Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Bills

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Aiv Puglielli:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (14:03): I would like to start my comments today by sharing my sympathy with the friends and family of people who have lost their lives due to drug overdoses. Nothing that anyone in this place says today can make up for your loss. When we talk broadly about the social cost of drug and alcohol harms in our community we can lose sight of the personal tragedies – the tragedy of drug-related deaths and the tragedy of lives and families devastated by drug addiction. Again this festival season we have seen people dying of overdoses, so first and foremost, to those affected I am so sorry for your loss.

As an Aboriginal person I have seen how addiction to drugs, legal and illegal, can cause damage at an intergenerational level in my community. I will possibly have some remarks that I will make on that as time goes on in my contribution this afternoon. Also, I have spoken about in this place my background in health policy and advocacy for a range of community organisations. I am constantly encouraged by the efforts of the Allan Labor government, formerly the Andrews Labor government, to take a health-led approach to harm minimisation. I have no hesitation at all in endorsing our current policies as the best in the nation, and I will expand on those policies in a minute because they are worthy of acknowledgement and they deserve recognition.

As someone who has worked right across our country in health and wellbeing, I am very assured when I say that. It is a testament to our whole Labor team that a long-serving government like ours is still actively pursuing solutions to these kinds of hard-to-solve problems. Unlike others, we treat drugs and alcohol as a public health issue, and really we make no apology for that. The policies we advance are and must always be health-led and best practice, and at the moment we have no plans to trial drug checking in our state. The expression ‘health-led’ really is key here.

Policies relating to dangerous substances must stand the test of the long arc of history. We see radium, asbestos, silica and the drug thalidomide; we see vulnerable people have borne the brunt of corporate and government negligence over history. These were all legal substances. I should add that in most cases it has been the labour movement that has driven the public campaigns for safety, and as a former safety official in a union myself and a former workplace health and safety rep I have read more than most on some of these issues, perhaps barring of course my colleague here the former Minister for Workplace Safety.

Only yesterday we spoke in this place about the damage of well-intentioned government policies on care leavers. You see, many people talk about the precautionary principle when it comes to the environment. When we make policy here in this place, we need to take every precaution possible when it comes to people and their lives. We must have an abundance of care in the arrangements we put in place and how we advance these conversations. The last thing we want to do here is make the situation for vulnerable people in bad situations even worse, because there is many a private hell that has been paved with the good intentions of people sitting here in this place. Pathways out of addiction to care are rightly at the centre of our policies and practice, and that must always be the case.

The Premier and the Minister for Mental Health have sought further advice from the Department of Health, I understand, about the opportunities to improve safety at festivals and evidence around additional harm reduction approaches. Whatever the best levers are that we have available to us, we will find and apply them, and I would like to take a moment to pay particular tribute to the great work of event medical teams, paramedics, first aid volunteers and everyone else who is working hard to keep Victorian festivalgoers safe. To that end I thought it was worthy of me taking some time to understand more about what life is like at our festivals, and I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Mitch Wilson and his work with the Australian Festivals Association (AFA). He invited me to tour recently the operations at Laneway Festival, held in the Northern Metropolitan Region at Flemington Racecourse. Thank you very much, Mitch, because from that I was able to see very much firsthand the operation of so many of our first responders there at the festivals. I understand that a great number of members of Parliament were invited to join that day and undertake that tour, but it was something that I thought was particularly important, knowing of course that this bill was going to be before us very shortly. I would say that I learned a lot, having never really seen the back-end operations of festivals before, and at Laneway Festival Melbourne an organisation called Eventiv provided crowd care services or peer harm reduction services.

The thing is that peer harm reduction services like DanceWize Victoria are onsite at festivals to provide a more approachable space for young people to talk to other people their age about drug use. They also provide some chill-out spaces and things like water, lollipops, earplugs, bandaids and sometimes just a bit of space for a timeout. I am going to talk more about DanceWize, because they are, well, quite a gem. These are another layer of services that help the festival ensure everyone is having a good time. They have the space to go if they are not feeling well or feeling their best and particularly if they are worried about getting into trouble if they have taken a drug. These services reassure them and also get them the medical attention they need if required. These situations at festivals provide a more approachable service for young people to talk to other people their age about drug use. They also provide chill-out spaces and things like, like I said, the water, the lollipops and the bandaids, but you know what, in festival season they are also supplying some frozen snacks, some Hydralyte and some cold packs, particularly when surprise 40-degree days coincide with an outdoor festival.

There are other considerations to do with managing risk and safety, as well as the national and international law enforcement environment that we operate in. Victoria Police are proactive in this space. They are committed to a harm minimisation strategy. I would like to just discuss the 2020 drug strategy VicPol established. In that they established a music festival forum, co-hosted by Commander Sharon McKinnon from western region of Victoria Police with Mitch Wilson, who I mentioned, the managing director of the festivals association. The forum has been held four times so far, twice online, twice in person, and in May last year VicPol launched a new drug awareness hub on the VicPol intranet for their employees. In June the third annual Vic Police music festival forum was held and a multiday music festival guide was delivered to police officers.

The forum has been an opportunity for both industry and government to come together and discuss ways we can improve the relationship between both parties but also find ways to improve harm reduction services onsite at festivals. There have been briefings on illicit drug trends and the testing of those substances confiscated by police. We know that the drug market is constantly changing, and the impacts on recreational drug users are still being revealed as they emerge in the market. This forum ensures that collaboration is occurring, and both industry and government are committed to delivering safer festivals.

Mitch Wilson from the AFA tells me the festival industry’s relationship with our state’s police is the best in the country. He told me that it is the type of collaborative approach that they wish other police services took. To say this is a complex issue is an understatement, but hearing remarks like that is a very good thing indeed. Nevertheless as a government our commitment to health-led harm minimisation is clear. All advice we receive will be considered carefully on its merits and within the context of our absolute commitment to minimising drug harms.

I would like to emphasise, to those seeking to advance this bill, Labor’s nation-leading record of investing in policies to reduce drug harms in our state. Our record truly speaks for itself and is really one that we can be proud of. In nine budgets since 2014 we have invested more than $2 billion in alcohol and other drug treatment, support and harm minimisation initiatives. The $370 million investment in the most recent budget is more than double what was provided before we came into government. Then there are the legislative reform steps we have taken, from the passing of legislation to make naloxone more accessible to our recent decriminalisation of public drunkenness. I would say to you, if you look honestly and objectively at the facts, Labor does not just talk about drug and alcohol reform and support, we get on with the job and we most certainly deliver.

There are more than 40,000 Victorians each year who access help from government-funded alcohol and drug treatment and support services. Harm Reduction Victoria’s DanceWize program, which I spoke about earlier, as you will recall, is Australia’s gold standard in the field, delivering peer care and support services for music events and festivals across our state. DanceWize has been supporting the minimisation of drug harm since 1999, when it started as a grassroots group known as RaveSafe, and this Victorian program’s success saw its model adopted by our northern neighbours in New South Wales in 2017. It is part of a national network which is able to support the emergence of similar programs in other parts of the country. Really the genius of the DanceWize program is its use of peer-based care and support services. Peer educators attend festivals, they host the chill-out spaces, they discuss safer drug use and they hand out some health resources. If I could just take a moment or so to shout out to these incredibly extraordinary people, who give their time to talk to their peers about harm minimisation. I had the good fortune of meeting some at Laneway Festival. They provide access to vital health resources and keep our festival and live music scene as safe as possible. We know that peer education programs are highly effective for communicating health promotion and harm reduction messages to specific population groups like young people, people who use drugs and others.

As I already mentioned earlier, community members are trained and supported to educate their peers on safer ways to use drugs and reduce the negative consequences of their drug use and facilitate access to appropriate support services. You see, people are much more receptive to receiving harm reduction education from their peers and are more likely to take that advice on board, so thank you to those that shared that story with me just the other week. Peer education programs are also particularly effective in getting harm reduction messages to people who are not ordinarily engaged in mainstream health or social services.

Can I just talk with regard to the medical response and safety arrangements. I think it is really important to highlight the responsibilities of the event organisers and the providers of licensed first aid services for these events. It was this government which passed legislation in 2021 to enable the regulation of the first aid sector in Victoria, which had previously been unregulated. While it is a big step to regulate an unregulated sector, given the range of services provided to the community by commercial first aid providers, setting a minimum level of safeguards really was critical. For music festivals it is expected that only advanced licence-holders will be providing this service. The capability of advanced services extends to providing care for patients who experience serious injury or illness that requires intervention and that are likely to be referred to another health service or ambulance service. They may involve invasive procedures and the use of scheduled medicines, and they are staffed by registered health practitioners – I am talking about doctors, paramedics and nurses. The clinical scope of practice is set by a first aid service and approved by the Department of Health’s clinical practice protocol assessment committee. It is without doubt making sure that Victorians at a range of events, including music festivals and other live music events, are safer in the event of adverse outcomes associated with drug use.

I have known from my own health and policy experience that education truly is essential, and I will acknowledge some folks that have stepped up into that space off the back of their own lived experience. I am thinking very much of some peer educators/survivors that I have met in my time.

We also know that early intelligence on emerging drug dangers is critical. The Victorian government has a robust protocol in collaboration with the Victorian Poisons Information Centre to monitor and respond to high-risk drug monitoring signals. The Department of Health continues to actively monitor emerging drugs through the health system and will continue to issue drug alerts and advisories when they become aware of particularly hazardous or unexpected substances circulating in our state. That is why we have funding in this year’s budget to support initiatives like the Rapid and Precise Intelligence on Drugs program, which produces statewide intelligence about emerging drugs and allows essential public health information to be circulated through the department’s drug alerts and advisories.

We also have the clinical toxicology reviews of severe drugs that help us collect and share drug harm data with other jurisdictions. These are all part of the extensive suite of harm reduction and drug and alcohol services funded by this government. Acting President Berger, you will know that I was proud and continue to be proud to be part of a government that decriminalised public intoxication. I have spoken about that at every opportunity when it has come before this place, frankly, and to see it now in place is a point of great pride for the family and loved ones of Aunty Tanya Day. Can I just commend them for their incredibly powerful advocacy over the last little while.

Our health-led responses have literally helped thousands of Victorians across the state. I was incredibly proud too of the way these public intoxication reforms were made in response to the tireless advocacy of First Nations communities. I talked about the families and those affected – about Aunty Tanya Day – but also there are other organisations I am thinking about – the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) and many of the health organisations right across the state – that joined in that advocacy effort. It was an incredibly powerful piece of work and one that I know they reflect on with great pride. I was proud of the way the reforms responded to the key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and of course coroners’ reports to make them health-led best practice and unapologetically focused on vulnerable people. That is very much where we are at.

Across some of the busiest months on Melbourne’s events and social calendar we have seen care delivered to thousands of Victorians via outreach teams and at sobering centres. It has reaffirmed that a health-led response is proportionate and appropriate for the vast majority of people who may find themselves intoxicated in public. That is more than 3100 Victorians, from November until the end of the year, who have been supported across the state, with more than 230 of those being provided a service at the dedicated sobering-up centres. We know that a police cell is not the place for someone who is simply intoxicated to recover, but this new approach includes outreach services to support people with transport to a safer place if needed. For most people this will be their own home or that of a family member, and that is what it has been – that of a friend, that of a carer. For others it may be a staffed place of safety or a sobering centre. The health-led model prioritises services for First Nations Victorians in acknowledgement of the disproportionate impact public intoxication laws and police interactions have had on the Aboriginal community. While police and paramedics continue to play an important role where there is an acute health need or community safety risk, additional dedicated services are supporting people who are publicly intoxicated and just require additional support.

Dedicated services are available in the areas of the state where the data tells us there is the greatest need and are centrally coordinated by a statewide advice, referral and dispatch function. In metro Melbourne these services are available to the general population and to Aboriginal Victorians, while Aboriginal Victorians have access to dedicated services in eight regional locations and two outer suburban locations. Those dedicated services are through an Aboriginal community controlled health organisation, and I know that that was a key recommendation from the Aboriginal community. Service providers in regional Victoria have begun their service offering with a dedicated outreach service, with one initial place of safety operating in Shepparton. As these services become more embedded, regional services will complement their outreach offerings by progressively bringing on line places of safety. It is happening over the next few months. This nation-leading reform is another example of the government listening to and carefully considering the advice of experts on complex matters to deliver a reform which will ensure the most appropriate response to people in need.

The government’s record of taking a health-led response to drug and alcohol harms does not end there. I will take this opportunity to talk about the government’s recently launched take-home naloxone program. Following nationwide supply shortages, some of which have been discussed here in this place, our take-home naloxone program launched on 30 November last year, making sure that this life-saving drug gets into the hands of the people who need it most. Naloxone is proven to save lives and will no doubt save many more through increased access. It reverses the effects of overdose for opioid drugs like heroin, morphine and fentanyl. It can be easily administered by a nasal spray, does not affect someone who has not used opioids and has no potential for misuse. Thanks to legislative changes that this government passed in 2020, naloxone can be more readily available to those at risk of experiencing an overdose, giving more Victorians the chance to recover and sparing more families the heartache of losing a loved one. Previously community members could only access naloxone with their prescription or over the counter from a pharmacy, but the Victorian take-home naloxone program allows eligible workers in select needle and syringe program sites and the medically supervised injecting room to supply free naloxone to people who are at risk of an opioid overdose and the carers, families or friends of people who use opioids. Community members who collect naloxone from an approved organisation will also be permitted to give that naloxone to others at risk.

There is certainly no other jurisdiction in Australia that has this kind of health-led, compassionate policy and practice. The aim of these changes is to reduce opioid overdose related morbidity and mortality by removing barriers to access that are being experienced by people in the community who may have limited engagement with health services. This important program complements efforts we are already taking to strengthen and expand pharmacotherapy in our state. We see opioid pharmacotherapy as an important part of the toolkit for the treatment of addiction. It enables people to break the cycle of drug use and re-engage with education, employment and the community. While most pharmacotherapy patients receive their treatment from private GPs, who are funded by the Commonwealth government’s Medicare benefits schedule – MBS, as it is known – more than 40,000 patients already receive treatment, including pharmacotherapy, at state-funded specialist addiction medicine clinics and from prescribers in community health services.

We know that there are gaps in our current system. That is why we are investing a further $10 million in the Victorian pharmacotherapy system through the 2023–24 state budget to deliver pharmacotherapy surge capacity to address prescriber shortages, providing funding to boost the capacity of nine specialist pharmacotherapy clinics operating across Victoria, delivering additional staffing and allowing 360 more patients a year to receive care. We also have workforce initiatives that include new clinical placements for general practitioners; clinical supervision, education and mentoring right across the state; and expanded case management, coordination and liaison . We are also increasing the number of nurse practitioner prescribers. On top of that we have also established an advisory committee to support the development of a medium- to long-term strategy for the sustainability of opioid dependence treatment services in our state. Pharmacotherapy is a critical health service and Victoria will continue to seek a national approach to enhance accessibility to this life-saving treatment and improve GP capacity to support Australians with an addiction.

We could speak about Labor’s achievements in the areas of drug and alcohol harm all day. In the interests of time I am going to mention just a couple more, if you do not mind. Labor is also investing $32 million in six emergency department mental health, alcohol and other drug (AOD) hubs across the state to better support Victorians experiencing urgent mental health, alcohol and drug issues. This important investment responds directly to the increasing number of people with mental health, drug and alcohol problems who seek assistance in our emergency departments, often when they are in crisis. The new hubs will mean that people presenting in our EDs with these often co-occurring conditions can be fast-tracked to a specialist, dedicated care team, providing them with the right support sooner and easing pressure on existing resources. The new emergency department hubs will be located at Barwon Health, Monash Health’s Monash Medical Centre, Peninsula Health’s Frankston Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Western Health’s Sunshine Hospital. Importantly, these initiatives build on the 74 recommendations of the Victorian Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System to transform mental health support and care to make it more accessible, flexible and responsive.

This fantastic $5.3 million AOD hub at the Royal Melbourne Hospital – in my own patch – was completed in the middle of last year and is now operational. The hub is located within the existing ED and is treating people needing immediate, specialised crisis care for mental health and AOD issues. Featuring six mental health beds and six behavioural assessment cubicles, the new facility is working to free up the general ED so it can focus on caring for other patients. Patients will be assessed by a team of psychiatrists, mental health nurses and social workers before being referred to other services as required, providing them with the right support sooner. We are also investing a further $10 million to deliver this innovative service to more parts of Victoria, with hubs being planned for Traralgon, Ballarat, Bendigo and Shepparton.

The Allan Labor government is also increasing access to vital alcohol and drug treatment supports by doubling the number of residential rehab beds and increasing withdrawal beds, investing $36 million for a new drug and alcohol residential withdrawal and rehab facility in Mildura, the first of its kind in the region. Based on the successful new residential rehab facilities in Corio, Traralgon and Wangaratta, the new facility is part of the Labor government’s commitment to ensuring all Victorians get the care and treatment they need closer to home, and I do know from my time at VACCHO that there is some demand there for withdrawal and rehab beds, so this is certainly going to be very welcome indeed.

These places are designed to create a welcoming and healing space for individuals and their loved ones. The new 30-bed adult residential withdrawal and rehab facility will provide a therapeutic and homelike environment where people experiencing addiction can get the help they need to overcome alcohol and other drug use. The facility will support members of the community going through withdrawal or detox and provide 24-hour care and support for people who have gone through withdrawal or stabilisation and need to continue their treatment. It will also include consulting staff and support areas, several shared spaces, including kitchen, dining, lounge and activity areas, an extensive outdoor deck and landscaped areas for outdoor program activities. Having visited a rehabilitation centre in regional Victoria, in Shepp, run by Aboriginal community controlled organisations, I can tell you just how critically important these services are, and that there are going to be more on board right across our state close to home where people need them will just be so very critical, knowing of course that being away from family and your kids can be very tough. So this is very welcome indeed.

I mention this variety of initiatives, from education and harm reduction to acute care, to make it abundantly clear to those in this chamber that the Allan Labor government is deeply committed to improving health and social outcomes for Victorians through investment in evidence-based and innovative approaches to prevent, reduce and address alcohol and drug-related harm in our state.

Can I just say I know that there are potentially a great number of speakers on this private members bill before us, so before I do hand over, can I take a moment to thank those members who brought this before us but also say that I too am looking forward to hearing some contributions by fellow members of our chamber on this, knowing that this is an area of interest that affects so very, very many. So thank you again for the opportunity to make a contribution on the private members bill before us, and having followed it from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee to its discussion here today, it will be one that I follow with great interest. I thank you very much for the opportunity.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:33): I am pleased to rise and speak to this bill, the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023. It is an important bill that has been brought by a number of parties in this chamber, and we have seriously considered it. We do have concerns about it. Let me be clear at the start: we understand what the movers of the bill are seeking to achieve, and we understand that there is a problem; nobody is indicating that there is no problem with drug taking and poor-quality drugs and issues around music festivals and other sites. So we should begin by putting on record that we understand why they are bringing the bill, even if we do not agree with the solution that is proposed. I think it is important to see that there is a lot more common ground than people might think on some of these issues, and obviously there is a concern about the – ‘proliferation’ may be too strong a word – widespread availability of certain drugs at festivals and other locations.

This bill seeks to establish a pilot to carry out drug checking, known as pill testing, whereby clients would be able to have the composition of drugs or other substances analysed and receive information about the composition and particular risks that may be associated with that. So we understand the purpose, and we can see that some good could come of it. But we also see that there is another side to this issue. There could well be an opportunity for education at that point. Again, I understand what this bill is trying to achieve. The pilot includes a mobile facility for drug checking at locations where there is significant drug use by young people, and these include various festivals and dance parties. Some of us may be rather too old to go to dance parties and so forth these days, but once upon a time many of us might have gone to such things. I am not meaning myself in particular; I am extending this to other members of the chamber in a cross-party sense.

A member: Get to a festival at your next opportunity.

David DAVIS: Probably my festival days of this type are not current.

I should indicate this is the fourth attempt to legalise pill testing in Victoria, going back to 2016, 2017 and 2019. The licensing and governance elements of the bill have been largely built upon the legislative framework in the existing bills. Clause 4 would provide for a minimum age for pill testing of 18 years, although that could be amended by the Governor in Council. It provides information about the composition of a substance and whether it includes a poison, as provided to those who would seek these services. It also outlines the objectives of services and so forth.

One of the things that mobile pill testing does not do is measure the dose strength, potency or dissolution rate of the drug. Unknown substances in fact are very, very rare in music festival related overdoses. The truth is overdose is usually attributed to heat or excessive consumption, and pill testing will not necessarily prevent either of these contributing factors. Pill testing does not take into account the metabolic rate of the consumer or polydrug use – either alcohol or antidepressants particularly listed there. Education is currently very poor on drug-taking habits, how to recognise toxicity and what to do in the event of toxicity. There is I think very little drug education in schools. Heat is another aspect which plays a huge role, especially during the summer festival season, and this was a contributing factor to the nine overdoses at the Hardmission festival in January this year. Music festivals, I should add, are not licensed as such in Victoria, and there are no requirements for minimum clinical support, medical coordination protocols or treatment medication to be available onsite.

I note in terms of the government’s view the then Minister for Mental Health ruled out licensing and pill testing at music festivals in 2019. The truth is that the current government, the Allan Labor government, has failed to implement other, far more effective harm reduction strategies. There is no drug early warning system available. Opioid replacement programs are being wound back, as the government has failed to recruit doctors to prescribe opioid replacement therapy – methadone. Frankston is an example of that, where previously there was a significant service, and that is no longer the case. Labor refused to support hydromorphone treatment for heroin addiction, and that was something we took to the election in 2022. Labor have failed to expand residential rehabilitation, with Victoria having the second-worst rehabilitation bed access rate in the nation, and again we took to the election a commitment to bring Victoria to a similar level of rehabilitation beds to New South Wales.

There is a strong correlation, we understand, as do most people who know this sector, between mental ill health and substance abuse disorders, and they are very hard to in fact disentangle in many cases. I am going to quote here:

Many individuals who develop substance use disorders (SUD) are also diagnosed with mental disorders, and vice versa. Multiple national population surveys have found that about half of those who experience a mental illness during their lives will also experience a substance use disorder and vice versa. Although there are fewer studies on comorbidity among youth, research suggests that adolescents with substance abuse disorders also have high rates of co-occurring mental illness; over 60 percent of adolescents in community-based substance use disorder treatment programs also meet diagnostic criteria for another mental illness.

We understand the spirit in which this bill is brought. In this circumstance we have to indicate that we cannot support the bill. We understand what the parties are trying to achieve, but I do think there are significant issues with what is proposed, and it is those reasons that make us very cautious about supporting this particular bill.

Just to recap, we understand the issue. There is a view by some that in fact the idea of pill testing like this provides a tacit approval, and I understand that theory and I think it is a legitimate point to raise. But I think these other points that I have listed are also legitimate points to raise, and for that reason the Liberals and Nationals cannot support the bill on this occasion, although, as I say, we understand the spirit in which it is brought to the chamber.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:42): I rise to speak to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023. I am extremely proud that Legalise Cannabis Victoria is a co-sponsor of this bill along with the Animal Justice Party and the Victorian Greens. I would also like to acknowledge that this is not the first time this bill has been in Parliament. As my colleague earlier pointed out, this is the fourth time a bill like this has been presented before Parliament. We have seen bills like this co-sponsored by the Victorian Greens and the Reason Party, and other members of this chamber have been very vocal in this space, including Mr Limbrick from the Libertarian Party, who has called for drug-checking services as well. What this demonstrates is that harm reduction measures of this magnitude are above political lines and are above party politics.

This bill in principle is fairly simple, but most importantly, it is sensible. It is about reducing harms, and it is about keeping people safe. This bill’s aim is to create a drug-checking service pilot in Victoria. This would include a mobile testing set-up at major music festivals and, secondly, a fixed-site location that would provide year-round drug-checking services and would service partygoers as well as those who regularly use drugs. The pilot would run for two years with the option for extension to four years.

So what do we know about drug-checking services? Well, firstly, we know that they work. They were first trialled here in Australia at a music festival called Groovin the Moo in 2018 and 2019. This led to the establishment of Australia’s first ever pill-testing service provider, and it was at a fixed-site address in Canberra, called CanTEST. That was set up in July 2022. In the first six months CanTEST offered 675 discussions, 85 health interventions and 614 substance tests, and this evidence saw funding extended for the service to remain permanently. This is what happens at drug-checking facilities: a person who is considering using a pill or another drug can have them tested to discover what it is they may be taking. They then have a health professional provide a consultation where they provide a range of information to help that person make an informed decision while underlining the risks and what to do in an event where there may be adverse outcomes.

I had a constituent recently approach me who visited this facility in Canberra, and what I found really interesting was that their experience was very non-judgemental. They presented what substances they were planning on consuming, and a test was, obviously, performed. The follow-up with the health professional was a disclosure that, yes, what you have provided is what you think it is, but also there are additives in this. This particular person was able to tell me what those additives were and also what the experience was anticipated to be. In this particular instance it was an additive of caffeine. That person then was able to go, ‘Well, I know how much I really do aim to consume here.’ It gave them an ability to manage that risk.

Again, the evidence for pill testing shows that it reduces the amount of drugs consumed by individuals and it reduces the variety of drugs consumed in one session – both of which, we know from the experts, are risk factors for overdose and death. Opponents to pill testing say that drug checking encourages people to take drugs, but this is just not the case, and this is not the evidence that we are being presented with. What these services provide is an opportunity for early intervention, education and referral pathways to a range of health and community service providers if they are needed. Pill Testing Australia, who facilitate CanTEST, stipulate that they never advise people it is safe to take drugs, they never promote the consumption of drugs and they offer a non-discriminatory health service. In fact what the evidence from Canberra and around the world shows is that people who have access to drug-checking services adjust their intended drug-taking behaviour to reduce their risks, as my constituent reported he did in that particular instance.

We have seen this Parliament have discussions around drug checking before, and we even saw in March 2018 the Law Reform, Road and Community Safety Committee, a joint committee, deliver the report for the inquiry into drug law reform. I thought it would be interesting to reflect on what this inquiry experienced, where they went and where they travelled to internationally, because the committee visited Geneva in Switzerland, Lisbon in Portugal, London in the United Kingdom, Vancouver in Canada, and Denver and Sacramento in the United States. What an interesting experience that would have been. As part of that overseas study tour the committee observed the drug-checking services provided by the Loop, and this was during a music festival event called the Secret Garden Party. The Loop is a not-for-profit community interest company that provides drug-testing services, welfare and harm reduction services at nightclubs, festivals and other events – exactly where they are needed.

Interestingly, the delegation included Rick Nugent, who at the time was assistant commissioner for Victoria Police in the eastern region, and I highlight this because the quote that I am about to read out really demonstrates that there was so much enthusiasm there to learn from other jurisdictions. What Rick said was:

What has been particularly helpful and has broadened our thinking was the opportunity to attend overseas with the delegation … Some really good initiatives, some good policies being trialled in various areas, and all of that has been brought back to VicPol as well to help inform our thinking, to challenge our thinking and to really look at a contemporary way in which we can target the harms from drugs in the community.

That committee also spent time with local police at the Secret Garden Party, and what they reported back was that they were really impressed that people found them really approachable.

This harm reduction initiative and having this as a normal part of when you go to a music festival in the UK meant that people felt safe and they felt more engaged with those that were there to keep them safe. The committee observed that the police presence was welcome and positive. They also noted, however, that there was a strong consensus in the evidence to this inquiry supporting drug checking, with most recommending that the Victorian government take:

… immediate steps to establish pill testing services in the State, modelled on international best practice.

Now we get back to what is happening here in Victoria. Well, this summer alone, on 6 January we saw nine people who attended the Hardmission festival – and I know that a few of my colleagues have spoken in this place about that festival – rushed to hospital, with eight requiring intubation, after ingesting what they thought was the party drug MDMA. Then the following weekend, on 12 January, two women were taken to hospital after suspected drug use at Juicy festival in Melbourne. We know from the reports following those events that all of those people who attended that festival thought they were taking MDMA, but there were other substances in those drugs and those drugs were particularly strong. If there had been a drug-checking service provision there, that may have alleviated a lot of those incidents.

Unfortunately, this is not a new occurrence just this summer gone. We have heard multiple coroners call for a harm reduction approach. In fact last year Victorian State Coroner John Cain recommended the government introduce drug testing after the death of a 26-year-old man who had taken a highly potent form of MDMA. Another Victorian coroner investigating the death of five young men who consumed a potent psychoactive substance called on the state government to introduce illicit drug testing and a warning program. The coroner Paresa Spanos said on Wednesday the men, aged between 17 and 32, died in a six-month period starting in mid-2016. Again, in October last year we also saw the experts coming forward. The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, or VADA, in collaboration with RMIT University, released a statement supported by 77 health and community agencies calling on the Victorian government to legislate a drug-checking system and enhance a public alert system. So we have the parliamentary committee recommending pill testing, we have multiple coroners calling for action and we have at least 77 health and community agencies calling for drug-checking services. This is very compelling. I actually applaud the government for acknowledging the importance of harm minimisation, and I appreciate the valuable work that the Minister for Mental Health is doing in this space as well as the Premier.

We know this impacts so many in our community, not just those who consume drugs. I mean, can you imagine being the ambo that turned up at Hardmission festival not knowing where to start? Can you imagine the cost of loss of life to a family? Can you imagine how much it is costing Victoria Police to instil a ‘Just say no to drugs’ approach by having sniffer dogs present – and do not get me started on that, because we know that that actually causes young people especially to just swallow what they have got. The costs are adding up. When you look at opponents and they are concerned about the costs adding up, they are more concerned about how much pill testing is going to cost. Well, think about the hospitalisations, think about the ambulance call-outs, think about the mental health and wellbeing of the front line who have to deal with that instance. How much is that costing? I know that some of my fellow crossbench colleagues have actually had the Parliamentary Budget Office look into these costings.

I guess what I really want to highlight, though, is that drug taking is not an unusual thing amongst our society. I have also consumed pills. I had my first pill when I was 19, and I was fortunate because I was surrounded by people who had experienced drug use before. They encouraged me to just have a small amount to start. If I had not had that support there or that little bit of ‘This is how you do it’ information, who knows where I would have ended up. I am 42 now, and we always talk about back in our day what drugs were like then. But now there are so many new and emerging psychoactive substances, and they are presenting at these drug-checking services. These drug-checking service providers are saying, ‘We don’t know where they’re coming from. We’re astounded at what is being created.’ Drugs are being sold as MDMA that are in fact dangerous doses of opioids. Drugs are two or three times stronger than they are reported to be, and these are the reports that we are hearing coming out of these drug service providers.

But the experts are actually offering a solution here, and Pill Testing Australia have publicly offered the Victorian government a free trial. They are ready to go. They have the staff, they have the resources, they have the specialist equipment and to alleviate any other concerns they have the insurance to facilitate a trial at a major music festival. They are ready to go, and I really do encourage the government to accept this offer as a way of just seeing how it goes. Can we just trial it at one music festival, see how it goes and see what the outcome will be? I promise you that people will engage with that service provision if it is there, and this will not cost the government anything.

Just to conclude, I would like to say that drug-checking services are a no-brainer. The evidence is clear. Across different party lines we all agree that we need a harm minimisation approach, so I look forward to collaborating with you all on this.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:56): I rise to also make a contribution on this bill. I have had the benefit of listening to the contributions made by my colleagues in the chamber today in regard to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023. It is good to hear that in the contributions and the way they have been pitched today there is a lot to agree on. When we listen to the contributions there is a lot that people actually agree on and have in common when we talk about pill testing, but when it comes to drug and alcohol harms in our community the Allan Labor government proudly takes a health-led harm minimisation approach. With that context I just also want to personally acknowledge some recent overdoses that have occurred both here and in New South Wales. Of course any drug-related harm or tragedies that are a consequence of that are obviously unintended but very tragic and distressing for the families who have lost loved ones. My thoughts and deepest sympathies and condolences go to those who are impacted.

Of course as with any private member’s bill, the government will not be supporting the bill, and I am going to go on to reiterate the government’s position on that in a moment. But I was listening to Mr Davis’s contribution and Ms Payne’s as well, and there are just a couple of points that I would like to make. Personally, individually, I actually think pill testing is a good idea. But I am a member of the government, so I am not supporting the bill. Nevertheless I will go through why I think it is important. The debate sort of conflates a couple of issues here. One is about abstinence, and I think that is where Mr Davis and his colleagues are coming from and saying, ‘Look, just don’t take it.’ We do not want people to take drugs that are going to be harmful; that is pretty clear. But history shows us that that approach does not work.

The whole point about pill testing, as I see it from a harm minimisation point of view, is that it is an intervention. It is an opportunity. It is another step to protect a person who has already made the decision to buy a pill. They have already made that decision, so the idea that we can convince them to further abstain from taking it kind of does not make any sense. Having pill testing at that juncture provides an opportunity for that intervention and an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, you may not know what you’re taking here. You might think you know what you’ve bought, but you really don’t know what that’s going to do as a substance once it enters into your system.’ For all the reasons Mr Davis talked about, and I know Ms Payne talked about it too – there can be differences in body composition, how we metabolise substances, what is in there, whether you have had a lot of fluids on the day, whether you have not, whether you have eaten – all of these sorts of random things can impact the way a person metabolises these things – heat, all of that. There are a lot of factors that can impact the way a person can respond to these things.

Helpfully, I did see that the parliamentary library actually put out a great research paper on this. I had the opportunity to read it, and it is really good. It highlights some points around some of the things that have been happening in this space as well in terms of different states and different approaches, costings and the like. It is very helpful and very useful. As I said, I know Mr Davis commented and said that in his view there is widespread availability of drugs at festivals. I am not sure that it is actually widespread. I just went to Rochford Wines and saw Simple Minds there in the Yarra Valley the other day. I could smell things in the air, and I know there were people who were drinking and all the rest of it –

David Davis: You were not partaking in anything –

Sonja TERPSTRA: They were partaking, obviously.

David Davis: No, you.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I was not. I just went, ‘No, no, not me.’ Look, I have admitted to inhaling marijuana in the past. I have said that in here before. Who cares? No-one cares. The thing is that I wanted to go to a festival and enjoy myself and I also had to drive home, so I was not going to have substances in my system that meant if I was getting behind the wheel of a car I may have been putting myself at risk, and other drivers. I do not do that, right. I would be an hour in the car after being out at a festival all day in the heat – no, that is not a good thing.

Nevertheless, as I said earlier, it is a different issue; we are conflating the issue of purchasing drugs and taking drugs with pill testing as an intervention. Just in regard to that, there are some questions in my mind about it, and I note the Premier’s position and that of the Minister for Health. The Premier has publicly stated that while there are no current plans to trial drug checking in Victoria, they have sought further advice from the Department of Health about the opportunities to improve safety at music festivals and evidence around additional harm reduction approaches.

I just want to get into the weeds – pardon the pun – for want of a better term, about pill testing. This comes from the research paper that the library did. According to that research the main form of pill testing is the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy system. That can help identify what substances and cutting agents are used, and 10 minutes is taken to complete the process. Another process is the liquid chromatography-photodiode array analysis. I guess my concern with having a testing arrangement would be that a young person goes to a festival, they have already made the decision to purchase a pill, they then make the decision to go and get the pill tested and the test might say – and again, I do not know the outcomes of these tests; I have heard different reports – it is inconclusive. That might mean that there is no certification about what is actually in it but perhaps it is not a good idea for them to take it because they do not want to certify what is in it. That is reasonable. I would be more concerned about a test that says either it has got something in it or it has not, because if someone then relies on that test and takes the pill, a whole manner of lawsuits and other things might transpire from that.

So there are still some questions in my mind about how this would actually work. I am sure there is lots of data and information on it, and I am sure someone will tell me about that, but I still have concerns about how that would actually work in practice. Nevertheless, even if a person did undertake a test of their pill, it is still their choice as to whether they decide to take it or not. They may have had the pill testing undertaken and it may have been inconclusive but they may have still taken it and ended up suffering harm from taking that pill.

As we all know, pill testing will not stop drug use. It is not designed to do that; it is really just a harm minimisation and safety intervention. Having drug testing available serves as a port to provide information to drug users, but again, it is an opportunity to provide education – so another intervention – to people about what they may actually be doing. I know there has been discussion around how much it would potentially cost. I heard Ms Payne say someone was prepared to offer a trial and do it for nothing and all that sort of stuff, but you have got to make sure any trial you do is rigorous as well. I know the Parliamentary Budget Office, in the paper, costed a two-year trial at $3.2 million, I think, but there was an important caveat on that. They did say that that figure would depend on the uptake of pill testing within that trial, the number of festivals that this trial might happen at, operating hours, whether the testing machines were purchased or leased, the number of machines needed to have these testing capabilities and also the cost of staff and those sorts of things – all of that for $3.2 million. I reckon that is undercooked myself, because we know there will be many other logistics. I do not know whether they looked into public liability insurance and insurance for workers and things like that; that was not mentioned in the report, so I do not know. But I just think that would be undercooked.

Pill testing, as we know, is not intended to provide a green light to drug taking, and I have laboured this point: it is an intervention; it is another opportunity just to provide that harm minimisation approach.

As has been noted before, Queensland is in the process of setting up its own trial drug-testing system, and it is expected to be operational by the end of 2024. The ACT has continued to run its own fixed facility, extending the period and the funding to it as a result of its success. So it is good to also have the opportunity to review these sorts of trials and to see the successes, trials, tribulations, however you want to call it – what worked, what did not work and what could be improved. So perhaps waiting has some benefits. I do not want to make comparisons in a flippant way, but we had a similar thing where the container deposit scheme were able to look at other jurisdictions and how they approached things and then actually get the best result. We were criticised for being slow on it, but the point was we had the benefit of a lot of evidence and information then to make the best choices, and something like this could fall in the same realm. I do not want to say that it is. I do not want to be glib about it, but there are some benefits in waiting and looking at some of the research that we get in an Australian context as well.

I have 4 more minutes on the clock. It is an important issue. It is one that obviously is about protecting young people from the ongoing impacts of harm associated with drug taking. I mean, when you talk about drugs and alcohol anyway, often people use them as a form of escapism. Some people may be self-medicating because they might have ongoing other mental health conditions. There is no one size fits all that describes why a person might take drugs. It can be periodic. They might be lifelong users and be quite successful and high functioning in their life; they may not. There are all sorts and manner of different reasons and permutations and combinations about how people function and why they do things. But obviously what we know about pills is that young people who go to music festivals and raves love it; they like doing it. Again, I just think, ‘Don’t do it,’ but we know that approach does not work. But if you are going to do it, there is an opportunity for some safety there.

I will just move to some of the other important issues that we know around drug and alcohol testing, because it is an important issue, and we know that some people will go on to have lifelong complications and mental health issues arising from drug taking. That is a fact. But in terms of this government’s approach, in the nine budgets the government has handed down since being elected in 2014 we have invested over $2 billion in alcohol and other drug treatment support and harm minimisation initiatives.

I note that Ms Payne and others have talked about drug rehabilitation beds, but I know I am fortunate in my region to have one of the only – well, it is in a public hospital – public detox facilities in my region, based at Box Hill Hospital. It does an amazing job. The thing about that facility is that it is not like people have to find money to fund their own rehabilitation. It treats people as being able to go in and be an inpatient in that facility and gives them the care that they need for at least a 12-month period. There may be relapses in that period; they can go back in and out. It is a very well structured program designed by people who have lived experience, and those things are important. It is just a little bit distasteful that we have drug and alcohol detox that is really privately funded. We like to and we should think of drug and alcohol issues as public health issues. As I said, there are a range of reasons why people might take drugs.

Our $370 million investment in the most recent budget is more than double that which was provided before we came to government, and on top of that there are important legislative reforms and steps that we have taken, from passing of legislation to make naloxone more accessible to our recent decriminalisation of public drunkenness, also a very important reform. This is a year-on-year investment to drug and alcohol support that means more than 400,000 Victorians each year can access help from government-funded alcohol and drug treatment and support services, so it is very important.

I know there are also a range of initiatives that have been done in the space in terms of harm reduction. You have got Harm Reduction Victoria’s DanceWize program. It is a peer-based alcohol and drugs harm reduction program that delivers peer care at music festivals and events, which is important. Of course the project involves attendance of key peer educators, who host a chill-out space and discuss safer drug use and distribute health resources. I am pretty sure that young people would like to listen to young people rather than old people lecturing them, like me, so it is really good to see that they have a peer program that is actually involving young people who can talk and educate young people from that space. It might look a little bit lecture-y, older people talking to young people about drugs. Obviously there is a fair way to go in the space. The government’s position on this private members bill is we will not be supporting the bill, notwithstanding my own personal position. But I thank members for bringing the bill –

David Davis: Take a stand.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I have, mate. I thank the members for bringing this bill before the house today. I will leave my contribution there, but we will not be supporting this bill.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:12): Acting President Ermacora, may I extend my congratulations on your appointment to the role. I am pleased to rise and speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023. I understand and appreciate the intent and the purpose of this bill. I do understand and appreciate what it seeks to achieve, and I spoke earlier today to Ms Payne and said that to her.

Firstly, I would like to start by saying that drug policy is something that is close to my heart. I have heard firsthand about the hooks that have led to addiction – that first drug, trying something new, trying something to escape different things – and I have seen firsthand the harm that drugs can cause. I have been lucky enough to have friends that have broken away from the hold of drug addiction to reclaim their lives. When that has happened, it has been incredible to hear from their family members about the joy of having their loved one back, but also it has been amazing to hear about the grief that they have experienced throughout that process. Of course not everyone is lucky enough to get their loved ones back, and I would like to acknowledge that. Those friends who have broken free from the grip of drugs have become the strongest advocates for living drug-free lives, because to them a drug-free life is a free life, and I do want to acknowledge that true experience that they have been through.

I cannot speak about this topic and not remember a friend of mine, Michael, who died from drugs. I still remember getting that phone call. It was the most horrendous thing, and at the time I absolutely could not get my head around it – the most beautiful, bright, fun-loving, caring person, lost to drugs in an instant. That is a loss that so many carry. A lot of families carry that. To be honest, I still cannot get my head around that completely, and that is why I took the opportunity to speak to this bill. I acknowledge that often what starts out as a bit of fun can end up in unspeakable tragedy.

The National Drug Strategy: 2017–2026 provides a national framework that identifies national priorities relating to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. It aims to guide actions of governments in partnership with service providers and the community. It outlines the national commitment to harm minimisation through a balanced adoption of effective demand, supply and harm reduction strategies. It aims to build strong, healthy and resilient communities through preventing and minimising alcohol, tobacco and other drug-related health, social, cultural and economic harm. It outlines a balanced approach across three pillars of harm minimisation. The three pillars are demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction, in that order.

I found it interesting, because I question whether pill testing is in direct contradiction to the first two pillars of the national drug strategy, which are demand reduction and supply reduction. Will pill testing reduce the demand for drugs, or will it encourage people to use them? Will pill testing reduce the supply of drugs, or will it create a market for them? I know they are uncomfortable questions, but they are ones that we have to just honestly and pragmatically look at.

MDMA is the most popular recreational drug in Australia, and it has been responsible for many deaths at music festivals. We do not know how many of these could have been prevented with pill testing, and I will explain why I say that shortly. In 1995 Anna Wood was the first Australian to die from MDMA. She was aged 15. She died from a single ecstasy pill. That pill had no impurities or adulterants. Four of her friends took pills from the same batch, but they did not die. The very first death in this nation from MDMA would not have been prevented by drug testing. I think that is important to note in this sensitive debate, because it is important to make sure that we are across the information. Anna’s father Tony has worked for years since then – it was nearly 30 years ago when she died – educating young people about the dangers of MDMA and about the causes and what happens when you die in that way.

So what does cause those deaths? Mostly ecstasy deaths involve hyperthermia, causing your organs to shut down and then death. Many die from idiosyncratic vulnerabilities to MDMA. That means that some people have an ability to metabolise the drug while others just do not. For one person it could be entirely safe, but then for the person standing next to them, their friend, it could be fatal, like in Anna’s case, where it was deadly. This means that pill testing cannot be a very strong indicator as to whether or not that will cause death. In Anna’s tragic case, when she died and her four friends did not, there were no deadly impurities in the pill that she took. There were no other drugs that were mixed with MDMA. It was MDMA alone that killed Anna. It was MDMA alone that was directly responsible for 23 per cent of all Australian MDMA-related deaths between July 2000 and June 2005, and it was ecstasy alone that was directly responsible for 14 per cent of all MDMA-related deaths between 2000 and 2018. I was also very interested to learn that New Zealand’s first death from MDMA was in 1998, and testing later on of blood concentrations showed that she only had a fraction of the pill in her system. This proves that for some even a fraction of a pill can be deadly.

Contaminated drugs, which is really what this bill focuses on, pose a huge risk. They absolutely do, and I want to acknowledge that. But we must not overlook the fact that engaging in drug taking is engaging in risk-taking behaviour, and I think that we really need to have a campaign that highlights that as part of the overall strategy. I am concerned that pill testing promotes a risk-taking culture. There is a lot of talk about pill testing, and even though it is really well intentioned it does appear to be evidence thin. So I am going to quote some of the research from an article which I accessed from the National Library of Medicine called ‘MDMA-related deaths in Australia 2000 to 2018’, just to highlight the ones that could fall through the cracks in something like this. In this study Australian coroners reported that 14 per cent of these deaths were from idiosyncratic reactions – like I said before, reactions to MDMA in ecstasy pills, as with the first death in Australia, which was Anna Wood, who bought the same pill as her friends did, yet she died. Pill testing does not provide a blood test, and there is not a blood test that can identify who will have such a reaction. Forty-eight per cent of Australian MDMA-related deaths were from polydrug use, which we have spoken about as well, where ecstasy pills were co-used with alcohol, amphetamines or cocaine, which creates a deadly synergy. Pill testing again does not have a blood test which highlights what users have already consumed. And 29 per cent of MDMA-related deaths in Australia were from accidents, which I know has also been highlighted – mostly car accidents. Pill testing has no equipment of course that can identify who will have such accidents.

Idiosyncratic reactions and polydrug use explain most of the hospitalisations that are caused from drug taking at, for instance, music festivals. So clearly it is MDMA itself which has killed these Australians – it says so in the data and the science – yet pill testing can green-light the very drug responsible for these reactions. That is not just my opinion; of course all of us would love to see harm minimisation, but it is what the science shows.

We just hope that a well-meaning bill will not lead to more deaths in Australia. Pill testing could give young people the confidence to engage in risk-taking behaviours, and some, as with one of my friends, could end up paying the ultimate price. By the way, it was not MDMA specifically, it was another drug that was pure.

There is a reason that illicit drugs are illegal. They pose an unacceptable risk, they can be deadly and they can lead to other risk-taking behaviours. It is very hard – and I know I have heard this from all sides of the chamber today – to guarantee safety from an illicit drug in a drug-taking culture no matter how hard we try. Pill testing does have limitations. John Lewis from the University of Technology Sydney and toxicologist Dr John Ramsey emphasise that pill testing is a complex process. It is costly, it is time consuming and it detects mainly major components of a sample that may not be the active substance. I read this to just highlight that even the experts are saying that pill testing has its limitations.

In closing, we obviously have an issue that we need to deal with. There are obviously a huge cohort of people who are susceptible to drug use. I think we need to think very carefully about what we are promoting and encouraging because for so many it can cause incredible destruction. Drugs are not safe, however we try to package it. They can lead people down an extremely dark path, and it can take years to break free from that – and sadly some never do. I know people who have become so hooked on drugs and have suffered so much loss as a result. Parents have literally lost their children and children have lost their parents, and the results can be devastating. Often this just starts with a little hook that seems to get you in.

I think we should be doing something to address the issue, and I think maybe we should look at examples of how other drugs in this national strategy have been dealt with – for instance, tobacco. There is one message, and it is: quit. It does not mean that you are not allowed to smoke and it does not take away anybody’s ability to smoke, but what it does is highlight the truth about a situation and what the results can be because of it, and that has provided a lot of people with an incredible amount of safety.

When we look at the difference from a couple of decades ago and the amount of people that smoked – everyone would. You would smoke in your office, you would smoke wherever you liked – you would smoke indoors. This campaign is confronting, almost offensive. I have got friends that smoke, but whenever they have got that packet out and it has got that disgusting tonsil-looking thing, you turn it upside down because it is gross. But it is a very good deterrent because it highlights how unhealthy it is. I think the Quit campaign has helped many. The secret to its success was never about making it more accessible, it was never about making smoking safer – it was actually the opposite. It has been about highlighting the truth about the effects of smoking, and it has worked. The rates are far lower. I think people can choose, but it is important that we highlight the truth while we are also trying to reduce supply and demand and minimise harm.

I have got 55 seconds left on the clock. I would like to see better information. I would like to see a better campaign around these issues. I would also like to see more rehabilitation. I think that that is an area where we fall dismally short, and there are so many people that are vulnerable and in desperate need of rehabilitation. I do not think it should be demonised; I think it should be encouraged. I would like to see more support for families and loved ones that are supporting people who might fall into the hands of addiction.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:26): Acting President Ermacora, once again it is wonderful to see you in that seat this week, and you are already doing an excellent job. I also rise today to speak on the bill, the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pill Testing Pilot for Drug Harm Reduction) Bill 2023. I do note that this is a bill that has been put forward today in Mr Puglielli’s name but is actually one that has been co-sponsored by three different parties: by Mr Puglielli himself of course from the Greens party; we also have Ms Payne from the Legalise Cannabis Party, a fantastic fellow member of the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region – always good to mention; and of course Ms Purcell from the Animal Justice Party, who is not in the chamber with us at the moment. She is well and truly in her Reputation era – I am sure she would agree if she was here.

Speaking of eras and speaking of amazing things that can happen in our cities, how good was it to see Taylor Swift on the weekend in Melbourne. We are talking about pill testing today, but who needs drugs when you have got Taylor Swift. I mean, really. Even if you are not a fan, and frankly you all should be, the absolutely huge turnout – 96,000 people every night, the biggest concerts that she has had on this tour, or on any tour in fact – was amazing to see. It was amazing to see even if you are not a fan of Taylor Swift. As I said, you absolutely should be – check out the Midnights album, for one – but if you are not, you should absolutely feel elated by the fact that it has so heavily contributed to our state’s economy. There are going to be some shows in Sydney this weekend as well. I know she will do just as well over there. Some of us were not able to get tickets to Melbourne, so I am sure there are many people from this place making that trip up to our friends up north to see her in Sydney. But there is going to be nothing – nothing – as remarkable as seeing Taylor Swift perform at the MCG. What an absolute phenomenon. As I said, if you have got Taylor Swift, really, who needs drugs?

This is quite a serious thing that we are here to discuss, though, and I think it is important to note that when it comes to drug harm reduction, this is a government that takes a health-led response very, very seriously. This year both the Premier and the Minister for Mental Health Ingrid Stitt from this place publicly stated that whilst there are no current plans to trial pill testing or drug checking here in the state of Victoria, they are seeking advice and have sought advice from the Department of Health about what potential opportunities there may be to improve safety at music festivals as well as seeking further evidence around various harm reduction approaches, including but definitely not solely focused on or restricted to the matter of pill testing itself.

This is a government that has not been shy in leading from the front when it comes to the important progressive reforms that make a difference to people’s lives. We spoke this morning about medical safe injecting rooms, and again I acknowledge that it was Mr Ettershank from the Legalise Cannabis Party who brought that motion before us. I acknowledge that that too is an area where a public health response can lead to far better outcomes: 7600 overdoses attended to and 63 deaths prevented. Sixty-three is a huge number. That is yet another example of this government’s willingness to embrace a health-led response, with the Premier and the Minister for Mental Health looking at the best options that we can find to ensure that overdoses and other drug-related illnesses or deaths arising out of music festivals can be averted as much as possible. That is one more example of that.

I also note Dr Heath just prior to me was referring to tobacco in her contribution. Of course we know that too can have severe health consequences. In responding to Dr Heath’s comments I think it is also worth repeating here that the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee has initiated a public inquiry into tobacco and vaping regulations in the state of Victoria, following from our inquiry into the gambling sector last year, which was very, very illuminating. I can highly recommend that members read that report. I for one as a member of the committee am very much looking forward to engaging with this inquiry into tobacco and vaping controls, what works well and what needs to be improved. We are in a very fluid environment with the take-up of vaping not just in Victoria but of course nationwide, and frankly you do not have to walk very far. You can walk down the halls of this very building and see people vaping from time to time. It has certainly taken off in a very strong way, and it is important that the regulations that we have in this state are responding to that. I also note that there has been some significant federal intervention in this area, which has been announced in the past couple of months and which will have a big impact as well.

As part of this inquiry we are very much looking forward to seeing what is the best practice, what can we do to improve and how can we improve that situation for the people of Victoria. If anyone does have a particular interest in that inquiry, I do strongly encourage them to lodge a submission with the committee, register themselves to attend a public hearing and, if you wish to do so, appear as a witness. The more that we hear from the Victorian community on this, the more valuable it will be. It is very important that we hear from all the various stakeholders, ranging from the retailers to the public health advocates, which is exactly what we will be doing. But lived experience will be a very big part of that.

Consequently, with that as well we will be doing another youth round table. The gambling inquiry which I referred to last year had a youth round table here in the Parliament on a non-sitting night. I believe we had around 30 to 40 young people from across different backgrounds, different parts of the state, different experiences. We had a young man from Shepparton, and we had a young woman who was a recent arrival as an international student in the city of Melbourne, education of course being one of our biggest exports. We heard some really fascinating feedback, and we heard some really good experiences that in the ordinary committee structure we might have missed out on. So that youth round table was particularly exciting to be a part of – to convene a small table and hear directly firsthand from people who are most affected. Then we went into the chamber. Sadly, it was the Legislative Assembly. But we did go into the other chamber, and those participants got to speak to us all in that setting and tell us about their experiences, which was a deeply powerful experience. I do recall one remarkable young man who told us about the hundreds of thousands of dollars he had lost on sports gambling, what the impacts of that were on his life, how he was moving on from that now and the journey he had been on as part of that. That was a really profound thing to hear, and I am sure that when it comes to the tobacco and vaping inquiry we will hear similar stories as well.

As I say, a public health response is what this government is looking at, and I am sure we will have many further contributions today. I look forward to hearing them, and I will conclude my comments there.

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (15:35): I move:

That debate on this matter be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.