Page 3152 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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There was some discussion about the availability of illicit drugs in the AMC. Again there was the, I think, frankly ridiculous assertion that I have given up on drugs coming into the AMC and am not trying to deal with that. I did welcome today the most honest observation that I have heard from the Liberal Party in the entire time I have held the corrections portfolio, which was the acknowledgement that there is a market for illicit drugs in the AMC. Until this point all I have ever heard is a sort of a wish and a hope that we could build a drug-free jail. Of course, this has never occurred anywhere on the planet. Far from giving up, I continue to strive to run a three-pronged policy at the AMC: supply reduction, demand reduction and harm minimisation.
This is the best practice that you can undertake, and we will continue to strive to achieve that not only to cut off the supply of drugs coming into the AMC through the range of protection methods that I have spoken about in this place before but also to actually work with people to help them break their drug addictions and provide programs that give that very practical support.
I will be very clear about the fact that a needle and syringe program is a harm minimisation strategy. There are a range of harm minimisation strategies. I think the fact that you are capable of pursuing three elements of a strategy at once is not, as the Liberal Party describes it, a case of giving up. It is a case of actually trying to be sophisticated and work with the best policy advice that you can. And the best policy advice is that you need to have a three-pronged strategy. I do welcome the acknowledgement, for the first time that I can recall, that people will try to smuggle drugs into the AMC, as they do at every other jail in the country.
I also noted the comments today by Mrs Dunne about pill testing and I was interested in her comments in that space as well. She made it clear that she is not a fan of pill testing—and that perhaps does not surprise me—but what is interesting, I would like to let the chamber know, is that just yesterday I received information about a new policy position and new information that has come out of the UK. I will pull it up on my computer here. It is information that the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK has now released. It is a position statement supporting pill testing services, declaring they should be standardised across all UK festivals, nightlife venues and drug treatment services. This is as a result of drug-related deaths in England and Wales, and we are now seeing overseas further support for these sorts of initiatives, in recognition of the fact that this is a strong harm minimisation strategy.
I think that this is a positive development. The RSPH supports pill testing on a number of grounds, including the fact that the annual number of drug-related deaths in England and Wales has doubled in the past 20 years, including deaths from stimulant drugs used recreationally in clubs or festivals. That is a significant policy development and one, I think, which reflects the fact that when you actually sit down and talk about this rationally, rather than from some ideological or fear-driven space, there are actually good policy reasons for doing this. This is something that I would invite Mrs Dunne to reflect on.
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