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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 216 ..

Without such services, parents can be put in a situation where they are forced to make impossibly hard choices between recovery and parenting. It is not always acknowledged that people fighting drug or alcohol dependence are also part of families, workplaces and communities, and it is sad that people are demonised by drugs. The Fadden program is particularly important in that it takes more of a whole-person approach. I am trying to be explicit here to emphasise the enthusiasm the Greens have for our community taking a proactive approach to substance abuse.

Members are well aware that I am an advocate for drug law reform. I continue to press for a trial of medically prescribed heroin, among other strategies, and I have long advocated the need for a range of community support services for people trapped in cycles of dependence and dysfunction. I believe most people in the community show goodwill to such people, but I want to reject clearly the view that people who are struggling with addiction are somehow not part of our community and do not deserve any support. That approach, apart from lacking compassion, care or love, is also stupid, because of its social impact.

We heard the minister read the numbers—there are thousands of people on drugs—and you can multiply that several times to take into account their dependants and carers. The social consequences of ignoring drug law reform are significant. This is a very difficult debate for the Greens because it is about supporting people with addictions, as well as about planning. I disagree with Mrs Dunne when she says that this debate is not about rehabilitation services—clearly it is about rehabilitation services. That is why the decision we must make today is very difficult.

It seems very clear to me that, among the range of strategies and programs in which we ought to be engaged within this field, Karralika’s work is extremely valuable and that the proposed expansion of the facility in Fadden has much to recommend it. That is the position that I and others in my office have communicated to both the Karralika community and residents of Fadden and Macarthur. However, an extremely important issue in this debate is the question of planning.

Members of the Assembly would be very aware that I do not support, and have never supported, the statutory powers that allow the Planning Minister to call in a development and subvert the third party appeal process. It is for that reason that I intend, once again, to table a bill which would remove those powers from the planning and land act, a bill which I hope to introduce in March.

I find it ironic in some ways that, when we had a Liberal government, we had the Labor opposition crying foul when call-in powers were used and, now that we have a Labor government, we have the Liberals crying foul. Neither party wants to give up that ultimate power and that is of concern. I think the community needs to understand that that is a reality, and that that is the position the major parties have always taken. They want to keep that power, even though they will manipulate a situation at certain times and claim that they would be doing things differently.

While I am very supportive of the Karralika project, I do not believe that residents of the surrounding suburbs should have their rights of consultation, scrutiny and appeal curtailed by government. As has been seen quite often in the years that I have been here,

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