Page 3082 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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(a) the ACT Government agreed to support or establish a needle and syringe exchange program (NSP) at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) as part of the 2012 ACT Labor-Greens Parliamentary Agreement;
(b) staff at the AMC and the Community and Public Sector Union remain vehemently opposed to the implementation of a NSP;
(c) the majority of prisoners that participated in a survey conducted by Prisoners Aid ACT were against the implementation of a NSP; and
(d) the ACT Government has failed to investigate other options for reducing the transmission of blood borne viruses at the AMC; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) abandon the policy to implement a NSP at the AMC;
(b) review the current policies surrounding drug rehabilitation at the AMC; and
(c) investigate and table in the ACT Legislative Assembly, alternative options for the prevention of the transmission of blood borne virus in a gaol setting, before the implementation of a NSP trial at the AMC.
The motion I have brought here today highlights once again how the current ACT government is choosing ideology over the welfare of Canberrans at every possible opportunity. The plan to introduce a needle and syringe exchange program at the AMC that is currently on the table has been on the cards for quite a long time. There is no denying the support for this program that has come from those opposite and other members of the community from various walks of life. However, somewhere in the mire of reports, reviews and discussion papers that have been produced on the subject we seem to have failed to consider the views of those at the coalface—the prison officers, the prisoners and the families of those prisoners. These are the people who have not been listened to and whose views I am representing here today in my motion.
The Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Hanson, has long prosecuted the argument against introducing a needle and syringe program. In 2012, in an opinion piece in the Canberra Times, he wrote:
No other state or territory in Australia has a needle exchange, and many of those pushing for it in our jail want the ACT to be a test case so that more can be rolled out in jails across Australia. However, the ACT jail is a bad choice for such a trial. It has already proved very difficult to manage because of the complexity caused by a population that includes male, female, sentenced and remand prisoners.
Given the damning findings of the Burnet Institute and Hamburger reports, and the litany of mistakes that have been made at the jail since it was opened, I have no confidence that a needle exchange would be managed safely or effectively.
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