Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, Hobart City Council yesterday voted in support of pill testing at major events and festivals. We know pill testing saves lives, and health experts agree a harm minimisation approach is the only sensible response to illicit drug use, yet the Tasmanian government is clinging to an ideological opposition to harm minimisation, and pill testing in particular, and refuses to back the council's position. While some like the ACT government have taken a lead on this, governments like Tasmania's have shown they simply don't understand the issue. So will you as health minister put the issue of pill testing on the COAG Health Council agenda?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer is no. Yesterday I respectfully disagreed with the member for Clark on the proposition he made. Today I will respectfully but categorically disagree with the member. What he has proposed is, I believe, a dangerous and unfounded course of action. Let me say this: whether they are tested or not, MDMA, ice and certain opioids such as fentanyl can be deadly in their purest forms. These are drugs which are illegal for a reason. They are illicit drugs because they can kill. They are illicit drugs because the nature of the response may not be known in an individual case. At the very moment that this parliament, this government and the entire nation are seeking to deal with some of the challenges of both amphetamines and opioids, the idea that we would be condoning, encouraging and supporting the expansion of their consumption is, to my mind, utterly unthinkable.

So this is not a position that the Australian government will be adopting; it is a position that the Australian government will be opposing. We have given the fullest support that we can possibly give to the position of the Tasmanian government. The reason we do this is that we want to save lives and protect lives. We know that not only may there be flaws in the pill-testing approach but, even if it makes it clear that it's a pure form of MDMA, a pure form of ice or a pure form of fentanyl, that is not going to save a person. They may take an overdose, or, even if they take what they believe is an appropriate dose, that can be enough to take their lives. That's why these drugs are dangerous, that's why these drugs are illicit and that's why we will not be adopting the approach which the member has—I believe, foolishly and dangerously—advocated.