David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to commend the member for Grey on putting up this motion. This is a really critical, sad and emotionally draining issue for so many people. As we have learned from the other speakers, it is, unfortunately, not an isolated problem. The tragic story of Patrick Ryan and the mission that his poor father, family and uncle are carrying on is to be really commended.

Unfortunately, it's not just LPG that causes the damage. LPG should have labels on it and we should be educating young people on the dangers of it, but it's not just LPG. Glue sniffing is a common teenage pastime—petrol sniffing as well. It's also called snuffing, huffing, chroming and hazing, and is seen as something cool. I did, for one period of my life, work in a brain damage unit where we saw people who'd drunk with alcohol, their brain, their balance and their nerves away. But you can do it express with cans of deodorant, with paint cans and, like I said, by glue sniffing. All the solvents go into your lungs and immediately they're displacing oxygen, which is pretty important for your brain, your body and your lungs. It can not only reduce oxygen, it can replace all the oxygen in your lungs. And then it goes into your bloodstream and it has the propensity to go into fatty tissue. Up here in your brain and in your nerves, you've got lots of lipids and fats, and it just dissolves it. In fact, the best description I've ever seen was by an academic who was talking about it being like melting plastic. That is what these solvents do to your brain and to your nerves. Unfortunately, I've seen young kids who didn't die but, almost worse, they're trapped in an uncoordinated, brain-damaged, simple body because of glue sniffing.

We really do need to get on board with an education program, because it's young people who are doing this. By the time we get to our age, we work out, 'This is not such a good thing,' But it's cool amongst the kids: 'Let's go round the back and get something out of the cupboard or out of the shed.' Next thing you know, there's a tragedy. So paediatric teenager-level education as well as parental education—because most parents wouldn't know about this. It is all under the radar, and it is a really tragic story. So, whether it's the states that have to label it or whether it's us to drag them to the table to regulate and label it, I thoroughly agree. I don't care who does it; we just want it done. I totally support the member for Grey.

It would be so simple to get a label done. We've got people and organisations like Healthy Harold going around, and all these other organisations that get involved in early adulthood support and education. A lot of people at that adolescent stage do crazy things. We've all done crazy things. In fact, I think of all the crazy things we did, but they were nothing like this. I was too scared to do drugs. I don't know, I must have had a sensible gene from my great grandfather or something. But, going through adolescence is a really dangerous period of a person's life, and some of these things happen because of peer pressure, some of them get sucked into doing it, some have depression and anxiety, and getting out of it by glue sniffing becomes habitual. So it doesn't happen in a big bang, like it happened with poor Patrick Ryan; it can be gradual and very progressive and the next thing you know is they're hooked. They're a brain damaged person and their life isn't what it should be.

We've seen the figures in America. It's mind-boggling, and that's just with LPG deaths. There are probably more than 1,600, and a greater figure for damaged ones. So I do support any minister anywhere, whether it's a federal minister going to COAG encouraging his state colleagues to do it or we have to pass some sort of regulation, I don't care. We just need to do it, because it's really important and we don't want to have other young people suffering the same fate.

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