Page 4700 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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very simple question, because if you are going to do it, if the executive decision is that you are going to have a needle and syringe program in the jail, let people know and then start implementing it and implementing it in the fashion that you wish to. But do not have this drawn-out debate that you are continuing to go on with because you are too weak to make a decision.
That is the reality of it: on the one hand you say as health minister, “I want a needle and syringe program,” and then you change to being the Chief Minister and say, “Oh, well, it’s complex; I can’t implement what I want to do.” You are the Chief Minister, are you not? Are we going to have a needle and syringe program or are we not? You really need to start making that decision.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Excuse me, Mr Hanson, could you address your remarks to the chair, please?
MR HANSON: Certainly, Mr Assistant Speaker. I apologise. As the Chief Minister, it is time for you to actually show some leadership on this. The evidence is pretty clear. There have been lots of people cited in terms of their support for it and against. But remember the 10,000 corrections officers across Australia who do not support this. There are about 10,000 represented by the CPSU that do not support this and that far outweighs the list of names I have been provided with.
I will just respond quickly to a couple of comments that have been made by Ms Gallagher and Ms Bresnan. Turning to Ms Bresnan’s comments about the research that I cited from the conference that I went to, I will just quote from the paper “Prisoners are at risk for hepatitis C transmission”, which was written by Professor Tony Butler, Azar Kariminia, Michael Levy and John Kaldor, and they come from an eminent group of organisations.
Ms Bresnan: How can you quote Michael Levy? How can you quote him?
MR HANSON: It is part of his paper.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order, members! So far it has been fine.
MR HANSON: Let me quote—
Ms Bresnan: You know he supports it.
MR HANSON: Of course he supports it.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Ms Bresnan, come to order, please.
MR HANSON: The point I am quoting is that the academic research points to the fact that the transmission rates for hep C amongst this demographic, syringe-using criminals, are higher outside jail than inside jail. Let me quote:
A recent study conducted in a French prison reported no hepatitis C seroconversions. … The differences in the incidence could be due to the
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