Drug harm reduction
Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:43): (280) My question today is to the new Minister for Mental Health. Congratulations on your appointment. Minister, I am very keen to hear about your approach on protecting Victorians from drug harm. Over the break we saw a fourth coroner recommend pill testing to prevent people dying from accidental drug overdose. Just this weekend in New South Wales, another state without pill testing, 10 people were taken to hospital and two people tragically died from what are suspected to be drug overdoses. Minister, the evidence is in: pill testing saves lives. Will you introduce it in this state to save the lives of many young Victorians?
Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:43): I thank the member for his question. This is a really important issue, and can I from the outset acknowledge that any loss of life as a result of this kind of incident is really tragic and pass on my condolences to those impacted by those events.
I want to be very clear, though: the Allan Labor government has no plans to trial pill testing. But of course we acknowledge absolutely that we need to take a harm minimisation approach to drug use and indeed alcohol use as well, and that is why in the recent Victorian budget, the 2023–24 budget, we invested over $370 million to fund a range of different alcohol and other drug services to make sure that we are providing those wraparound services and harm reduction programs. For example, in relation to your question we have the $21 million investment to support harm reduction activities through a really amazing program called DanceWize, which is all about making sure that we are doing peer-to-peer education about what safety measures ought to be put in place, and we engage with attendees of Victorian music festivals and nightclubs through that important program. We will continue to take that sort of harm minimisation approach and, wherever possible, connect people to services that might actually help them to reach safer outcomes but also, for those that may be experiencing other issues associated with alcohol or drug use, to turn their lives around.
These are important issues, and it is something that I am very keen to be fully briefed on by my department. Acknowledging of course that I was only sworn in just over 24 hours ago, I am looking forward to getting a much deeper briefing from the department on these important issues.
Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:46): I thank the minister for the response, yet in all the talk about harm minimisation to young people, for example, who are out taking drugs in the community, I still struggle to see the logic as to why pill testing would not be considered as a measure for minimising that harm. However, over the recent break I visited the pill-testing site in the ACT, CanTEST. It was so wonderful to tour this facility and to see what a health-based approach to drug use can achieve. Their annual reports are a testament to the service’s success. Minister, I know the staff at CanTEST would be happy to give you a tour. Will you visit CanTEST to witness the success of a pill-testing service in action?
Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:47): I thank the member for his invitation to travel across jurisdictional borders, but I have made clear the Allan Labor government’s position in relation to this matter.