Page 5459 - Week 14 - Thursday, 30 November 2017
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You cannot ignore that advice, and we cannot pretend that this is not a serious issue; it is, and it must be addressed.
Much of what we have heard from Mr Rattenbury is evidence based. The Greens always tout that. But the reality is that this is not evidence-based policymaking. This is cherry-picked policymaking by cherry-picked advocates for this program who are in a minority and are a voice that is countered by the president of the AMA, by our own Law Society and by legal experts and medical academics.
What does the evidence from other places say? I will quote again:
Countries that have gone down the pill testing route do not provide any comfort that this approach works. Britain has roughly two and a half times Australia’s population. In 2015, it had 114 deaths from NPS, a figure that has been rising every year since 2011. Australia recorded less than a dozen deaths from NPS in 2015, yet Britain has pill testing while Australia does not.
The death rate in the jurisdiction with pill testing is almost 10 times higher than in Australia. That evidence, in this evidence-based nonsense from Mr Rattenbury, is completely ignored.
Let us look at what evidence is in this motion. The 2006 International Journal of Drug Policy has an article headed “A survey of regular ecstasy users’ knowledge and practices around determining pill content and purity: Implications for policy and practice”. This is an Australian study, and it is the one which Mr Rattenbury’s motion appears to reference, because it is the one that references that 76 per cent would not take an unknown pill. It is worth looking at the other quotes from this report that Mr Rattenbury has not provided.
First, it is a hypothetical figure. It says:
… we asked about future drug-use intentions rather than describing actual drug-using behaviour, and the former is an imperfect predictor of the latter
Much more importantly, the report does not purport to be conclusive evidence for pill testing. It concludes:
More detailed research examining ways in which pill testing may influence drug use is required to inform evidence-based policy.
Mr Rattenbury’s own report that he appears to be quoting says that this is not evidence based. That is an unfortunate quote to have in that report. It would appear that Mr Rattenbury has ignored many of these facts and has misrepresented the evidence as he goes about this business.
We have taken this issue seriously. There have been some claims that invitations to seek briefings have been refused; I believe Mrs Dunne is going to go to that point. My office has asked for a briefing, I believe from the Attorney-General, both verbally and
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