Page 4692 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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one of them, supply reduction is another, and demand reduction is another. Yes, you have law enforcement practices which seek to stop the supply of illicit drugs. They exist in the community; they exist in the jail. You then have demand reduction. So you have drug treatment programs and you have counselling and support services to try and encourage people off illicit drugs and into healthier lifestyles. The third part of any drug strategy—as I said, this exists in even the most conservative climates—is harm minimisation. That is, where supply reduction and demand reduction have failed or not met the needs of a particular individual, there is an accepted and agreed element, which is harm minimisation. That is, you seek to reduce the harm for individuals through the use of illicit drugs. All three of those operate in the jail; all three of them operate in the community.
What we are talking about here is one small part of a harm minimisation strategy. The issue of blood-borne virus management in a correctional setting is complex. It is not as easy as talking about it in the community, because it is an enclosed environment and there are other considerations that need to be taken into account. What we do know is that hepatitis C levels are high and hepatitis B levels are high. We also know that there is evidence of needles in the jail. I have to say that the evidence that I have been given, from talking to correctional staff and health staff, is that the majority of the activity with needles is not around injecting illicit drugs but around tattooing—that is the majority of the use of needles. When tattooing is going on, that is essentially being done through hand-crafted needles. That issue needs a government response.
Yes, we have got supply reduction. Yes, we have got demand reduction. If you talk to anyone involved in the Alexander Maconochie Centre—indeed, it is reflected in Michael Moore’s report—there are very good supply and demand reduction strategies operational in the jail. I think there is universal agreement on that; the correctional officers will tell you that and Michael Moore’s report tells you that. But there are still situations where individuals are engaging in risk-taking behaviour, and the government needs to respond to that.
We have a duty of care to prisoners who are in the jail. And yes, we have a duty of care to staff as well. But it is not simply accepting one side of the story and accepting that that has to be the way forward. Apart from alluding to some bizarre left-wing conspiracy between the Greens and the ALP on this, Mr Hanson did not list in detail the many organisations—including groups like the AMA, who for once Mr Hanson does not cite, and eminent and leading physicians, the most highly respected leading physicians in the country—who do support needle and syringe exchange programs in correctional settings.
All of the community agencies that work with prisoners through their through-care and after-care support a program like this. It is not a political conspiracy. There are more people that support the needle and syringe exchange program than there are that do not. Their voices deserve equal consideration, Mr Hanson. And that is what the government is doing. We have a paper before us. Indeed, the submissions that have come to the Michael Moore report are two to one in favour of a needle and syringe exchange program in the jail—hundreds of submissions. The government needs to consider that.
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