Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hughes for her question and I can assure her that this government remains unambiguously and unequivocally tough on drugs. Since 1997, this government has committed more than $1 billion to interdict the supply of illicit drugs into this country, to rehabilitate drug addicts and to educate the Australian people about the dangers of illicit drugs.

I am pleased to say that this campaign is working. The percentage of Australians using illicit drugs has dropped from 22 per cent in 1998 to 15 per cent in 2004. That constitutes a reduction of 1.5 million people—that is 1.5 million fewer people using illicit drugs, thanks substantially to this government’s policies. In the recent budget, the government committed a further $48 million towards our tough-on-drugs strategies, including a new cannabis prevention and control centre to study the links between marijuana use and mental illness, and also $24 million to a campaign to make young people more aware of the dangers that drugs pose to them.

So there is a very clear message from this government: there is no safe way to use illicit drugs. But, unfortunately, that is not the message from the opposition. Every recent opposition leader has supported heroin injecting rooms. The current Leader of the Opposition has said:

It is wrong for the Prime Minister to stand in the way of the NSW Government’s proposed safe injecting room ...

This is typical of the Leader of the Opposition. He surrendered to the Islamists over Iraq, he surrenders to the unions over workplace relations and he surrenders to the premiers over heroin injecting rooms.

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