Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Bills

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms PATTEN:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (15:04): I rise to make a contribution on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022. This is something that I know Ms Patten has worked incredibly hard on and advocated extensively for. I know it is something that is not a recent subject of advocacy for her. It is almost her life’s work to advocate for harm minimisation responses in regard to drugs and other controlled substances. I know Ms Patten has made very solid contributions on a whole range of things in this area, so I thank her for her work and her advocacy in this space.

With the bill that is before the chamber today the government has undertaken a range of measures in regard to harm minimisation. When we talk about drugs, poisons and the like, the bill refers to drugs of dependence but we know that things like alcohol and tobacco are also drugs and they can also have an impact on people’s health and livelihoods. I know this is more directed at drugs of dependence and the like, but nevertheless we sometimes forget that drugs like alcohol and tobacco can do just as much harm, if not more harm, than some of these other things. Nevertheless, the Andrews Labor government takes very seriously the issues that arise from drugs of dependence, and certainly harm minimisation is at the core of everything we do in this area. But we certainly do support our community against the harms of alcohol and drugs and we do not shy away from the reality of the problem. The Andrews Labor government is more than doubling the number of residential rehabilitation beds in Victoria from the 208 beds we inherited from the opposition in 2014 to 502 beds as our investments are rolled out across the state, with more than half of these new beds in regional Victoria.

While I am on my feet, I might just give a bit of a shout-out to an amazing facility in my region, the Eastern Metropolitan Region. It is a state public detox facility called Turning Point and it is based at Box Hill Hospital. I really encourage members in this chamber, if they have not gone along and had a look at the amazing work that Turning Point does, to go along and actually have a visit and listen to the very detailed work that it does. The thing that is great about Turning Point is it is publicly funded. It is in a state public hospital, and it is an inpatient hospital facility. The difference is sometimes when people are wanting to detox from their drug addiction and the like they are having to access privately run clinics, and sometimes that can be very expensive. At least this way, by providing publicly funded detox services, people get the support of a very well funded, well run outfit. They also wrap around support services to people who are wanting to overcome their addictions. What we know about addiction is that for people who may be addicted to a drug of dependence, sometimes the reason for that addiction is they have other comorbidities. They may be coping with mental ill health. They may be coping with depression or anxiety. They may be neurodiverse. There may be a whole range of things going on. There may be just circumstances in their life where they happen to have sustained severe shock and loss through either a traumatic event or an injury. Sometimes even losing a job can tip somebody into addiction. There are a range of reasons and a range of ways that people can become addicted to drugs. As I said, I really want to commend the work that Turning Point do at Box Hill Hospital.

Nevertheless the 2021–22 budget delivered a funding injection of $23.2 million to operationalise new alcohol and other drug residential rehabilitation beds in Corio, Traralgon and Wangaratta, building on the previous investment of $52.1 million into these new facilities. As I said, the thing that I really like about Turning Point is they also educate people who are detoxing to recognise their triggers, to recognise perhaps the environment that they are in and to work on developing healthier coping mechanisms rather than turning to drugs or alcohol to work on those things. People find that often their journey through detoxing and breaking their addiction is not always a linear journey. It can be a long period of time of sobriety, but you can fall off that wagon and get back on. Sometimes people have a number of relapses. It seems to be a very common feature of breaking an addiction cycle. It is not a common thing for people to have one go at detox and come out of it cleanly. It is often a scenario that can repeat itself. Similarly with smoking even: I know some people who have had many goes at breaking their addiction to tobacco. They might have a go a number of times and try different things, but eventually they get there. This can be years in the making sometimes, so the important thing is to keep trying and eventually that will come through. This is why we need such a critical investment, serious investment, in alcohol and drug detox programs.

We looked at this in the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee the other day in terms of looking at the human rights assessment for this bill, and what primarily this bill is about is reducing the penalties associated with people who may be fined or charged by the police for having drugs of dependence. I know what Ms Patten is trying to achieve here. It is one aspect of dealing with addiction, which is: why are we punishing people who have an addiction and perhaps not dealing with other comorbidities? In trying to reduce penalties and taking a therapeutic approach, I understand there is merit. I understand where that is coming from, but also what our government is doing is making sure we put in the support services for rehabilitation like, as I said, residential rehabilitation beds. These are things that we definitely need to invest in and are investing in because, as I said, a lot of these drug rehab beds are in the private market. It is very expensive—$40 000 a throw sometimes. I do not know—could I find that money? I do not know that I could if I needed to go into a facility like that. As I was saying earlier, if you are having to go in and out a couple of times, that is quite expensive. From a public health perspective it is critically important that people can get the support that they need to get off drugs of dependence.

The 2021–22 Victorian budget also provided crucial demand funding, with an injection of $5.1 million into community alcohol and drug support and $1.3 million into the forensic alcohol and drug system to ensure that Victorians can access care from all points of the alcohol and drug service system. Our $180 million Ice Action Plan is already changing lives across our state, and so is our $87 million Drug Rehabilitation Plan.

I know I am talking a lot about the injections of funds that the government is putting into helping people break addiction cycles, but there is also a really critical mental health element to this as well. Although we are talking in terms of it being a siloed approach, these things do overlap. I may come back to this later in my remarks, but I wanted to say up-front that our Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and the recommendations that came from that and also the funding that this government is injecting into implementing the recommendations of the mental health royal commission are going to be critical in helping people who have mental health challenges but then turn to drugs of dependence to help self-medicate or manage any mental health concerns that they have.

Just returning to this issue in terms of the injection of funds the government is making, I touched on the Ice Action Plan. Ice is a really terrible drug. It is more addictive than heroin. I know that in the 1970s and 80s heroin was always looked at as a drug of severe addiction, and it was terrible. There was an epidemic in Australia of heroin. But ice is something that is much cheaper and seems to be more readily available to people. Ice as a drug of dependence causes immense damage and harm to people on a range of levels and over a long period of time, and it is a very serious and difficult addiction to break.

As I said, there is a $180 million investment in that action plan and a further $87 million into our Drug Rehabilitation Plan. In addition, the 2021–22 budget furthers this work with funding of $1 million to continue the delivery of crucial alcohol and drug supports for Aboriginal Victorians through our Aboriginal metro ice partnership. Again, I know our Indigenous brothers and sisters have suffered immense trauma in their past and often carry with them the trauma of what may have come from the stolen generation but also dispossession. The struggles our Indigenous brothers and sisters have with alcohol are well documented. I am really pleased and proud to be part of a government that is doing a lot of work on treaty and reparations, with announcements just the other day about compensation for our Indigenous brothers and sisters who have suffered trauma arising from not only dispossession but being affected by being a member or their parents being members of the stolen generation. As we know, trauma can be passed down from generation to generation. It is all part of this government’s work on a range of levels to address the trauma that people may have. Again, a therapeutic approach is embedded in many of the responses that we make in regard to alcohol and drugs, but we recognise that our Indigenous brothers and sisters are a special population when it comes to this issue.

Again, we have made a record investment in ensuring that Victorians who need alcohol and other drug support can get it. We need to make sure the help they need is there when they need to get it and where they need to get it, so having localised investment and drug support available to people when and where they need it is critically important. By boosting community and forensic alcohol and drug support in the most recent state budget we are ensuring that Victorians can get into that alcohol and drug system from multiple entry points that extend beyond residential models of care, and I touched on that earlier when I was talking about inpatient-type facilities. There are lots of them in the private market, but again, there is still a shortage of beds available, and it is good that we have got some in the public health system as well.

This approach will go some way to facilitating referrals into the alcohol and drug treatment system from other avenues, such as the justice system, so that Victorians who need help can get it no matter what their circumstances are. The government will continue to open new beds across the state, and we will continue to deliver the services that our community needs when and where it needs them.

I touched on this before and I will return to this in my remarks now: harm minimisation is a really critical and important part of our approach to addressing drugs of dependence and reforms in this area. We are proud to have introduced reforms to improve the safety of Victorians who are at risk of drug-related harms. In 2021 we passed amendments to allow people other than pharmacists to seek authorisation to supply naloxone to people who are at risk of or who may witness an overdose. I might just say I remember working in Sydney—I was actually working at the AMWU at the time, in Granville—and there was a detox clinic around the corner from us, and people were regularly going to the clinic to access methadone. There is nothing more terrifying than watching somebody collapse on the footpath because they may have gone to the clinic, having had a hit of heroin, but then accessed their hit of methadone or naloxone. It is a horrible thing to see.

Like I said, people’s journeys in breaking their addiction to drugs of dependence are never a linear thing. What we always try to do is respond with compassion and understanding. I understand that is not always easy for everyone, and sometimes these sorts of things can be incredibly trying for family members and difficult to manage. However, many people will have suffered some level of trauma in their life, and what they are trying to do is ease the pain away. That is why I understand Ms Patten’s approach is about harm minimisation. It is also important that what this government is trying to do is invest in services that assist people in a therapeutic way to recover from their addictions, and I touched on the work of Turning Point before.

It is central and core to the work of this government in this regard that we are funding appropriate supports to help people manage their drug or alcohol addiction, beat it and overcome it. I will leave my remarks there. I know there are many other speakers—I just found that out about 3 seconds ago—so I will leave my contribution there. I thank members for their attention.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:19): I am pleased to rise to speak to Ms Patten’s bill that she has introduced into the Parliament and that we are debating this afternoon. I know that she has been very committed to this issue for a long time, and I think Ms Terpstra referenced that as well. It is clear that Ms Patten has got a long record of supporting this issue; it is nothing new. In fact the inquiry into the use of cannabis in Victoria by the Legal and Social Issues Committee, which I was on with Ms Patten, partly looked at this issue. I will come to that in a moment, but I want to go to the crux of what Ms Patten’s bill would achieve should it get through the Parliament this afternoon and then through the lower house. The bill is:

… to amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981—

(a) to reduce to 1 penalty unit the penalty for the following offences—

(i) the offence of possessing a drug of dependence in a quantity that is not more than the small quantity applicable to that drug;

(ii) the offence of using or attempting to use a drug of dependence; and

(b) to make the offence of using or attempting to use a drug of dependence a summary offence; and

(c) to provide for those offences to be dealt with by way of a drug education or treatment notice; and

(d) to make consequential and related amendments.

On the face of it, that sounds perfectly reasonable. But when you look at the substance of this bill and the time frame that the Parliament is meant to push this bill through in, it is completely unachievable. The bill is to be put in place by 1 July this year, and quite simply there is not the ability and there are not the resources to do what this bill is actually asking to be done. What it is doing, as I said—I have highlighted the technical parts of it—is removing the discretionary powers of Victoria Police to issue cautions or impose a penalty on those that are in possession of any illicit drug in small quantities. It is to provide drug education and treatment, and we have just been listening to the government talk on that. But the fact is the outcomes are getting worse. The government are very good at the rhetoric, but when it comes to delivering their policies, really they are not making a huge amount of difference. I know that others will say, ‘Well, that’s the whole point of this bill, because the government’s policies are not working’.

What I think should be done is that the government should be putting more effort into education programs, particularly for young people, around drug use and the horrendous damage that use of these illicit drugs can cause. Just the other day there were really graphic pictures in the Herald Sun of heroin use, and it was quite sad and pathetic. These poor young people who have been addicted to this terrible drug, heroin—it was just so awful to see that that is how they live their lives. If there is any way, we should say to a young person, ‘Please, just learn from this. Understand that this is very, very damaging; these drugs are very damaging’—and they are. Some will argue, ‘Well, a small bit of dope possession is fine’, and we know that the police have put in diversion programs and cautionary notices. They do that now, and they do a tremendous job in trying to support young people who are on some of these drugs to get on board and to steer them in the right direction. More effort should be put into that, not just doing what this bill does, and that is opening up and allowing any drugs, in small amounts, to be decriminalised. I mean, that just demonstrates that decriminalisation without any accountability will then lead to full legalisation and some very severe consequences. There will be an argument about what is happening in various countries, but we know that in other countries, where legalisation of certain drugs has occurred, there is an uptick certainly in car accidents and crime is on the rise. There is not enough data yet to be conclusive about the full impact of that.

I say that because, as I mentioned at the outset, I was on the committee with Ms Patten on the inquiry into the use of cannabis. We tabled the report last August, so not even six months ago. In that inquiry Assistant Commissioner Weir spoke to us, spoke to the committee, and in his submission he spoke very well about his experience. He spoke about what Ms Terpstra was referring to, Turning Point; she said she had experience of speaking to Turning Point. Assistant Commissioner Weir also spoke about his time working with Turning Point and others who were involved in drug education and drug research. He has worked in this space for many, many decades. I mean, he is a very experienced police officer in this area, and he understands the full impacts and the incredible work that they have done over that period of time in supporting young people and working through those diversion programs. He told the committee he sits on the board of the Monash Addiction Research Centre. One of the points I want to raise is what in his testimony to the committee Assistant Commissioner Weir said about Victoria Police. He said:

I suppose the role of Victoria Police is to serve the Victorian community, to uphold the law and to promote a safe, secure and orderly society by fulfilling the functions of preserving the peace, protecting life and property, preventing the commission of offences, detecting and apprehending offenders, and helping those in need of assistance.

Throughout his evidence to us he spoke about what Victoria Police do, especially with young people and the supply of drugs to those young people, how they work with larger criminal activities, working with the AFP and Australian Border Force, and how Victoria Police works very effectively largely in managing—well, understanding exactly what is going on in the community. Now, he went on to say:

We provided a written submission to this committee on 22 October last year, and the purpose of that submission was threefold: firstly, to convey our experience in responding to cannabis harm, including the range of harms that we witness arising from the use, cultivation and trafficking of cannabis; secondly, to convey the way that Victoria Police responds to and reduces these harms; and thirdly, to raise issues that require consideration when examining international models of managing cannabis that include some of the areas that have legalised cannabis.

And in his conclusions at the end of his testimony, after we had had all of that very interesting interaction, he made the point that there is just not enough data from the longitudinal studies around legalisation of cannabis and cannabis use in these international jurisdictions, and that was why their evidence was to not support that.

What the committee was to look at was the use of cannabis, and some of the terms of reference the committee were particularly looking at—I am just going to get the terms of reference that I want to refer to—were ‘protect public health and public safety in relation to the use of cannabis’ and ‘prevent criminal activity relating to the illegal cannabis trade in Victoria’. I know that what Ms Patten’s bill is trying to achieve is to say it is so widespread—and she has put statistics out there—that it is not making an impact and that we have got to do better: ‘We’ve got to treat this as a health issue’. But in terms of what that committee was to do, which was to look at ‘international jurisdictions that have been successful in achieving’ the outcomes of the various points in the terms of reference and how they may be adapted into Victoria, the committee actually went to this point around decriminalisation. In fact there are quite a few pages in this committee report about what has been referenced. It states:

In Portugal, the personal use (consumption and possession) of any drug—including cannabis—is decriminalised and dealt with through the country’s legislated drug strategy, which emphasises a health-based response …

which is exactly the point of Ms Patten’s bill, I think. And it was, really, very good work. We looked at this, and the report went on to say:

Decriminalisation is a regulatory approach to illicit drugs which specifies that proscribed behaviours, such as personal use and possession, remain offences but are dealt with using civil penalties rather than criminal penalties.

And there is more information around what we found and what we heard around this very issue, so Ms Patten’s bill is nothing new, because we looked at it, in part, through this parliamentary inquiry process. It was a very good process to go through, understanding that, as we said in here, Victoria Police’s approach with the cannabis cautioning program, which we discussed in a whole chapter in this report, is an example of de facto decriminalisation for personal cannabis use and possession. But we made the point that it was limited to one or two cautionary notices, because clearly after that there is an issue. If you have cautionary notice after cautionary notice issued for possession, you have got a problem. So I do think that we have largely looked at this issue. Again Ms Patten is bringing this in. She was very strong on that. She wanted the government to support her in that. I think it is fair to say you were rather disappointed that they did not support you in that endeavour, but nevertheless—

Ms Patten: I was disappointed in your lack of support, Ms Crozier.

Ms CROZIER: I know you were disappointed in mine, but I think I was fairly up-front with my position, so I think you knew my concerns on it. I do not think you were surprised by that.

I do take on board the police evidence and their concerns around, as I said, the data, the longitudinal studies that need to be undertaken around this. And whilst understandably we do want to support those young people if they have got problems with using illicit drugs, I have got great concerns about the extent of Ms Patten’s bill with some of these terrible drugs. I know that she has got this concern for young people too. That was why in 2018 I worked with Magistrate Jennifer Bowles, who did a Churchill Fellowship program on this. My former colleague Mary Wooldridge and I had a policy around supporting young people with very severe drug use, whether it was cannabis, methamphetamines or heroin, to give them support and to give them treatment, mandatory treatment really, which was based on Magistrate Bowles’s studies and her recommendations. She was seeing what was going through the Children’s Court, and she was so committed to this. I was very disappointed that the government did not support what we were saying at the time, and that was to provide drug and alcohol treatment for young people so that they could get off these very severe hard drugs. It was giving them support, it was giving them education and it was giving them treatment, so it was giving them the whole range, not just floating in and floating out, ‘We’ve ticked the box. Here, we’ve seen you’. It was a really significant wraparound program that provided that support, education and treatment—incredibly importantly, that treatment—to help those young people get off these very dangerous drugs.

That was a policy that I proudly stood with and took to the electorate in 2018, and I am disappointed that the government did not support that stance, because I do think it is a good one and I still think it is a good one. Magistrate Bowles had done an extensive amount of work on this. She had travelled the world, she had seen the programs, and they had worked. I know that I had spoken to families and young people who were on ice who said to me, ‘I just wish I could have had this treatment, because what I did was wrong and it was dangerous and I could have killed someone. I ended up in jail, and I don’t want to have that record’. And they said to me, ‘If I’d had this, if I’d had the treatment, the support and the education, then maybe I would not have gone down that path’. There are avenues that we can take that should be taken, I believe. I think this is still a very, very significant and good policy around supporting young people. I know the government will reel off a lot of stats, but really the outcomes are getting worse. We are still not getting what we need to get, and that is to get young people off these very severe drugs.

I want to just return briefly to what Assistant Commissioner Weir said, because I do think not only his submission, Victoria Police’s submission, but also his testimony to the inquiry that I have previously referred to were really enlightening. It was so thorough. He is a man with great depth of experience in this area, great commitment and great care. He actually understands the challenges for young people, and they are concerning to Victoria Police. He said in his testimony:

We predominantly are trying to reduce the supply of illicit drugs to the community, and we do that by providing support also to the health and education sectors and harm reduction activities where appropriate.

…

As detailed in our written submission, we acknowledge that decisions to decriminalise or legalise cannabis or other illicit drugs are a matter for the state government. We support the current legislative framework for illicit drugs.

So he was very strong in his words to our inquiry around what he thought should be undertaken. I know there is commentary around the Victoria Police drug strategy. I think there are different points of view there, which is perfectly fine, but this is very recent. It was six months ago that Assistant Commissioner Weir made these statements to the parliamentary inquiry, and it is of concern to me and my colleagues, should the government—I think they have made their position clear, but this is a step that would not, I think, achieve what is intended. I think there would be many, many more issues that would arise if the decriminalisation of heroin, ice or cannabis was to proceed in this state. I think we need to be doing more about education of young people to really demonstrate the very real dangers of these very dangerous drugs. They will change your life.

We need to be doing much more around supporting people, certainly, but I will not go into all of those issues around where I think the government has failed in terms of alcohol and drug rehab beds. They have been in power for almost the last eight years, and the figures certainly are nothing to crow about. In fact my colleague Ms Kealy has highlighted on many occasions the many issues that this state has and the many issues around the government’s failure to address this problem.

We have seen in the last two years particularly, with lockdown after lockdown, the enormous impacts on Victorians, and sadly some of those issues around mental health, drug use and family violence—all those statistics around—

Members interjecting.

Ms CROZIER: Well, it is a serious matter, some of the issues around these very concerning figures that have come out. I would say again that whilst I understand Ms Patten’s advocacy on this, the Liberals and Nationals will not be supporting Ms Patten’s bill.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (15:38): It is a pleasure to speak on this important bill introduced by Ms Patten to decriminalise the possession and use of drugs of dependence. I would also like to take this opportunity to commend Ms Patten on her unwavering commitment to drug policy reform, which is shared by all Greens parties in Australia and indeed across the world.

Advocating and campaigning for drug and criminal justice reform can be a thankless task—perhaps the most frustrating activity one can undertake in this Parliament—because we all know the evidence, the decades-long failure of the war on drugs, that clearly shows that a criminal justice response to drugs simply does not work. Indeed the current approach is exacerbating drug problems by draining funding from effective health and treatment services, clogging the criminal justice and corrections systems with non-violent offenders and maximising the health dangers of drug use. Yet our governments have steadfastly refused to engage on the issue or entertain evidence-based reforms for political reasons. However, we are also witnessing elsewhere that the rest of the world is now learning from this abject failure and is moving in new policy directions with greater success. We too must start learning and adopting a similar and smarter approach, as outlined in this bill, lest we impose another 50 years of failed drugs policy on yet another generation of Victorians.

The bill proposes to create new summary offences for possession of small quantities or use of a drug of dependence. Under these offences a person must be served with a drug education or treatment notice requiring the person to engage with a drug education or treatment service provider. Compliance with the requirements of a new drug education or treatment notice will mean that no criminal proceeding, admission of guilt or conviction is recorded for their drug use or possession. For those who think this approach sounds radical, what is proposed by this bill is essentially no different from what is already occurring in the caution and diversion programs that have operated in Victoria for a considerable time. However, the existing caution and diversion is not applied consistently as it is applied at the discretion of police, most commonly only for a first offence.

To me what is so irrational about this approach is that a person with repeated drug use offences is clearly more likely to be suffering addiction or from ongoing mental health and social factors leading to their drug use than a first offender, yet police are also more likely to direct those on repeat drug use offences into the criminal justice system rather than diverting them to health and social services to address these underlying issues. Hence we can also observe that the people who end up in the criminal justice and corrections systems on lower level drug use offences are disproportionately from the most vulnerable groups—women, people experiencing homelessness and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians.

Michelle Alexander wrote about mass incarceration in the United States that it was ‘the absence of significant constraints on the exercise of police discretion’ that made the round-up and incarceration of millions of black Americans on non-violent drug offences relatively easy, because we also know that while drug use is endemic across all corners of society, policing drug use disproportionately focuses on certain public areas. So we see drug dogs outside music festivals and searches of young people around public housing but not of wealthier people at horseracing or celebrities at the Logies. Those without a home will take their drugs in public and will be more likely charged, while people behind closed doors on private property can have their drugs almost with impunity, unless some footage is accidentally uploaded onto social media.

So as Ms Patten referred to in her second reading, this bill is really about taking the necessary step in implementing the aims of Victoria Police’s own drug strategy for 2020–25 to start treating all people’s drug use as first and foremost a health issue requiring a health response rather than focusing on policing. The bill achieves this by removing the option for law enforcement officers to impose criminal sanctions for drug use and possession. Instead police must consistently refer all persons in these circumstances into the more targeted and effective treatment and education services. This shift will lead to much higher demand for these therapeutic and educational services, so if this is passed, the government must also commit to greater investment in these areas, particularly to ensure availability in regional areas. This can be achieved by reversing the current trend of prioritising greater funding for law enforcement and correctional facilities over drug treatment, prevention, education and infrastructure investments in the most marginalised and poorest communities.

However, I believe that reducing drug harm through implementing this bill will also serve to strengthen policing, criminal courts and the corrections system by focusing their role on protecting the community from serious and violent offenders. As the police union themselves have stated, police officers should not be the ones being asked to solve health problems in the community; they should be referring people to those with the necessary therapeutic training and experience. So this is a win-win, it is long overdue, and the Greens strongly support this bill.

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (15:44): Just a few short words from me in relation to Ms Patten’s private members bill. I do want to acknowledge Ms Patten’s campaign and particularly the individuals that have come out publicly and spoken of their addiction battles and issues with drug use, and they have clearly articulated that they would have benefited from a health response as opposed to a justice response. I do commend them for joining in this campaign and sharing with us, the community, those personal experiences, because that is what we are in this place for—we are in this place to make a difference for real people.

It is not the intention of the government to advance plans to decriminalise drugs at this time, but we certainly do know the harmful impact illicit drug use can have on the community, and it is certainly why Victoria Police is constantly focused on targeting drug dealers and manufacturers to break up their criminal activity and the illegal gains that they make from that.

We are not in a position to support Ms Patten’s private members bill in its current form today. However, we do want to support further work being done in this space within the existing legislative framework, drawing on the Victoria Police Drug Strategy 2020–2025 to streamline the use of diversions and infringements to ensure they support addressing individual drug use as a health issue as well as a police issue. With this in mind the government will convene a working group with police, health professionals, addiction specialists and youth workers, amongst others, to give advice to the Minister for Health and the Minister for Police on possible infringement trial options.

But I do just want to clarify some of the media reports in relation to potential locations and indicate that there is no location determined for any potential trial. It may be looked at by a working group that we have just committed to establishing. But I do want to thank Ms Patten for raising this issue and her continued advocacy in this space and indicate my respect for the people that have come forward, including individuals and organisations that have vast experience in this space. As a community, as politicians, it is incumbent upon us to listen to these people.

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (15:46): Well, one has to give Ms Patten points for consistency. I might not agree with her on very much at all, but I have to say she is consistent. Indeed we have to view this bill through a prism of her consistency, knowing full well that the ultimate goal is to legalise all drugs in this state and indeed to normalise all drugs in this state, and what we are debating today is just another step along the path towards that. That is a step that I hope we will not and I do not believe we should take. Having heard Ms Symes’s comments a moment ago about the government’s plan of action, it seems that history does repeat itself, because we have seen in this place before Ms Patten put up proposals which have been knocked back by the government, only to see the government a short time after pick them up and run with them. Do not be at all surprised—and I say this to every Victorian—if after the election—

Ms Crozier interjected.

Mr FINN: But after the election, do not be surprised if this government moves—if it is re-elected, and that is a fairly big ‘if’ at the minute, do not be at all surprised to find this—a bill legalising drugs in Victoria. Do not be surprised. Unfortunately Ms Patten is not going to be here to enjoy that, but do not worry, it will come. Of that I have no doubt at all.

I am acutely aware of the tragedy that drugs bring to the individuals who use the drugs and to families, perhaps in particular, who are so dreadfully affected by having a family member using drugs such as heroin and ice—ice in particular. We have seen ice users interstate in particular, but almost certainly in Victoria as well, actually kill members of their own family whilst on ice. I cannot begin to imagine the tragedy that people would feel, the devastation that they would feel, at having lost not just the family member who has been killed by the ice user but the ice user himself or herself, who would very much be gone as well, so they would in fact be losing two members of their family. We just have to go back a few years to the coach of the Adelaide Crows in South Australia who was murdered, as I recall, by his son, who was on ice at the time. That was a very high profile case of course. There are many others that are not so high profile that we do not hear about. I just really struggle to come to grips with the pain that people in that situation would feel. It is truly a dreadful, dreadful thing. When you have a family member who cannot be trusted, a family member who will come into the family home to steal money, sell furniture, sell antiques or sell whatever they can get money for in order to pay for their drug habit, that indeed is a tragic situation for all involved.

I know that this is predominantly a health issue, and I want to talk about rehabilitation in just a moment. It is a health issue, but I think keeping drugs illegal is actually going to help keep it a health issue. That might sound contradictory, but it is not, because what we are doing is we are sending a message to people, and everybody should be aware that when we pass legislation or reject legislation in this place, in this Parliament, we are sending a message to the community. If we were to pass a bill, for example, this bill, to legalise drugs—it does not completely, although the next one I am sure will—we would be sending a message that this Parliament thinks that taking drugs is fine. That is what we would be saying to the community, and that is how a lot of people would take it.

Members interjecting.

Mr FINN: No. That is how a lot of people would take it. You know, I have spoken to people who have done certain things over the last few years, and they have said, ‘Oh, it’s all right. Parliament says we can’.

Dr Ratnam: Who said that?

Mr FINN: That’s what they say. ‘It’s the law’, they say; ‘The Parliament says and the government says we can do it’. This is what will happen if you have got somebody—

A member interjected.

Mr FINN: Of course it leads to full legalisation. That is the endgame that Ms Patten is pursuing—with some vigour, I might say—and has over her time in this Parliament. But I would hope that we would put as much, if not more, work and effort into the rehabilitation process as we do into the legal system. I think it is really important that we get people off these drugs, given that generally speaking there is not much hope for them, particularly with ice and heroin and some of the other drugs, if they remain on them.

We need methods that work. I do not know if this is being used, but Ms Terpstra was talking before about getting off the dreaded tobacco. I know personally how difficult that is. It is very, very hard. I tried for many, many years to give up cigarettes. I thought I had succeeded until I had the next one, and it was all over red rover and I was back on the damn things. But I went to a hypnotherapist—up in Gisborne in fact—and I have not had a cigarette since. So I am standing here to suggest that hypnotherapy may well be an answer to at least some of the problems that drug users have. It is worth a try. I do not if it has been tried by others, but certainly it worked for me, and the fact that the hypnotherapist has remained in business tells me that it works for other people as well. I would suggest that that is something that is worth having a look at. In fact I think anything is worth having a look at that might get people off these drugs. Unfortunately making them legal is not going to do that. In fact it will just make the situation worse, and that is not something that I think any of us should be thrilled with.

The house is probably aware of my attitude towards drug dealers and particularly towards drug lords, who sit in their mansions, drive their Rolls-Royces and fly to the Bahamas in their private jets, all paid for by the pain and the suffering of kids and perhaps not-so-young kids on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane or wherever they may be. I think that we really need to come down hard, perhaps harder than we have been, on drug dealers. They have to be taught that if they deal in drugs, if they deal in death in the way that they do, there are significant penalties for their actions, none of this stuff where—and I have spoken to police—police have brought dealers in, had them charged and dragged them to court, they have got a good behaviour bond and they are out selling the stuff again out the front of the courthouse as the police are leaving. That sort of thing is just nonsensical. It is just ridiculous.

So we have to get fair dinkum about this. A lot of people will say that we have lost the war on drugs. I would suggest to you that we never even fought it. If you go into a war and you are not going to fight that battle, of course you are going to lose it. We have to get fair dinkum—and if we do not, then our kids are going to continue to suffer and our kids are going to continue to die. I find that is something that I am not prepared to tolerate. That is something that I do not think anybody should have to put up with.

As for the drug lords, the ones that I spoke about a moment ago, as far as I am concerned—and I know this is going to shock and horror the loveys in the inner suburbs—they should face the death penalty. We have a right to defend ourselves. I do not support the death penalty for everything. But certainly for drug lords and for terrorists I do, because I think we do have a right to defend ourselves—and these people are making a living out of killing our kids. We have a right to defend ourselves and we have a right to defend our kids, and I think that these drug lords—who, as I say, are making a fortune, are having a great old time on the back of the suffering, the pain and the deaths of our young people—deserve the death penalty. I would be very happy to administer it myself in fact if it came to that, because quite frankly these people disgust me in a way that is hard to put into words. It is hard to put into words just how much these characters disgust me, because how anybody can do what they do and sleep at night I do not know. I would put them to sleep all right.

I know that there is an intention behind this bill, and some might see it as a good intention. Others might not. I might be in that second section. But the fact is that this bill is only going to make the situation worse, and that is not something that I believe we should be involving ourselves in. We as parliamentarians have an obligation; we have a duty, in my view anyway, to do the right thing. That is what we are here for—to do the right thing—and I do not believe that supporting this legislation today is doing the right thing. I think that the ramifications of this legislation, if passed, would have a severely detrimental effect on probably thousands of people. We would see people actually taking up drugs who otherwise would avoid them.

We talk about tobacco and cigarettes and so forth. I have often wondered how many people would take up cigarettes if they were illegal. Now, I am not proposing that, but I just wonder if it would be more difficult and it would save more people’s lives. You know, I have had friends who have died from lung cancer—smokers. I have often wondered if making cigarettes illegal—so that you cannot walk to your corner store; you cannot walk to your supermarket and just buy a packet of cigarettes willy-nilly—would make it harder for people to buy tobacco, to buy cigarettes and to harm themselves in that way.

I do not believe that allowing illicit drugs onto our streets, and into our stores presumably, is the way that we can help people. You do not help people get off drugs by making them easier to get. It just does not make sense at all.

So I will not be supporting this bill today. The opposition will not be supporting this bill today, and I am very, very pleased about that. I will continue my efforts wherever I can to fight the evil of drugs. I know—indeed we all know—the evil that drugs bring, and we all should do our very best to get this cancer off our streets, to put it away and to ensure that our kids are safe from drug dealers and from people who are making huge sums of money off the back of the suffering of kids. This is something that we should all be committed to, and I suggest very strongly to members of the house that they join us in opposing this bill.

Sitting suspended 4.02 pm until 4.18 pm.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:18): I am pleased to rise and talk to the bill brought forward by Ms Patten, which seeks to remove criminal penalties for possession of small quantities of drugs. Before I start, I would like to look at this from a slightly different angle. Unlike my socialist colleagues from the Greens and the Liberal Party, talking about data and evidence-based policy and that sort of thing, I would like to talk about—

Members interjecting.

Mr LIMBRICK: Yes, well, you do not own the word ‘liberal’. In fact someone from another Liberal Party, in England, wrote an essay in 1859—John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher. He was also a member of Parliament, and he spoke extensively about the principles of liberalism and what things should be taken into account by people such as us when forming legislation.

I will read a quote from his essay On Liberty, which I think goes directly to the heart of what we are debating here today:

That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

What we are talking about here today is drugs and the harms caused by drugs. I do not think anyone is arguing here that drugs do not cause harm. I know Ms Patten is not arguing that, and I know that no-one here is arguing that drugs do not cause harm. What we are talking about is whether our legislation is causing harm, whether our laws are causing harm—more harm than the drugs themselves.

Clearly this philosophy of liberalism, which John Stuart Mill so eloquently articulated in On Liberty, is not current in the state of Victoria. If we look at our current situation, we have a situation where the government deems certain drugs undesirable, and if one is caught in possession of small quantities of those, one will go to prison or have some sort of criminal offence. On the other hand, we also have another situation where if people do not take drugs that the government mandates, they will lose their job or be ostracised. Clearly we are not following the principles of liberalism in this state.

When we are talking about the individual and the harm caused by drugs, we must also talk about the harm caused by the legislation, by the current law. I do not think and I am sure that many do not think that someone being caught with a small amount of drugs—perhaps they made some mistake in their life—and ending up getting a criminal offence, a criminal record, for the rest of their life helps the person who is caught with the drugs. I do not think it helps them get better. It certainly does not help them in the rest of their life—a criminal record is a very, very serious thing. And it does not help taxpayers either, because it costs a fortune to do this. We have to ask ourselves, as many others have talked about here: if we are going to try and treat the harm from drugs, is the current system of treating it as a criminal issue the best way of doing it, or, as others have proposed, should we treat it as a health issue so people who need help can get help? Some people who use drugs do not need help or do not want help, and we cannot really force people to do that. They have to be ready to make their own choice, because over their own body and mind they are sovereign. But some people will choose to seek help eventually, and when they are at the point in their life where they want to seek help, then others can provide it.

With this harm that we are talking about, we have to look at how much money, for one thing, we are actually spending. I know that Ms Patten has got some figures from the Parliamentary Budget Office. I also have been working on some figures from the PBO. It seems like they have used different assumptions. But policing, sending people to the court—this is for possession offences—and then imprisoning them, for those that end up with a prison sentence, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office and the data that we have, over 10 years costs somewhere in the order of $936 million, so approaching a billion dollars over 10 years. What an incredible waste of resources. Imagine what could be done with that money. I am sure the treatment of these people would cost far, far less than that, and maybe we could treat these people and even give some back to taxpayers or pay some of our debt or do other things that are far more useful for our society than giving people criminal records and locking them up in jail—for doing harm to who? They are doing harm to themselves.

As Ms Patten and others have pointed out, there are many ways of doing harm to oneself, including through legal drugs, as has been brought up many times here. Cigarettes of course cause harm, very serious harm, to people, and as Mr Finn has pointed out, giving up cigarettes is very, very difficult. I am an ex-smoker myself. It was a very big battle to give up smoking, and I commend anyone that goes through it. Alcohol is another big harm and also legal. There are many ways that people can cause harm to themselves, but under the philosophy of liberalism, under these principles that the Liberal Democrats stand by, we should not be legislating for people to stop causing themselves harm.

People who do not have a choice on whether they cause harm to themselves are not really free people. This is what it comes down to from our point of view. Although I agree with many of the things said about the evidence, ultimately for us it must come down to the principle of liberalism and self-ownership. This is fundamental. This is why our party does not support criminal penalties for the possession of small quantities of drugs. That is why we have opposed other things, such as vaccine mandates that we have had. This is exactly the same principle. Anyone that is watching or listening and wondering why we support decriminalisation, this is why: it is the principle of self-ownership. I must say that I have found it very difficult to talk about drug law reform policy recently. Even though, as Ms Patten would know, I am very passionate about this area, I have found it very difficult to talk about drug law reform when we are in a situation where the government is mandating drugs on people against their will. To my mind that is a far higher burden on people. We get questions about why we are talking about drug law reform when we have these other issues associated with other drugs that the government is forcing people to take.

I will not go on much longer—I will leave it there. But certainly we support this. One of the issues that this bill does not address—and I know that Ms Patten is very conscious of this because she has put another motion on the notice paper about it, and it is something that I am very passionate about as well—is the underlying issue of attacking and undercutting organised crime. This bill does not do that, because it is not talking about the supply side of things. But one way of undercutting organised crime and reducing harm is through allowing doctors to prescribe hydromorphone. I know that Ms Patten is very supportive of that and has a motion on the notice paper on that. I am also very supportive of that because it will directly force drug dealers, who I know Mr Finn and others hate, out of business. It will put them out of business. It will stop petty crime, because people will no longer be forced to commit petty crime to feed their habit. They will be able to go to a doctor and get a prescription. It will stop organised crime because they will have no market, at least in the particular market that we are looking at. We do need to look at wider issues around how we undermine organised crime. I think that is one very good way of undermining organised crime, at least in that one market.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:28): I rise to speak to Ms Patten’s private members bill, the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022. Before I start, in the contribution just now from Mr Limbrick I did not understand the quote. Logically it was very confusing and contradictory for me. Isn’t anyone a member of the society? If a member of the society does enough harm to himself or herself, who in the end would have to look after that member? This is not to mention that feeding a drug habit would create problem crimes and associated grievances.

Now to the bill by Ms Patten. At the outset I have to express my admiration for Ms Patten for her passion and attention to social issues that affect vulnerable people. I do work with Ms Patten on the Legal and Social Issues Committee. More often than not we do have agreement. Occasionally we do have differences. That is a fact of life. The agreements are more on the findings—for example, the harmfulness and the destructiveness of alcohol and substance dependence. Occasionally we do have differences, particularly in the solutions for a problem that is found. On this occasion, I have to say, I disagree with Ms Patten on the bill that she has presented in front of the house in its current form.

Our government and everyone here recognise that alcohol, drugs and substances of dependence cause harmfulness and destructiveness. I myself have known some people who have been addicted to some of these substances, and sometimes it has to be said that there have been very tragic outcomes. A friend of mine had a young son with all his future in front of him. He went from the small things to the bigger things—from trying something that was seemingly harmless—and eventually they found him dead on a mattress in the house. According to the length of the candle that had burnt next to the mattress on the floor, it had been more than 24 hours. That affected the parents of course and me a lot.

We as a government do recognise that this is a health issue. As my colleague Ms Terpstra has articulated, this government has put a lot of investment into the health issue aspect of drug dependence to help addicts to recover and help their families as well. First and foremost, it is a health issue. I will briefly go to some of the points, and then I will concentrate on the last point before my time is up. We as a government are more than doubling the number of residential rehabilitation beds. We have invested a lot of money, $23.2 million in the 2021–22 budget alone, to deliver funding for residential rehabilitation across this state—in Corio, Traralgon, Wangaratta and many other places—building on the $52 million that had previously been invested.

I would just like to highlight another point—that also that budget, 2021–22, furthers the work that has been carried out with the funding of $1 million for the support of Aboriginal Victorians through the Aboriginal Metropolitan Ice Partnership. Ice is a very aggressive drug, and it can induce some very terrible and aggressive actions from the person who is under its effect. We are concentrating on and paying attention to harm reduction reform in the form of allowing people other than pharmacists to seek authorisation to supply naloxone and also legalising the secondary supply of sterile injecting equipment, under the name commonly referred to as peer distribution. We also have the supervised injecting facility. As people know, the one supervised injecting room that we have is doing exactly what it was designed to do—namely, saving lives.

Knowing Ms Patten, I know that she would have consulted with a lot of people. I am just wondering whether it was a cross-section representative of the community or not—I do not know, because I am not privy to that—and particularly whether Ms Patten has consulted with Victoria Police. Once again, the government and VicPol do recognise that, first and foremost, this is a health issue. VicPol already has some programs and also has committed to trialling different ways to refer more people who need help to the services and support that they need and also to work with their families and support organisations so that they can be helped in the journey out of the addiction that they have fallen into.

The key elements of VicPol’s drug diversion program, which is not the only one but a baseline from which VicPol will explore new and improved approaches, include a cannabis cautioning program. First the police will record a caution for the record and may provide the offender with educational material and the option to attend a voluntary cannabis education session. Not everyone who had been detected with another offence at the time would be able to get that caution, nor people who have received more than one previous drug cautioning notice, for obvious reasons. Also there is a drug diversion program. The officer who detects a drug offence will record a caution and also will make an appointment for the offender to attend an assessment session to assess them first and then to refer them to a treatment provider for treatment. The offender under this program must attend an assessment session and one follow-up treatment session within two months of the first appointment date.

In the bill as it is proposed before the house, the points in the bill actually have not included the following issues, namely operational issues. I think it is unreasonable to ask police to check a person’s compliance each and every time they are responding to an incident of possession of drugs. And this is operational as well: in the event that police bring a prosecution to the court, they must gather evidence of non-compliance that must be presented to the court, but that would be complicated, costly and time consuming. And also on the issue of compliance, what is the definition of ‘compliance’? Does it mean attendance or evidence of learning or of behavioural change? And how do we measure that? These are some of the issues.

And the main important point is about police discretion. The police, as I mentioned, have indicated support for the diversion of people who use drugs into health and treatment services, because we do recognise it is a health issue, but the police do not support the removal of the discretion that they have at present. Our government back the police to retain discretion in consideration of all of the circumstances surrounding the possession or the use of illicit drugs. So I would like to conclude by saying that we do not support any option that removes or limits the capacity of police to exercise their discretion when they have to respond to drug offences, including possession or use of illicit substances.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:39): It is good to rise to speak on an important bill, and it has been fascinating to listen to the debate thus far. In particular I have enjoyed being schooled on liberalism by both professors Limbrick and most recently Kieu. Professor Limbrick wanted to speak about John Stuart Mill’s seminal work On Liberty, and as a good liberal—well, I always thought of myself as a good liberal, before being besmirched by Mr Limbrick as a socialist a little earlier—I have read that text on many occasions. But it is not actually the most important text that was published in 1859. I dare say—and I am sure Dr Kieu will agree with me on this point—that probably it was On theOrigin of Species. The second most important work in my opinion published in 1859 was a little-known text these days but had a huge impact in the 19th century, Self-Help by Samuel Smiles, and so I would refer Mr Limbrick to that work from 1859, which talks about the deep commitment and respect that all of us must have as members of a society.

So I am no ideologue; my colleagues are no ideologues. My understanding actually—and I am at variance with Dr Kieu here—about the manner in which Mr Limbrick put forward the liberal argument of John Stuart Mill is that he did so correctly. However, I was sitting with Mr Finn as Mr Limbrick was doing so, and if we take the argument that Mr Limbrick put to this house to its logical conclusion, well, we must of course go back and repeal that Liberal measure under Premier Dick Hamer of mandating the wearing of seatbelts in cars. I am not sure anybody in this house would argue for doing that. We would have to go back to the 1980s to stop the mandating of the wearing of bike helmets. I have watched a lot of Bluey in my life, and there is a wonderful Bluey episode where Bandit is telling his children about an occasion on which he was very unkind to one of his brothers—and he is riding his bike. But he is doing so without a bike helmet, and he says to the kids, ‘That was in the 80s’. There are so many occurrences in Bluey where the kids now say, ‘Oh well, that was in the 80s’.

Again, I am not sure if many members of this house would argue that that is a bad thing. However, using the harm principle of John Stuart Mill, narrowly defined as it is, the government has no business in telling people that they have to wear seatbelts, telling parents like me that we have to secure our children in cars in a certain way or telling people that when they jump on their pushbike they have to wear a helmet. Yet even as a liberal I support those measures and other measures that are in place from time to time that governments feel are necessary in order to, yes, protect individuals. And I agree with Dr Kieu’s point of course that there are occasions when we should not look at harm in such a narrow sense, when individuals can cause harm principally to themselves but nonetheless in a manner that then really detrimentally impacts the broader community.

There has been some discussion out of doors more broadly about Ms Patten’s bill, which has made reference to a war on drugs, that I think has sought to label Victoria’s current policies in that way and the position of the major parties in that way. I would say that when you look at what has been advocated—I will speak only for myself and for my side of the house—by the Liberal and National parties over the years it is very hard to call that a war on drugs in a manner that is authentic or in keeping with the normal use of that expression. Normally when people refer to a war on drugs they are thinking about a principal, a predominant, law and order response to the use of drugs. Yet over many years the Liberal Party has been highly supportive of methadone programs, of needle and syringe programs—these are things that the Howard government many years ago funded to a very large extent—of drug courts, for example, and of a variety of other measures that the current government has continued to support, as Dr Kieu said. So for those reasons, despite Ms Patten’s excellent intent, I will not be supporting this bill either.

Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (16:44): I am trying to edit this as I go, to try to reduce the time frame so we can get a few extra crossbench speakers on. I rise to speak on Ms Patten’s Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022. From the outset I will say that Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party will not be supporting this bill, and it will not be a surprise to anyone in this chamber and particularly Ms Patten—we have had a conversation about it previously. But I have to say that our party and I also appreciate what the Reason Party are doing, which is trying to break the cycle of addiction through a health response.

However, we do not believe that this is hitting the right balance. We can find some common ground here today, and that is predominantly what I would like to make my contribution about, because I know with more voices we can encourage the government to do more in the space of rehabilitation. I was going to prosecute the specifics of the bill, but I will not in the interests of time. I will just make a comment in relation to the word ‘decriminalisation’. It has been mentioned before and previously, through the media communications of the Reason Party and in the title of the bill, and I am just not too sure if decriminalisation is the right aspect of this particular bill, but I will be interested to hear that in the summing up regardless.

The bill specifies that no proceedings can be brought against a person up to 24 months after the alleged commission of an offence, and from what I have been informed this is intended to allow for the completion of the education and rehabilitation programs, especially if it goes up to 12 months in duration. Given that the use of a drug of dependence would become a summary offence, it is likely to impact current bail thresholds.

This bill also allows for an adjourned bond or an adjourned undertaking to be given in instances where a small quantity possession charge is filed, and this will allow for the drug education treatment notice to be fulfilled. The act already has an extensive section—section 76—that deals with directing the court to divert someone. In this instance the person needs to satisfy the criteria, including having no similar prior offences, in order to attend a drug education and information program, considering the character and antecedents of the person as well as a public interest test. But if these criteria are satisfied, the court must not convict the offender. So this already exists under the act for cannabis offences. The bill seeks to expand this direction to the court for all drugs. The bill seeks to introduce these reforms by 1 July 2022, which is a pretty short time line. Whilst I think Ms Patten and her office have acknowledged this, they have also been clear that in order for this bill to pass we need additional investment in rehabilitation. Unfortunately we have not seen serious investment for some time, which is exceptionally disappointing.

Ms Patten has used a few figures when prosecuting her case for the decriminalisation of drugs. I will just put these on the record, and perhaps if we have time, you can just come back to me with those statistics. In particular:

Of the 32 860 drug arrests in Victoria last year, 26 195, or just on 80 per cent, were for the offences of drug use or possession only …

was one of the quotes. The word ‘arrests’ has been used throughout communications, but my curiosity was piqued when I heard these claims. As a former police officer I thought, ‘Jeez, that’s a lot of arrests’. It appears that within this statement it may have been excluded that those arrests also include a summons, and the two processes are quite different. A summons is not exactly an arrest. On further investigation I found out that there were 14 438 individual offenders recorded for the last reporting period—starkly less than the 26 195 number that has been used by the Reason Party. In most cases a number of similar offences will be heard together in the courts. In addition to this the Crime Statistics Agency data shows that of the 4797 arrests or summons filed for cannabis offences there were 2792 cautions or warnings given. For amphetamines it was 365 versus 99. Once again, maybe some of these statistical anomalies can be clarified in the summing up. We should also remember that many charges might result in drug education and information programs, adjourned undertakings or community correction orders with appropriate conditions. So whilst the numbers still show a huge amount of drug use and possession, we contend that there has been a bit of massaging perhaps in the statistics within this campaign. If anything, it represents an opportunity to invest in more programs and rehabilitation, which I will talk about shortly.

This leads me to the common ground that our parties share, and that is alcohol and other drug rehabilitation investment. Members in this place know that during COVID times there were absolutely no detox beds in some areas. That meant that if you had an addiction and you were ready to go down the path of rehabilitation and you wanted to get clean, there was nowhere for you to go and nowhere to detox, which meant that you could not enter rehab either. How in the world are we supposed to be fixing the problem of drug addiction when people literally cannot get help even if they want it? Take the very real case of the Lookout, a residential rehab proposal in Warrnambool in my electorate of Western Victoria. The Western Region Alcohol & Drug Centre have been pushing for this proposal and doing all the legwork for half a decade plus. Their work is to be highly commended, especially that of Geoff Soma. The facility will cost $3.5 million in capital works plus ongoing costs. It is ready to go, depending on any additional specific requirements from the Department of Health. It has been to VCAT, it has been approved and it needs to be built next year to ensure it does not need to go through the arduous planning process once again.

The government, when I have raised this funding need, have referred me to the investments in the budget last year and the alcohol and other drug services in Corio and Shepparton. Well, as fantastic as these initiatives are—and I welcome the opening of Corio’s facility just a few weeks ago—we need to do much, much more. Infrastructure Victoria’s 30-year strategy asked the government to:

… build residential detoxification and rehabilitation facilities in regional Victoria to provide equitable access to alcohol and other drug treatment …

within five years. The clock is ticking—literally. All right. This is totally shameful, and we need urgent investment. I could talk a hell of a lot longer about all of this, but I have been given the wind-up and in the interests of my crossbench colleagues I will sum up.

I will sum up by mentioning that I have received numerous police communications over my time here, and I have one in particular that I want to share. It is in relation to a couple of jobs that a police member attended recently and to some people having mental illness episodes. In particular one of the persons advised—the partner advised—that she had just taken ice a month ago. In another episode a 16-year-old male who was transported to an ambulance was having an episode, causing significant harm to himself. They were advised that he had just recently started to take LSD. So there are these things that are happening in the community right now that are quite traumatic for all community members, in particular police members and family members, and the police are doing a wonderful job. Despite what is bandied around here sometimes, the police do a wonderful job in protecting our communities and keeping them safe. They are very professional in what they do.

Like I have said, we will not be supporting this bill, but we would implore the government to get serious about investing in alcohol and other drug rehabilitation and all its associated support mechanisms.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (16:52): I rise to speak on the bill before the house, and I will begin by thanking Ms Patten for her sincerity and consistency on this matter, the decriminalisation topic. It is an issue where people can come from quite different angles, and from hearing all the speakers I do believe we all have a common goal in creating a society that is fairer for everybody and that causes the least harm. It is about whether you view addiction as a health issue and not necessarily just a law and order issue. I will note that there are a number of speakers that wish to speak on this matter, from the crossbench also, so in the interests of making sure that everyone in the chamber gets a say, I will be brief today.

There are different approaches, and this approach that Ms Patten has suggested here is decriminalisation. I have noticed different jurisdictions. When I was much younger I travelled to the Netherlands, where they had gone with the approach of legalisation, which is quite different to decriminalisation. I think that is quite a different approach to the one proposed here.

I will just quickly touch upon the fact that our government is taking this issue very seriously and that we have invested in beds in this space, especially in regional Victoria. When we came to government at the end of 2014 there were 208 beds in terms of residential rehabilitation. That has more than doubled to over 500 beds, of which almost half of the increase is in regional Victoria. In our latest budget we have delivered funding of $23 million to operationalise new alcohol and other drug residential rehabilitation beds in Corio, Traralgon and Wangaratta. Obviously that is built on the existing $52 million worth of investments we have already made. So I do not accept that we are not taking this issue seriously. We are taking it very seriously, and we have backed it up with action. Obviously we have an Ice Action Plan. I know Mr Finn talked about the harms of ice and other drugs, and that is right. We have all got stories of friends or family or know someone from our local sporting club or school. That is right: it is a harmful addiction, it is a crime and sometimes the people that hurt the most are the people around them, which is usually family and friends. They are stealing off them to feed their habit. So that is a lived experience that most of us could relate to.

I note, in the interests of time, that I do have a lot further to add, but I know there are a number of speakers that wish to contribute on this matter—

Members interjecting.

Mr ERDOGAN: I will keep it very, very short. Like I said, I did want to touch on the different approaches—decriminalisation, legalisation—from my experience in the Netherlands, but I am getting a strong sense from members of the crossbench that there are many others that want to contribute to this debate. So in the interests of sharing the opportunity to present to the chamber I will conclude my speech.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (16:56): I rise to speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022. I will not be supporting this bill. Under this proposed legislation people caught using or in possession of small quantities of drugs would be dealt with by way of drug education or treatment. These people would be issued a drug education or treatment notice that would direct them to engage with services and programs to address their drug dependence.

Drug use and possession is a growing issue in Victoria. Just last Sunday the Herald Sun reported that drug-related injuries and assaults are again on the rise in Melbourne. The Salvation Army confirmed that three people had died on the streets in a matter of weeks and warned that there had also been a sharp rise in drug-related injuries and assaults in the city. Pictures alongside the article showed users injecting drugs into their arms in broad daylight in the middle of the city, just metres away from where children were playing. As a mother these images were deeply concerning. I understand that drug use and possession is multifaceted and that many of these people need help. However, our children should not be exposed to this like it is some type of normal. I feel strongly that decriminalising drugs sends a message to the community that there are no real consequences for this type of behaviour, when in reality the impact of drug use is far reaching and affects the broader community in a number of ways.

We were told when presented with this bill that decriminalisation does not increase drug use. In a paper published by Drug Free Australia data shows that when South Australia decriminalised cannabis in 1987, followed by the ACT in 1993, there was a spike in drug use. Data from the Australian government’s household survey shows a sharp rise in use in both South Australia and the ACT, with use in the ACT also rising during the decriminalisation campaign. This bill is not just about cannabis. It includes class A, class B and class C drugs. This could be anything: heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, LSD, and the list goes on.

We have all heard about how drugs ruin lives. They have direct links to drug-related and drug-fuelled crime. Their consequences are so far reaching that those who may have never done drugs in their lives are impacted. In my previous role at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal I would assess character matters, and I would hear evidence time and time again from witnesses on how drugs had torn apart families because of the dependency issues of their loved ones and the ongoing criminal behaviour directly related to drug dependency issues. Victoria Police recognise that many thefts, home invasions and random attacks are often fuelled by drug addiction. Drug use needs to be deterred, and I am concerned that education and treatment is not a sufficient deterrent.

On top of this, drug education and rehabilitation programs are already incredibly overwhelmed in Victoria. Wait times to access treatment services soared when Labor imposed multiple extended lockdowns. Before the pandemic waitlists were up to a year. Ms Patten said that there were 26 195 drug arrests for use and possession in Victoria last year. With a system already overwhelmed and backlogged there is simply no capacity in the sector to provide tens of thousands of people with treatment programs, particularly given we already have tens of thousands on waiting lists. Further to this, the bill proposes that drug education or treatment cannot exceed 12 months. I find it ambitious to think that drug dependency issues, including those of lifelong users, will be fixed within 12 months and that these people will not be back in these programs after being caught again. If these people want to access drug education and treatment, they have been free to do so. I am concerned that these notices may be an easy way out of a criminal conviction for people who do not want to change. The system is at risk of being overwhelmed by users who have been issued a notice. This would mean those who genuinely want to make changes would want to wait even longer for a place in one of these programs. There is no limit to the number of treatment notices that can be issued under this bill.

These people will quickly realise that there are no consequences if they do not address their dependency issues. I have not seen any information as to what would happen if someone was unable to fulfil the order for education or treatment due to insufficient capacity in the sector. It would mean that charges would not be laid and the treatment would not occur, resulting in no action being taken. I am overall concerned about increasing wait times for people who genuinely want help and the message decriminalising drugs will send to our community. Drug use and possession is much more serious and has further reaching ramifications than most other offences that attract 1 penalty unit. It should be treated that way.

We have diversion, we have drug courts and we have the assessment and referral court. These mechanisms within the criminal system already exist to address underlying causes of offending. In the first year of the Dandenong Drug Court reoffending dropped by almost a third after participants completed drug treatment orders. I would like to see the state government commit funding for the establishment of a further Drug Court at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court. My colleague Ms Melina Bath, also a representative of Eastern Victoria Region, has advocated for this previously in Parliament. These drug courts exist for low-level crime, similar to what is proposed by this bill. Drug and alcohol treatment orders are one option available through the drug courts. The magistrate can require a person to seek support for their substance abuse issues. If it does not happen, a custodial sentence is considered.

It makes absolute sense to continue rolling out these drug courts, particularly in the Latrobe Valley court, which services a large part of Gippsland, which is known to have high levels of drug dependency. It is disappointing that the Latrobe Valley was not included in these first rollouts of drug courts despite significant drug and alcohol harm in these Eastern Victoria communities. Drug courts strike a balance between deterrence and rehabilitation. They do this without sending a message that drugs are acceptable. I do not support this bill.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (17:02): I have been trying to cut this speech down, so that is my excuse if there are a few non sequiturs.

There is much about this bill that should be supported. However, drug decriminalisation has become a very difficult issue with no easy way out of the position that we have dug ourselves into. But for many people educated on the subject the so-called war on drugs has been an expensive failure in many ways—in monetary terms, in ruined lives and in the corruption of law enforcement bodies. The World Health Organization, for instance, a body whose health orders we did give some credence to during the pandemic, recommends drug decriminalisation, and I agree with the proposition that we need to help people who are affected by drugs, especially those addicted to drugs—that is the issue—rather than the current failed system of harshly punishing them. Merely punishing drug addicts or any addicts has not really proved to be effective, and one can see that in our prisons, where you have the most harsh supervision available and more punishments available yet drug addiction is rife.

The bill seeks to redirect those who were previously seen as possession and use offenders into a treatment response, and there is an enormous amount of evidence that substance use and dependence is a health issue and a social issue rather than a law and order one. According to VADA, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, some 43 per cent of all Australians aged 14 and over have used illicit substances at some stage. With those figures some might think there might even be a few people here who did not inhale.

The huge amount of money spent on expanding prisons, which unfortunately for this country, like America, has become an industry—a rather noxious industry which likes to see its own expansion—and reinforcement regimes when it comes to drugs could well be spent on treatment for patients and in doing so would improve our health system’s response to mental illness in general.

There is, however, one aspect of this bill that concerns me, and that is the almost compulsory direction of so-called offenders to health services, which includes rehabilitation. My concern with this aspect of the bill—and I support its intentions—relates to the already well known inability for those in need to access rehabilitation facilities in Victoria and indeed in Australia. Waiting lists for counselling and residential rehabilitation, already significant, have lengthened since the COVID pandemic. My understanding is that Victoria has the second-lowest amount of available rehabilitation per person in Australia. Once again we are seeing areas of social and health policy sacrificed on the altar of huge projects such as the Big Build. Concrete pollution-producing infrastructure gets more support than community health infrastructure. Look at our hospitals, for example. It is not good enough.

But another issue with the almost mandatory referral to rehabilitation is that any rehabilitation program really only works successfully when the person actually wants to be rehabilitated. What will indicate non-compliance under this bill? What if the person involved fails to make progress and relapses quickly? Is it then back to the criminal justice system or back to paying the fine and having no further treatment? This all needs further refinement.

An effective triage system has to be put in place to sort out the degree of health needs of that person, and most importantly, we need to remove the stigma implicit with the diagnosis of addiction so that there is no problem with someone self-identifying and seeking the best possible avenue to find treatment and essential support. Support from the community will help. After all, addiction of some sort is something most of us will have had some experience with, if not ourselves then amongst our family or our friends.

The time for action is well and truly overdue in this area. Reform of criminal justice policy is much needed and improvement of our social and health provisions is needed, but more work needs to be done. On that, I will finish.

Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (17:07): I rise today to speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and Use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022, a bill for an act to amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to provide for certain offences to be dealt with by way of a drug education or treatment notice and to make consequential and related amendments and for other purposes. Last year there were 32 860 drug arrests in Victoria. About 80 per cent of those were offences of drug use or possession only. Seventy-two Victorians are arrested every single day for drug use or possession, and most of them are very young people. Possession or attempted possession of a drug of dependence is around the third most common charge heard in the Magistrates Court of Victoria. In the 2018–19 financial year 21 263 charges of this offence were finalised by the Magistrates Court. Despite the existence of a drug diversion program intended to divert people away from the criminal justice system, the majority of people charged with drug use or possession simply did not escape it.

The mental health and drug and alcohol system is clearly overwhelmed due to a mental health and alcohol and drug workforce crisis. This government—the Andrews government—was warned by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System in its 2019 interim report that it must immediately act to build Victoria’s mental health and alcohol and drug workforce, with more than half of the recommendations related to the workforce. Three years later—three years after that royal commission handed down its report—Labor’s failure to take more action means fewer people can get the mental health support they need when they need it and more people are turning to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate, particularly during the trials of Labor’s lockdowns, restrictions, curfews and tape around playgrounds.

It seems to me—and it is obvious to the people of Victoria—that only the Liberal-Nationals have a plan to launch Australia’s biggest ever mental health recruitment drive, which would mean that more people can get the mental health and drug and alcohol support they need when they need it.

This bill removes the discretionary powers of Victoria Police to issue cautions or impose a penalty for people in possession of drugs or using small quantities of drugs of dependence. What is clear is that drug education, treatment and rehab programs are overwhelmed in Victoria. Waitlists are up to a year, and that was before the pandemic. There is simply no capacity in the drug and alcohol support sector to provide additional drug and alcohol education and treatment programs by this bill’s proposed commencement date of 1 July 2022. There is simply not enough time to ramp up and get this done in time.

Further, a referral to a drug education and treatment program for an individual under duress to avoid criminal action may result in someone who does not want drug education and treatment taking the place of someone who genuinely does want it and who wants to reduce their drug use or eliminate their drug use. We have a commitment, the Liberal-Nationals coalition, to improving mental health, recruiting mental health workers and providing appropriate drug and alcohol support. There is very little detail around how this concept would work in this bill—how it would work in operation to support enshrining the decriminalisation of drugs in legislation. The commencement date of this bill simply will not allow enough time to get these things done.

When it comes to drug support in this state, it will probably be another failure if this bill gets up. In North Richmond the supervised injecting room has been a failure for local businesses and for local residents. It has increased the number of dealers in the area, and kids are seeing things they should never have to see: a drug-injecting room right next door to a primary school. The police, who had done a great job in cleaning up that local area, now find themselves with a multitude of challenges, a multitude of problems, because of this drug-injecting room right next door to a primary school. And when the primary school raised the issues of security and the kids seeing things they should never have to see, the government’s response was not to move the drug-injecting room, it was to increase the security around the primary school. Can you believe it? I have parents who moved into homes in that area saying ‘My kids are opening the door to see people defecating out the front’, ‘They’re having sex out the front of our house’ and ‘They’re injecting drugs out the front of our house’. They think it is just about the drug-injecting room, but in fact the dealers have moved into the area because this drug-injecting room created a market.

There is no way known I can support this bill. The government have failed on rehab, and in January last year they were talking about opening rehab facilities in the Gippsland, Hume and Barwon areas—rehab facilities in Gippsland, Hume and Barwon, but a safe injecting room, they call it, in Richmond and now another one in the city. They just do not get it. There is no way known that I can support this bill. Mr Limbrick says they are only doing harm to themselves. They are not. They are doing harm to communities, they are doing harm to families, they are doing harm to businesses and they are doing harm to residents. There is no way known I can support this bill today.

Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (17:13): I have got 60 seconds. I will be supporting this bill, and I will be supporting the bill because of the young man in my family who died from drugs. He did not have the opportunity where he could get the support that he needed. When I say he was a ‘young man’, he was not a young man, he was a boy. I will support this bill, and I thank Ms Patten for bringing it forward. This is important stuff. I am very sorry that I have not been able to really spell this story out, but this is a real story about real families and why we really need this stuff.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Gepp): Mr Barton, you can continue when the matter is back before the house. You will have 29½ minutes to continue your contribution when the debate resumes.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.