Page 3828 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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This is a complex social and legal area. We acknowledge that there may be a need for further amendments to this legislation in the future to deliver on the community’s expectations and to continue reducing drug harm. That is why we believe a review of these reforms within three years of them taking effect is appropriate.
Fundamentally, we support sensible, progressive drug law reform. We know that a significant majority of the Canberra community does, too. We are getting on with that through delivering the reforms in this bill. I commend this first amendment and my other amendments to the Assembly.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (11.16): Anyone who has been following this debate over the last few months will not miss the irony in the Chief Minister coming into this place and commending the committee inquiry and saying it is a great example of an inquiry when he voted against it. The Labor members in this place argued against a committee inquiry. They said it was a conspiracy that the Liberals were trying to delay this legislation. They said the committee inquiry was not required and they wanted to rush the legislation through. That was their position. Now their position is that it is the best thing since sliced bread: “Thank God we had a committee inquiry because that’s what led to all these sensible amendments.”
The ability for the Chief Minister and his colleagues to walk both sides of the street—to argue and vote against a committee inquiry, to describe it as a conspiracy theory—and then take all the good work done by that committee inquiry and put that as amendments saying, “Isn’t it fantastic?” goes to the way this bill has been put together.
They say there are two things you should never see being made: sausages and legislation. This is probably one of the finer examples of the mess of cobbling legislation together that I have seen in my time in the Assembly. The amendment put forward by the Greens goes to that point. There is massive confusion, seemingly, in the Assembly but also out in the community about what all this means. Is cannabis being legalised or not? The Greens said it is not being legalised and it is a fear campaign and misguided media to say it is being legalised. Ms Le Couteur blamed the media for some miscommunication with the public by saying it has been legalised.
Mr Pettersson from the Labor Party then got up and said cannabis today is being legalised. You have the Greens in this place saying it is not being legalised; you have the Labor Party saying it is being legalised. No wonder there is confusion in the community about what on earth is happening in the Assembly today. But both the Labor Party and the Greens, as they are inclined to do, blame the media for this confusion when they are the ones at odd about what exactly is happening today.
The Greens amendment recognises the fact that there is confusion and ambiguity about what is being done in this place today and it requires time for this to be sorted out and for an information campaign and advice to be put together before this legislation is enacted. I agree with Mr Rattenbury—this is unusual; this is not the way it is normally done. That reflects the shemozzle and dog’s breakfast of a bill that has been put before us. It has created all this confusion and the seemingly competing agendas between both members of this coalition government that seem to have a different view about what is being enacted.
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