Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this bill, which includes legislation to close a serious and life-threatening loophole in our drug import prevention. Now, all psychoactive substances such as synthetic drugs will be prohibited unless importers can prove they have a legitimate use. This radical overhaul closes a loophole that currently allows people to deliberately avoid prosecution by slightly changing the chemical structure of a banned substance so it can be legally imported into our country.

It should come as little or no surprise to most people that the majority of new psychoactive substances are intended as legal replacements of controlled drugs. The year 2013 provided further evidence that entrepreneurs and, increasingly, organised crime groups are regularly expanding the types of substances they plan to offer as legal alternatives. Of particular concern, especially in Europe and now in Australia, are the new synthetic opioids which have been reported in the last few years.

Until about a decade ago, most new psychoactive substances that emerged were typically sold on the illicit drug market. They were sometimes sold as drugs in their own right or as a new type of ecstasy, but often they were sold surreptitiously as amphetamine and MDMA. Only a few were reported each year. Usually, these were stimulant-type or hallucinogenic drugs produced in Europe or the United States either in small amounts in amateur laboratories or on a commercial scale in clandestine laboratories organised by crime groups. New substances also occasionally emerged from the division of medicines. Importantly, this continues to be the base, with some of these substances simply acting as a temporary substitute for established controlled drugs that are in short supply, such as MDMA; while others, such as 4-methylamphetamine, appear to be produced accidently as a result of the use of uncontrolled precursors in the production of amphetamine.

Only a few years ago the issue of new psychoactive substances was regarded as having limited significance to drug policy. In the past few years, however, there have been significant changes in this market. Today, the question of how to respond to the challenges posed by the emergence of new drugs has become a major concern internationally. Synthetic drugs are often marketed as a safe and credible alternative to illicit drugs, yet tragically we have learned too many times through death or injury to people—especially young people—that this is not the case and they are, indeed, extremely dangerous.

There is nothing synthetic about the damage these drugs cause. They are not harmless. They are not safe. They have deadly consequences. While it is clear that many new substances will not gain a foothold as drugs in their own right, and spread to broader groups of users, they are still capable of causing serious harm. The largely unknown pharmacology can pose serious risks to users. This is compounded by both the growing range of substances and the generally high availability. These problems are especially apparent when they are sold as 'legal highs', with no information provided to the user of the actual substance present. And as a result of an increase in the quantity, we are finding that they are making their way onto the black market, where they are sold to unsuspecting users as ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine, heroin, or LSD.

In addition, while much attention has been paid to the use of new substances by recreational users, these substances are also being used by problem drug users, including those who inject. This situation is presenting challenges for service providers, including low-threshold services such as needle and syringe programs that often have limited experience of these drugs and their effects. Little is also known about the treatment requirements for users of new psychoactive substances, which in part may reflect the fact that many have emerged only recently.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, illicit use of drugs is a direct cause of death and disability as well as being a risk factor for a number of diseases which affect drug users and the wider community. The relative health impact of the illicit use of drugs varies depending on the specific type of drug used and the circumstances of its use. Overall, however, illicit use of drugs and illicit drug use disorders account for an increasing proportion of the global burden of disease, moving from the 18th to the 15th ranking risk factor between 1990 and 2010. Illicit use of drugs includes use of illegal drugs, non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs and inappropriate use of other substances.

The number of people participating in any illicit use of drugs, including pharmaceutical misuse, in Australia is increasing. However, the proportion of people using most illegal drugs has remained relatively stable; in fact, use of some illegal drugs has even slightly decreased over the last few years. Instead, non-medical use of pharmaceuticals in recent times has increased overall since 2007 and was at its highest level of use since 1998 in 2013—only last year. Increasing numbers of Australians are engaging in the misuse of pharmaceutical drugs and in the use of these so called 'legal alternative' drugs, which take advantage of a loophole. Last year, the Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Professor Michael Farrell, said that one approach will not solve the problem. Criminal organisations are producing drugs to specifically get around the current legislative controls. Basically, you can ban some things, but something else will come in its place. Professor Farrell advised against a banning spree, believing that Australia needed a measured response to the problem. The coalition government is taking action to shut down the market and undermine those who seek to profit from this misery in Australia.

Schedule 1 of this bill creates new offences for importing psychoactive substances and those represented to be alternatives to illicit drugs and allows Australian Customs and Border Protection Service officers to exercise relevant powers, such as seizure, in relation to those substances. 'New psychoactive substances', or NPS, are substances of abuse that are not captured by the major international drug treaties. Along with other Western nations, Australia has been struggling to keep up with the number of new psychoactive substances entering the drug market and has found the current regulatory approach to be inadequate.

The amendments in schedule 1 will implement a measure first announced in June 2013 and represents the Commonwealth legislative component of a broader national response to new psychoactive substances developed by the Intergovernmental Committee on Drugs and endorsed by Commonwealth, state, and territory ministers in July 2014. The offences themselves are broad but are subject to a range of broad exemptions, including for food, tobacco and therapeutic goods, for which a defendant will have an evidentiary burden. Rather than law enforcement having to prove a synthetic drug is illegal, the burden will be placed on the person importing it to prove that it is legal and has a legitimate use. This means that governments and law enforcement are not trying to play catch-up every time a 'new' synthetic drug is produced.

The legislation in this bill will target psychoactive drugs marketed as 'legal' alternatives to illicit drugs like ecstasy, LSD or cannabis. Importantly, medicines and other chemicals that are imported for proper, legitimate use are already certified by relevant authorities, such as the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Existing arrangements will continue to apply to these substances. The ban will not replace existing illicit drug offences. These will continue to be the primary way in which we deal with illicit drugs and the people who try to import them.

This bill also expands the existing firearms trafficking offences, streamlines the processing of transfer applications for the international transfer of prisoners and extends the geographical jurisdiction to slavery offences. It also retrospectively validates the use of federal police powers in investigations of applied state offences at designated airports between March 2014 and May 2014, and other minor and technical amendments to the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1998 and the Surveillance Devices Act 2004.

I understand that the Labor Party and the Greens have objected to schedule 2, which expands existing firearms trafficking offences. The coalition made a commitment at the last election to introduce mandatory minimum sentences of Commonwealth firearms offences, and now we are delivering. As the Prime Minister has stated again and again, the safety of this nation and the Australian people is a top priority for the coalition government. This amendment, along with the crackdown on the import of psychoactive substances, is just part of the government's broader vision to ensure our promise is kept. I call on Labor and the Greens not to stand in the way of this legislation, which will see harmful drugs taken off our streets and out of our homes—protecting Australians from the harmful and deadly effects of illicit drug use. The coalition is determined to prevent Australian lives from being ruined by illicit substances and the synthetic drugs which we have seen take so many lives and destroy so many families already. I commend this bill to the House.

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