Mr BELL - 1995-10-11
I remind the minister that both he and the Chief Minister said yesterday that there was no illicit drug problem in the Northern Territory because only 6 of the 170-odd people apprehended as a result of Operation SURF were inspired by drug addiction. Does the minister accept that these apprehensions are a mere drop in the ocean? Does he agree that perhaps some of the 4000 unsolved stealing incidents and the 3000 unsolved break-and-enters last year may have been the result of drug addiction? Does the minister agree with former Commissioner of Police, Peter McAulay, that there has been a definite increase in illicit drug taking?
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, to correct the opening statement by the member for MacDonnell, we were not saying yesterday that there is no problem with illicit drug use in the Territory. That was not what we were saying at all. We were saying that members opposite have the wrong answers. Statistics and reports from police and others indicate that the level of the illicit drug problem in the Northern Territory, and Darwin in particular, has remained static over the last 5 years, and I said that yesterday. As for attributing some portion of the 4000 break-and-enters which I think the member quoted ...
Mr Bell: It was 3000 break-and-enters and 4000 stealing incidents.
Mr FINCH: Yes. From that total number, the statistics for the clean-up rates indicate that about 3.5% of the perpetrators of those break-and-enters and stealing offences are drug addicts. Is the honourable member trying to suggest that the unresolved level of property crime can be attributed entirely to addicts?
Mr Bell: Probably.
Mr FINCH: This is your problem. You have an enormous problem in that the only crutch ...
Mr Bell: No, you do. You are the minister.
Mr FINCH: You are the one with the bad policy that Territorians will not wear. They will not wear your pro- methadone policy, and for very good reason. It is because the only crutch you have to lean on, in trying to substitute an evil drug for an evil drug at the taxpayer's expense, is that you say that it will somehow miraculously stop crime overnight. Alternatively, somehow it will fractionalise the HIV/AIDS problem in the Northern Territory. You heard the first count yesterday. It is 3.5% to 4% on a fairly high statistical base. Of 180 perpetrators, if you like, 6 were druggies ...
Mr Bell interjecting.
Mr FINCH: ... yet you say that the program would slash drug-related property offences. However, that means that we would slash 3.5% of them. Even if drug-related offences were eliminated totally, 3.5% of the total is what you are talking about.
Mr Bell: 3.5% of 7000 is a few.
Mr FINCH: Mr Speaker, he lives in a dream world if he thinks that, all of a sudden, a drug user who goes onto methadone will stop committing property offences. He should ask the pharmacists interstate. In fact, he should talk to pharmacists in Alice Springs and Darwin. Talk to some of these people who have had first-hand experience. Ask them whether or not they are better off with the methadone in the safe. They will tell you that they are sick of having their premises broken into by methadone addicts as well as heroin addicts. The methadone addicts are not people who were suddenly made perfect overnight by giving them a swallow of syrup every day. That is the reality.
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The other reality is that, to date, there is a total of 4 HIV/AIDS victims in the Northern Territory who are intravenous drug users. We do not have anywhere near the problem that some might like to use as a justification for their programs in their own states. That is their business. We do not want methadone in the Territory, the community does not want methadone and the opposition's policies stink.
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, to correct the opening statement by the member for MacDonnell, we were not saying yesterday that there is no problem with illicit drug use in the Territory. That was not what we were saying at all. We were saying that members opposite have the wrong answers. Statistics and reports from police and others indicate that the level of the illicit drug problem in the Northern Territory, and Darwin in particular, has remained static over the last 5 years, and I said that yesterday. As for attributing some portion of the 4000 break-and-enters which I think the member quoted ...
Mr Bell: It was 3000 break-and-enters and 4000 stealing incidents.
Mr FINCH: Yes. From that total number, the statistics for the clean-up rates indicate that about 3.5% of the perpetrators of those break-and-enters and stealing offences are drug addicts. Is the honourable member trying to suggest that the unresolved level of property crime can be attributed entirely to addicts?
Mr Bell: Probably.
Mr FINCH: This is your problem. You have an enormous problem in that the only crutch ...
Mr Bell: No, you do. You are the minister.
Mr FINCH: You are the one with the bad policy that Territorians will not wear. They will not wear your pro- methadone policy, and for very good reason. It is because the only crutch you have to lean on, in trying to substitute an evil drug for an evil drug at the taxpayer's expense, is that you say that it will somehow miraculously stop crime overnight. Alternatively, somehow it will fractionalise the HIV/AIDS problem in the Northern Territory. You heard the first count yesterday. It is 3.5% to 4% on a fairly high statistical base. Of 180 perpetrators, if you like, 6 were druggies ...
Mr Bell interjecting.
Mr FINCH: ... yet you say that the program would slash drug-related property offences. However, that means that we would slash 3.5% of them. Even if drug-related offences were eliminated totally, 3.5% of the total is what you are talking about.
Mr Bell: 3.5% of 7000 is a few.
Mr FINCH: Mr Speaker, he lives in a dream world if he thinks that, all of a sudden, a drug user who goes onto methadone will stop committing property offences. He should ask the pharmacists interstate. In fact, he should talk to pharmacists in Alice Springs and Darwin. Talk to some of these people who have had first-hand experience. Ask them whether or not they are better off with the methadone in the safe. They will tell you that they are sick of having their premises broken into by methadone addicts as well as heroin addicts. The methadone addicts are not people who were suddenly made perfect overnight by giving them a swallow of syrup every day. That is the reality.
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The other reality is that, to date, there is a total of 4 HIV/AIDS victims in the Northern Territory who are intravenous drug users. We do not have anywhere near the problem that some might like to use as a justification for their programs in their own states. That is their business. We do not want methadone in the Territory, the community does not want methadone and the opposition's policies stink.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016