said unborn babies; I just said babies.

MR OSBORNE: His suggested solution on Monday was that we should have had the injecting room as that would fix the problem with needles on the streets. Unfortunately, one of the problems I find with this solution is typical of the more radical components of harm minimisation measures. When one of their programs fails or runs into problems, the solution is a more extreme measure than the one that created the problem in the first place. When that one throws up an unexpected glitch, they suggest a move to something that is even more extreme.

Be that as it may, I will take his other three points one at a time: firstly, that the bill will undermine the current focus on reducing the risk of disease, especially for children. I have removed the word "unborn", Mr Speaker, as Mr Moore has indicated that he did not use it. The notion that a requirement for needles to be either exchanged or purchased at the paltry cost of, I think, 13c each would increase the incidence of HIV and hepatitis

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