Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

When I first got elected, in 2019, I was one of the youngest members in this place. Clearly, politics is ageing me. But I have always sought to try and be a voice in this place for the young people in my electorate. Macnamara is home to many young people. It's a wonderful place, a vibrant place, where people come and enjoy all the fantastic parts of our community. But it is also a place where people come and visit. They come to concerts. They come to festivals. They come to parties. They come to eat. They come to dine.

In February the streets of St Kilda are pumping for Midsumma Festival. The warehouses in Port Melbourne and South Melbourne are often packed every Saturday night. The reality of the situation is that young people sometimes take drugs. Let's be clear: we want our young people to be safe and we want our young people to enjoy themselves and to go home at the end of the night. Last week the Premier of Victoria announced that the Labor government in Victoria will trial pill testing over the summer. As the Premier herself said, this is a common-sense way to save lives. Every year, we see more and more young people being put at risk by taking party drugs without the option to speak to an expert, fact-check what their experience might be and check what's in their pills.

The evidence is clear: pill testing saves lives. This is about harm reduction; it does not increase the risk of illicit drug use. In fact, it does the opposite. Multiple studies around the world, including locally at Monash University, show people often reduce their drug use after receiving the results of their drug checking and having an honest discussion about the results with staff. The evidence has shown that a sizeable proportion of people discard or intend to discard their drugs or use less if they contain unexpected substances. If you have honest conversations with people, they listen. If you give people facts, people make good decisions, especially young people. Young people are smart and want to know the information that is going to assist them. They don't want judgement. They don't want lessons. They want facts. This pill testing will provide just that.

One in 10 people in Macnamara work in the creative sector. It's a wonderful part of our community. This will make the jobs and the industry that we are so proud of in Macnamara safer. In 2019 one of my local councils, the City of Port Phillip, wanted to be the first in Victoria to run pill testing at participating venues in our community. This is something that the community in Macnamara has supported for years. I'm very pleased that the Allan Labor government in Victoria have taken this important step. We don't want to see any young person losing their life for experimenting or for spending time with their friends. Obviously, we want people to be safe, and I support this initiative by the Victorian Labor government to test pills this summer and to save lives.