Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In 2007, the House Standing Committee on Family and Human Services—a committee I chaired—brought down a report entitled, The winnable war on drugs: The impact of illicit drug use on families. In that report we identified the evils of ice, which only now seems to be getting the focus that we said it needed. We identified then that it was an issue that needed dramatic action.

We took evidence from a vast number of people and we came down with certain recommendations, 31 of them. One of the main recommendations, and perhaps the main thrust, was that there was a need for a strong advertising campaign which told young people what drugs, and particularly methamphetamines, do to them. We noted that there was a dramatic difference between the success of the antismoking campaign and the way illicit drugs were treated under the harm minimisation concept. We saw that quite strongly when we took evidence from one particular parent who really outlined the sorts of problems that we were to be faced with, and I would like to read one stepfather's story:

I started to get very concerned because Andrew turned around to someone who was parked next to us and started to get aggressive towards him. When the mental health counsellor came out, he did a stupid thing. He stood in front of Andrew, which you never do. You always stand to the side. Andrew is six foot six, and Andrew went berserk. He was flailing his hands around. If Andrew had connected with him, he would have broken his neck. He went away, and all of a sudden we had seven police officers around. It took the seven police officers, one ambulance driver and one of the security guards to pin him down and get the handcuffs on. It was the most terrifying thing. I had never seen this aggression before. He was then admitted as an involuntary patient. They had a lot of problems with Andrew. He refused drug screening. That is the biggest problem.

Problems like that were heard all around Australia, and yet there was a reluctance for action to be taken. We said we needed a campaign of the intensity of the 'grim reaper' campaign, which had such a dramatic effect with regard to AIDS. We said there needed to be a campaign with the intensity and length of the antismoking campaign, with harsh messages similar to those used in that campaign, so that the highly addictive nature of methamphetamines and the consequences of its use could become common knowledge.

We highlighted a program that was used in Montana, where the images they used were dramatic and showed the scabs and picking that went on when people became addicted. The result of that campaign was a 38 per cent drop in the use of methamphetamines by teenagers. In our report we said:

Unlike many illicit drug information sources, which seek to rationalise or ‘balance’ the decision to take drugs by listing the positive as well as negative effects of illicit drugs, there is no recognition of the benefits of smoking, such as a description of its relaxant properties. Nor is there any advice on harm reduction or smoking 'safely’ or ‘responsibly’; rather, the message is that ‘every cigarette is doing you damage’.

That is the sort of hard-line campaign we recommended to dramatically reduce the use of illicit drug taking, particularly with respect to ice.

So many stories have come out now about the risk to doctors, to nurses and to paramedics, yet still we are not seeing the hard-hitting campaign we recommended back in 2007. It is a good report. It contains many stories which can be acted upon and much material that can be used. And it is, I think, timely that we embark upon such a tough campaign because we in Australia are the highest users of methamphetamines and the damage that is being done can no longer be tolerated. We need a hard-hitting campaign like the one that is suggested in this report.

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