Mr BALCH - 2000-08-16
Can he confirm that the Northern Territory continues to be the best-performing government in Australia in reducing drug and alcohol-related harm in our community?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I can proudly stand here and say that the Northern Territory continues to be the best-performing jurisdiction in reducing drug and alcohol-related harm. That is backed up by a range of expert studies.
Most recently, a study by the National Drug Research Institute and the Lewis Fordham group, using internationally-accepted costing procedures, conservatively estimated that between 1992-93 and 1995-96 our programs reduced health and safety costs by $124.3m. Some of the outcomes identified by the study as a result of our program are: 22% lower per capita consumption of alcohol; 35% fewer alcohol-related road accidents resulting in hospitalisation; 39% fewer road fatalities related to alcohol; 20% fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions; and 9% fewer deaths from acute alcohol conditions.
Another report, by the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, stated in part:
This is the fifth year in a row that the NT has been rated among the best-performing governments in Australia in reducing drug and alcohol-related harm in the community.
That is the sort of stuff put out by export bodies that needs to be on the record, recognising the wide-ranging programs we have right throughout the Northern Territory. Over the last few days in this parliament the Leader of the Opposition has done her level best to try to suggest that there are no programs in place, that the police are under-resourced. She believes she can tell Territorians that a Labor government, if they ever got into power, would start from a clean slate because there is nothing in place at the moment. The opposite is the truth, and that is backed up by international studies.
She gives no cognisance to: the excellent efforts by the government in ensuring that those communities who want dry areas get them; the strict laws that we have relating to grog running, whether it be pallet loads or a few cans; all of the work that has been conducted under Living With Alcohol over the last eight years; the fostering of night patrols and wardens; and the efforts we have made in reducing the consumption of heavy-alcohol beer. I could go on and on.
But last night in the adjournment debate in this House, undeterred, the Leader of the Opposition was at it again and made some amazing statements. This is the Leader of the Opposition in the Northern Territory on how you deal with itinerant crime, criticising the Northern Territory government:
There are no programs undertaken by this government to educate or advise residents from bush communities about differing expectations in behaviour between living in town and living in their communities.
If that is not the most patronising heap of codswallop, then I am not here. What you read into this is that somehow these people live in their community like savages and therefore have to be educated if they come to the towns and cities of the Northern Territory. I would have thought the programs we have in place, all the things that are done for better parenting skills, assisting parents throughout the Territory, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to deal with the challenges particularly for low-income families raising children in today’s environment whether they are out bush or not out bush, were sufficient without this sort of patronising rot, calling for special programs for Aboriginal people when they come to certain towns or cities.
She goes on to say about the police:
One of the common catchcries from the police themselves is that they do not have sufficient resources to deal with the problems that they encounter.
She was talking particularly about drugs – ignoring, of course, a media release from the Police Commissioner himself. He was forced to knock out a press release in order to counter the sorts of disgraceful and misleading comments that were coming from the Leader of the Opposition. He expressed disappointment that the issue of the adequacy of police resources had been raised and said that, given the facts, the public could be confident that he heads a well-serviced police force. Commissioner Bates said the negative comments made about police in the Territory were totally wrong and an unfair reflection of the dedication of Northern Territory police officers. She totally ignored all of that last night.
She went on to say:
If this government allowed sensible drug rehabilitation programs like methadone and naltrexone to exist, then the use of morphine would plummet.
This is a Leader of the Opposition who does not know the difference between a rehabilitation program and a harm-minimisation program. She has tried to suggest in recent days, backed up by the boy behind her, the boy shadow health minister, that we do have in fact a methadone maintenance program in the Northern Territory. She tried to mislead Territorians to suggest we have.
I remind members that when it comes to who tells the truth and who doesn’t in this Chamber, Mr Henderson on ABC morning radio on 21 April this year said: ‘Certainly methadone maintenance should be part of a range of services, and that’s certainly one thing that the government should be looking at introducing.’ On 11 May, Mr Henderson again: ‘Where we would disagree with the government is that we certainly should be looking at maintenance programs’. So do not run the lie as you have tried to do to suggest that we have harm-minimisation programs dispensing methadone when in fact we have rehabilitation programs which dispense methadone for a very short period. When the Leader of the Opposition …
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: That is not my main point. I am getting to the main point.
When the Leader of the Opposition gets up and says we should allow ‘sensible drug rehabilitation programs’, I remind her she is not talking about a limited use of methadone. What she is asking for is for a harm-minimisation program to be introduced where you use methadone in addition to the drug the drug addict is using and you use it interminably You drug the drug addict at the taxpayers’ expense with a more dangerous drug, a more addictive drug, in order to keep them stupefied. And you call that, somehow, harm minimisation. It will never be introduced in the Northern Territory while I am Chief Minister or this CLP government is in power. Let us make that very clear.
She spoke of receiving ‘reports that teenagers, in fact young teenage boys, were purchasing and smoking drugs in these premises’. This is very terrible. She said:
It is clear that the messages aimed at children about taking drugs are not penetrating or remaining with those children when they get into their teenage years. We need to think again about our approach to these matters ... I urge government to take on board the ongoing community concern with the use of illegal drugs.
I ask her what sort of messages under a Labor government would she send to children. Would it be this message? I quote the Leader of the Opposition, Clare Martin, Channel 8 News:
I consider marijuana much the same thing as having a glass of whisky or drinking red wine.
If you want to talk about programs in the Northern Territory and messages to our children, I ask the Leader of the Opposition does she consider that to be the appropriate message to deliver to our children in the Northern Territory, that smoking marijuana is much the same thing as having a glass of whisky or drinking red wine?
I submit that leopards don’t change their spots. I submit that a Labor government in the Northern Territory in a message to children would consider smoking marijuana no different to having a glass of red wine. And I submit that we would soon see the introduction of heroin-injecting rooms at the very least.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I can proudly stand here and say that the Northern Territory continues to be the best-performing jurisdiction in reducing drug and alcohol-related harm. That is backed up by a range of expert studies.
Most recently, a study by the National Drug Research Institute and the Lewis Fordham group, using internationally-accepted costing procedures, conservatively estimated that between 1992-93 and 1995-96 our programs reduced health and safety costs by $124.3m. Some of the outcomes identified by the study as a result of our program are: 22% lower per capita consumption of alcohol; 35% fewer alcohol-related road accidents resulting in hospitalisation; 39% fewer road fatalities related to alcohol; 20% fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions; and 9% fewer deaths from acute alcohol conditions.
Another report, by the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, stated in part:
This is the fifth year in a row that the NT has been rated among the best-performing governments in Australia in reducing drug and alcohol-related harm in the community.
That is the sort of stuff put out by export bodies that needs to be on the record, recognising the wide-ranging programs we have right throughout the Northern Territory. Over the last few days in this parliament the Leader of the Opposition has done her level best to try to suggest that there are no programs in place, that the police are under-resourced. She believes she can tell Territorians that a Labor government, if they ever got into power, would start from a clean slate because there is nothing in place at the moment. The opposite is the truth, and that is backed up by international studies.
She gives no cognisance to: the excellent efforts by the government in ensuring that those communities who want dry areas get them; the strict laws that we have relating to grog running, whether it be pallet loads or a few cans; all of the work that has been conducted under Living With Alcohol over the last eight years; the fostering of night patrols and wardens; and the efforts we have made in reducing the consumption of heavy-alcohol beer. I could go on and on.
But last night in the adjournment debate in this House, undeterred, the Leader of the Opposition was at it again and made some amazing statements. This is the Leader of the Opposition in the Northern Territory on how you deal with itinerant crime, criticising the Northern Territory government:
There are no programs undertaken by this government to educate or advise residents from bush communities about differing expectations in behaviour between living in town and living in their communities.
If that is not the most patronising heap of codswallop, then I am not here. What you read into this is that somehow these people live in their community like savages and therefore have to be educated if they come to the towns and cities of the Northern Territory. I would have thought the programs we have in place, all the things that are done for better parenting skills, assisting parents throughout the Territory, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to deal with the challenges particularly for low-income families raising children in today’s environment whether they are out bush or not out bush, were sufficient without this sort of patronising rot, calling for special programs for Aboriginal people when they come to certain towns or cities.
She goes on to say about the police:
One of the common catchcries from the police themselves is that they do not have sufficient resources to deal with the problems that they encounter.
She was talking particularly about drugs – ignoring, of course, a media release from the Police Commissioner himself. He was forced to knock out a press release in order to counter the sorts of disgraceful and misleading comments that were coming from the Leader of the Opposition. He expressed disappointment that the issue of the adequacy of police resources had been raised and said that, given the facts, the public could be confident that he heads a well-serviced police force. Commissioner Bates said the negative comments made about police in the Territory were totally wrong and an unfair reflection of the dedication of Northern Territory police officers. She totally ignored all of that last night.
She went on to say:
If this government allowed sensible drug rehabilitation programs like methadone and naltrexone to exist, then the use of morphine would plummet.
This is a Leader of the Opposition who does not know the difference between a rehabilitation program and a harm-minimisation program. She has tried to suggest in recent days, backed up by the boy behind her, the boy shadow health minister, that we do have in fact a methadone maintenance program in the Northern Territory. She tried to mislead Territorians to suggest we have.
I remind members that when it comes to who tells the truth and who doesn’t in this Chamber, Mr Henderson on ABC morning radio on 21 April this year said: ‘Certainly methadone maintenance should be part of a range of services, and that’s certainly one thing that the government should be looking at introducing.’ On 11 May, Mr Henderson again: ‘Where we would disagree with the government is that we certainly should be looking at maintenance programs’. So do not run the lie as you have tried to do to suggest that we have harm-minimisation programs dispensing methadone when in fact we have rehabilitation programs which dispense methadone for a very short period. When the Leader of the Opposition …
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BURKE: That is not my main point. I am getting to the main point.
When the Leader of the Opposition gets up and says we should allow ‘sensible drug rehabilitation programs’, I remind her she is not talking about a limited use of methadone. What she is asking for is for a harm-minimisation program to be introduced where you use methadone in addition to the drug the drug addict is using and you use it interminably You drug the drug addict at the taxpayers’ expense with a more dangerous drug, a more addictive drug, in order to keep them stupefied. And you call that, somehow, harm minimisation. It will never be introduced in the Northern Territory while I am Chief Minister or this CLP government is in power. Let us make that very clear.
She spoke of receiving ‘reports that teenagers, in fact young teenage boys, were purchasing and smoking drugs in these premises’. This is very terrible. She said:
It is clear that the messages aimed at children about taking drugs are not penetrating or remaining with those children when they get into their teenage years. We need to think again about our approach to these matters ... I urge government to take on board the ongoing community concern with the use of illegal drugs.
I ask her what sort of messages under a Labor government would she send to children. Would it be this message? I quote the Leader of the Opposition, Clare Martin, Channel 8 News:
I consider marijuana much the same thing as having a glass of whisky or drinking red wine.
If you want to talk about programs in the Northern Territory and messages to our children, I ask the Leader of the Opposition does she consider that to be the appropriate message to deliver to our children in the Northern Territory, that smoking marijuana is much the same thing as having a glass of whisky or drinking red wine?
I submit that leopards don’t change their spots. I submit that a Labor government in the Northern Territory in a message to children would consider smoking marijuana no different to having a glass of red wine. And I submit that we would soon see the introduction of heroin-injecting rooms at the very least.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016