Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection from the member for Barker that they love it. That's the reason they are doing this—popular politics. That is the only reason the government is giving tonight, because somehow this is a popular measure. Doesn't that, writ large, say exactly what this government's priorities are? All the health professionals are wrong! They think, 'We'll get a good headline out of this!' and that's why they are doing it.

I can tell you that I back the experts in the field 100 per cent. The National Drug Research Institute summed it up best when they said in a submission, 'Based on our expertise in drug policy, and the social conditions—

Mr Pasin interjecting—

And now the member for Barker is an expert in drug policy and health science—great! They said, 'Based on our expertise in drug policy and the social conditions of drug use, schedule 12 of the Welfare Reform bill should be rejected.' The simple truth is that no health or community organisations have come out publicly to support the trial—not one. If they have a list, I will sit down immediately and they can table it. I'm happy to do that.

But it gets worse. Logan City is one of the trial sites in Queensland. The member for Forde, being a marginal member, did defend this tonight. I'm advised that no LNP member in Queensland wanted the trial site, but he boasted to the community sector and to the media and civic leaders that he asked for this. I have talked to the Logan City Council, and the Mayor of Logan was in Canberra this week asking to work alongside the government. Of course, the NGOs, the Queensland Health department or the local government authority weren't consulted. We were also advised that the government wasted nine months in trying to find these trial sites. Did they think to talk to the organisations that were going to be impacted by this before the announcement? No. As we just heard tonight from the member for Barker, they were more interested in the headlines. Remember their focus group test about what words they should use in the budget? They came back with the word 'fairness'—remember the front page of The Daily Telegraph?

The member for Barker's agreeing with me; he knows that's true. So, we know that for nine months they've been negotiating, and not a word to the local council, Queensland Health, the Queensland government or to those people involved.

The irony of all of this is that in the same week that this was announced we heard that the member for Warringah was too smashed to turn up to the parliament to vote on some of the most important economic reforms that this nation's ever seen—boasting about it! That's fine; he can answer for his actions, about how he was too drunk to get off the couch to come down to actually participate and vote on some of the most important economic legislation that this nation has ever dealt with, right? The irony you have this week is that the government, that pack of snobs, just wants to demonise local people who are doing it tough and wants to make it harder for their lives, not easier. The irony of all of this is that there is not one extra dollar in the budget to deal with any of these issues that people may have. Not one extra dollar to deal with this. That says it all.

We know that the minister was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald. He said:

… based on what we know about compelling people into treatment it has a reasonable probability of helping sufficient numbers of people to make it worthwhile.

I would be interested to hear what evidence the minister has, because we've seen nothing about this whatsoever.

We know that this program simply doesn't work. The testing proposal by the government could potentially encourage people to use less-traceable but more harmful drugs, such as synthetic cannabis, or to move to using alcohol, which is not being tested as part of the government's trial—not being tested! I call on the government and the minister to rethink this potentially disastrous policy and to get on with the job of helping people to actually get into work.

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