Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) illicit drugs can cause untold harm in our communities and on our streets; and

(b) the Government:

(i) is committed to targeting the supply, demand, and harm caused to our communities by the scourge of illicit drugs; and

(ii) has made significant investments in our law enforcement agencies to do all they can to keep drugs off our streets;

(2) acknowledges that:

(a) in the last two years alone, our agencies have detected and intercepted more than 12.5 tonnes of narcotics that have been attempted to be imported into Australia; and

(b) Australian law enforcement officers continue to confront Australia's drug market and combat the criminal syndicates that peddle illicit drugs; and

(3) calls on all members of the House to promote greater awareness of the harmful effects of illicit drugs on individuals and communities across Australia and support our law enforcement agencies in keeping drugs off our streets.

Firstly in this motion, we note that illicit drugs can cause untold harm in our communities and on our streets and that the government is committed to targeting the supply, the demand and the harm caused to our communities by the scourge of illicit drugs. Secondly, we note that the government has made significant investments in our law enforcement agencies for them to do all they can to keep drugs off our streets. We acknowledge that in the last two years alone our agencies have detected and intercepted more than 12.5 tonnes of narcotics that have been attempted to be imported into Australia. We also acknowledge that Australian law enforcement officers continue to confront Australia's drug market and combat the criminal syndicates that peddle illicit drugs. Thirdly, we call on all members of the House to promote greater awareness of the harmful effects of illicit drugs on individuals and communities across Australia and to support our law enforcement agencies in keeping drugs off our streets.

The Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, which I am the chairman of, have been having a very extensive inquiry into the scourge of crystal methamphetamine and its effect across our country. We have seen some very alarming evidence in our inquiry. We have been to hospitals, and we have heard how the emergency rooms of hospitals are being greatly disturbed and affected by people coming in affected by crystal methamphetamine. We have heard in Saint Vincent's Hospital Sydney about patients coming in and physically ripping monitors off the wall, something that requires superhuman strength, and throwing them across the room. We have seen that in the hospital emergency rooms they have to have special lock-ups, almost detention cells, where they can put these people into virtually a special padded cell within the emergency room to try to keep them away from other patients. We have seen the amazing work that our doctors are doing in this area in the emergency wards, and we give all credit to them. We also heard from parents who lost their kids to the scourge of drugs in most tragic and heartbreaking circumstances—loving parents who gave evidence before us, telling the circumstances of how drugs took the lives of their children.

We also heard evidence from our law enforcement officials. What they told us, which was quite surprising, is that the street price for crystal methamphetamine in Australia is the highest in the world. They said that nowhere is the drug's street price for drug dealers as high as in Australia, and, because it is so high, it is attracting criminal gangs and smugglers from all over the world who are targeting Australia. The drugs come from multiple sources—through China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. Drugs are being manufactured in these countries, many of which have drug problems of their own, and imported into Australia.

The difficulty for our customs and border protection forces is that the drugs are physically so small and difficult to detect. So, whilst we congratulate the great work of our law enforcement officials, one of the particular concerns I have is the source of supply. Even if we were able to have a real clampdown and cut off that supply it would only boost the price and attract more and more people into the market. Ultimately we have to work on education. We have to work more on educating our young people and help them to realise the harm that these drugs do to them. That is certainly not an easy task. We heard from specialists in this field who explained to us the difficulty of trying to educate the young, who have immature minds that do not have fully developed powers of reasoning and logic, who are being taken by the scourge of these drugs. We need to continue to work on this. I believe the key focus going forward must be education.

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