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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 3010 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, our government seems to have been totally paralysed on the issue. There has been a good deal of talk over the last six years about drug problems, but virtually no action. Very little public funding has been provided to address any particular aspect of the drugs problem, although it must be obvious that expenditure is urgently needed in a number of areas. We can spend millions on Bruce Stadium and the like, but we can't spend $10 million on helping with this particular problem.

But now, Mr Speaker, an election is approaching. Now we must be seen to be doing something, so we have been asked to debate the form of words to be used in putting the issues to a referendum. What questions should be asked, and how should the questions be worded? It is an interesting debate, Mr Speaker, but, when one thinks about it, it is a total red herring and an irrelevancy. The fundamental question really is should we be having a referendum at all? That has been skated over very lightly.

There is considerable community concern about this question. I have been inundated with emails, telephone calls and letters for days now. Most of them express concern at the fact that the government is proposing to conduct a referendum on the issue. People do not believe it is necessary at all. Should the government not instead be expounding its policies on how it will deal with the problem if re-elected to government? Should the electorate not decide the issue by considering the policies of the two parties contending for government and voting accordingly? Why a referendum? These are the questions that are being put to me.

Mr Speaker, the referendum proposal has all the hallmarks of an attempt to divert the attention of the electorate from the real election issues. How did this issue become a major issue warranting a referendum? Where is the tide of public demand for a referendum on the issue? The answer is that there is none. On the contrary, in fact, there is strong opinion suggesting that a referendum is neither needed nor wanted.

A matter of real concern is that the government, although sponsoring a referendum, has no real commitment to implementing the outcome. Indeed, how could it? Its candidates for election, including the members sitting opposite today, are free to advocate support for the referendum, or opposition to it, or to sit on the fence. After the election, and the referendum, if those candidates form a government, how will they then form a policy one way or the other? After running on different opinions during the campaign, are we to assume that they will then have a party room meeting and agree amicably on a policy solution with half of them or more resiling from the positions they advocated during the election? I suggest, Mr Speaker, that the response to that question has to be either "and pigs might fly", or alternatively they will abandon their principles in the interests of political expediency.

The fact that we are contemplating a referendum at all, in my view, flows from two propositions. They are, firstly, that the Liberal Party is a policy-free zone on the drugs issue, despite six years of government, and, secondly, that the Liberal Party is morally bankrupt on this question.

That the Liberals are policy free is a matter of fact. It is a matter of record. That they are morally deficient can be demonstrated. They want a referendum because they wish to use it as a diversion tactic for the election, not because they are committed to taking any action as a result of it. They want a referendum because they are afraid to accept the

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