Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to a proposed trial of drug testing of income support recipients.

I asked about locations of the trial sites because I am getting contacted by people who are quite worried about where this drug testing is going to occur. But in his nonanswers to my questions the minister made a point of saying that the Greens 'are opposing this measure as we usually oppose income support measures'. In fact, on this side of the chamber we have been campaigning for an income support system that actually takes us into the 21st century, and drug testing certainly does not. We support evidence based policy. And if anything lacks an evidence base it is drug testing of income support recipients.

The government first off could—and should—look no further than the report to government by the Australian National Council on Drugs in 2013 on drug testing. For those who have not read the report, I strongly advise you—particularly the government and the minister—to read where the report clearly says:

There is no evidence that drug testing welfare beneficiaries will have any positive effects for those individuals or for society, and some evidence indicating such a practice could have high social and economic costs. In addition, there would be serious ethical and legal problems in implementing such a program in Australia.”

Drug testing of welfare beneficiaries ought not be considered.

Further, it says:

Drug testing programs are highly expensive. For example, the cost of implementing drug testing programs in Australian schools has been estimated to be up to $355 million.

not that the government is considering that particular program—

A program of drug testing welfare beneficiaries which operated for four months in Florida, USA, and discontinued benefits to those who tested positive, cost the state an estimated $118,140, and ran at a net loss of approximately $45,000. Drug testing programs are unlikely to have any economic benefits in most contexts.

That is evidence that this sort of drug testing regime will not work.

And if you look further to some of the results in the US, in America the results coming back positive for drugs were absolutely farcical. From 2011 to 2014, just two people out of 108,408 had tests that came back as positive in Arizona. Over in Missouri, just 0.1 per cent came back positive from 2013 to 2014. And these programs cost millions. In other cases, US states spent $1.3 million on drug tests and just 396 recipients tested positive. There were zero positive tests coming back in four states for the whole of the year. The UK rejected the concept before they even started it, when they actually had a look at it. When their Social Security Advisory Committee had a look at it, they realised that it was not going to be effective and they rejected it. That was in 2010. In 2015 they had another look at it and again rejected it.

In Canada they rejected the concept and also found that it was discriminatory—a question that I asked the minister. And apparently the government still does not know if this program is going to be discriminatory—although the Australian Human Rights Commission said at estimates that, in all likelihood, it would be found discriminatory if it were taken to court, in the same way that, in the past, testing for opiates has been found to be discriminatory.

We do not reject this on an ideological basis; we reject it because it is discriminatory. It is not evidence based. It is going to be expensive; the government will not tell us how much it costs. It discriminates against young people; they are obviously targeting young people. It discriminates against people with addiction. It is a flawed policy, it is recognised around the world as flawed, and it should be rejected. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.