Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to raise the issue of drug control and drug management, particularly the government’s commitment to its Tough on Drugs program. Over the period that this program has been in place—almost the entire life of the government—there has been a substantial improvement in the way the community has reacted to the program. It is a multifaceted program, first of all based on intervention and the prevention of drugs entering Australia. The total program comprises around $1 billion, but something like $80 million has been put into the intervention program to prevent drugs from arriving in Australia. A significant amount has been put into education programs in schools, informing young people, who are targets for drug dealers, of the dangers of drugs. Separate expenditure has been put into remediation and assisting those who have suffered the tragedy of becoming addicted. The number of people who have died from the use of heroin has diminished greatly over the period of the Tough on Drugs program. That is an excellent thing. I am delighted that the program has been so successful.

One area where there has been a rather relaxed attitude in our community is in the detection of the use of the drug marijuana. Evidence taken by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Services, of which I was a member—as was Minister Dutton, who is at the table—established that it was indeed an extremely addictive drug which produces strange and psychotic results in many instances and is treated with gay abandon by many users. There was a general attitude in the bureaucracy and in some sections of the health community, particularly in Sydney—for instance, Dr Wodak and others of this type—where people were very relaxed about the use of marijuana. In fact, they adopted what was called a ‘harm minimisation program’. That was a program that sought to treat people who had become addicted rather than preventing people from taking up this dreadful, addictive and destructive habit.

The committee’s findings in relation to marijuana indicated that the Victorian government, which was conducting road tests for the use of drugs, was starting to produce some good results. It was very pleasing that the Victorian government was doing that.

I think the test for the Labor Party now is to define where they stand. They have a new leader—a man who claims to have values. I have observed the expression of those values in his behaviour generally. Sometimes in the House he strays a little, but I think we all do that. I have to say that the test for him will be to make a commitment to be tough on drugs. Is it going to be a harm minimisation program, which has been the traditional avenue taken by the Australian Labor Party, or is it going to be a tough on drugs program?

It would be a wonderful thing if we could go out, against many of the states of Australia, and say that a tough on drugs program is the best thing for Australian youth. Much of the Commonwealth’s effort with regard to being tough on drugs has been diminished by an attitude within state governments—particularly in New South Wales, with shooting galleries and other concessions to drug users—that really seeks to water down and take away the value of a tough on drugs program from a Commonwealth level. Our program has proved to be successful. The Commonwealth’s commitment to keeping people off drugs, to interdiction and to education has been successful, and it has been successful overseas where adopted. I appeal to the Australian Labor Party and the new Leader of the Opposition that it would be a great thing for them to join with the government and have a bipartisan approach to a tough on drugs program that spreads right down to the grassroots of Australian society and, in that way, to gain some great results for our young people who are addicted to these horrible products.