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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3685 ..

$500 for having all five plants, I propose amending one of the sections of the Criminal Code (Serious Drug Offences) Amendment Bill to make it $200 a plant. That would be my criticism of the government’s bill. Whilst I support all the other things I said, I was disappointed to see it did not take the opportunity to increase penalties at that lower end of the scale. The penalty for simple possession is still one penalty unit, $100. That is lower than most parking fines. The lowest parking fine is $66. There are a few parking fines of $212.

The penalty of $100 is lower than the basic infringement ticket for being between one and 15 kilometres over the speed limit. For travelling 15 to 30 kilometres over the speed limit—for doing about 16 kilometres over—one will be pinged with a $300 infringement notice. That sends a wrong message. This is a dangerous drug. We do not want to encourage people to use it or to minimise and downplay even simple possession for personal use. We still have to send a message. I urge members to support the increase in penalties from one unit to two units which would make it $200. This is still fairly light compared to traffic infringement notices, but it is somewhat more realistic.

For some reason people have 60 days to pay an infringement notice for cannabis possession. That has caused all sorts of problems in the courts. Often those who do not pay quickly tend to forget. The other significant part of my bill would allow 28 days to pay, which is the normal regime for any type of infringement notice. So, I remind members of those elements of my bill and advise them that I will not be proceeding in a couple of areas because the government’s bill has superseded them.

I commend the government for bringing in this bill. It is terribly important to have good, strong legislation, legislation that provides significant penalties for this most heinous of offences—supplying drugs and pushing drugs to others. However, it is crucially important to take steps to encourage people, especially young people, not to take up drugs. I still do not see any campaigns that effectively aim at that. I recall a number of pretty effective campaigns to try to stop people smoking, and they had some effect.

Some very good campaigns about protection against AIDS had some good effect. But we do not see from this government any really good campaigns or any good actions to stop people, especially young people, from going down the path of drug addiction and using these most dangerous of substances. We need to see a hell of a lot more of that. It is disappointing after nearly three years we see very little, if anything, from this government in prevention programs and steps that would help people not start using drugs, or to help them get off them if they start using them. That is equally as important as having strong and consistent laws such as this.

So the Opposition will be supporting the government’s bill. I commend my amendments to the Assembly. If members do not support them they are not serious and are making a mockery of the infringement notice system, keeping penalties at such a low level. It almost downplays the illegality of people still using drugs and does nothing to discourage people from using them. So my amendments will send a message, and an educative message, that even at that lower end it is illegal and some penalty will be imposed if you breach the law. That being said, I commend those comments to the Assembly and look forward to the rest of the debate.

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