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Legislative Council 12/05/99 Drug Summit Hansard Extract Page:56 DRUG SUMMIT The Hon. J. J. DELLA BOSCA (Special Minister of State, and Assistant Treasurer) [12.54 p.m.] (Inaugural speech): I move: That the Legislative Council agree to the following resolution: (1) That this House, recognising the problem of the use of drugs in the community and its impact on society, agrees to hold a Drug Summit at Parliament House, involving members of both Houses of Parliament and invited community representatives, in order to: •create a better understanding by members of Parliament and the community of the causes, nature, and extent of the illicit drug problem, particularly in New South Wales; •better inform members of Parliament through a forum bringing together a range of drug experts and community representatives who reflect the spectrum of views on drugs; •hear and consider the views of young people; •examine existing approaches to the illicit drug problem and consider new ideas and new options in a bipartisan forum; •consider evidence regarding those strategies that work and those that do not, and, in particular, to consider: •the effectiveness of existing New South Wales laws, policies, programs and services, and •the effectiveness of current resource allocations in the drugs area; •identify ways to improve existing strategies and services that work and identify gaps and needs in programs and services; •build political and community consensus about future directions in drug policy; and •recommend a future course of action for the government to consider. (2) That the services of the Parliament of New South Wales be provided for the hosting of the Drug Summit from Monday 17 May 1999 to Friday 21 May 1999, with plenary sessions in the Legislative Council Chamber and working groups convening in the various meeting rooms. (3) That the summit be chaired by the Rt Hon. Ian Sinclair and the Hon. Joan Kirner, AM. (4) That members of both Houses attend as parliamentary delegates and fully participate in all proceedings in accordance with the proposed summit rules to be agreed on by the summit. (5) That non-parliamentary delegates and associate delegates, as invited by the Premier, be admitted to participate in plenary sessions and working group meetings in accordance with the rules to be agreed on by the summit. (6) That this House request the summit to provide a communique outlining an agreed framework and directions for the Government to consider. Madam President, let me first congratulate you on your election as President of the Legislative Council. I join with other members in wishing you all the best for a successful term in that position. Given that I am the Deputy Leader of the Government in this House and a Minister in the Executive Government, it is with a great sense of privilege that I make my maiden speech. In doing so I recognise the unusual circumstances surrounding such a speech, but I would be grateful for any courtesies the House might extend to me during my speech. In convening the Drug Summit the Government acknowledges that it faces one of the great challenges to it, the Parliament and the community. We must be realistic: there are no easy solutions, single approaches or magic cures to the problem of drug abuse or addiction. The summit will debate the key questions and popular issues. It will discuss at length the concern about heroin trials, the possible provision of free injecting rooms, and similar matters. The drug problem poses some of the most complex challenges in a community that is changing and shifting in values, and we must come to grips with that. The pervasiveness of this problem throughout society reminds me of previous history and concerns about governments and leaders trying to come to grips with previous plagues. When King Philip VI of France asked the medical faculty of the University Page 57 of Paris for an explanation for the black plague - later known as the bubonic plague - the doctors turned not to physiology, cures or methods of what we consider physical science but to the stars and the calendar. They came to the unanimous conclusion that the blame for the plague lay with the date: 20 March 1345. The great scientists concluded that on that day a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars had occurred in the fortieth degree of Aquarius. Apparently that was a bad omen! The physicians admitted also that there may be causes "hidden from even the most highly trained intellects", but amongst intellectuals the crossed stars theory became the accepted explanation throughout Europe for the Black Death plague. Indeed, that theory was not confined to Europe; the pamphlet produced from the meeting of Parisian physicians was translated from Latin into the various vernacular languages and widely distributed. Eventually it was adopted by the great Legislative Council Extract - Drug Summit - Wednesday 12 May 1999 Arabic scholars of Cordoba and Granada as the official explanation for the black plague. One thing that occurs to me about that anecdote is that we need not necessarily be comfortable when all the experts agree about a solution. It seems to me - and it may well be true - that the great plague was caused by a conjunction of the stars. However, if there had been a debate about other more earthly causes, including domestic hygiene, the prevalence of rats and other pests, perhaps the experts may have had other matters to consider and a great deal of suffering might have been prevented. Another thing that follows on from such an observation is that answers may well come from unexpected quarters; the application of commonsense and a little bit of simple thought about a problem may well result in a better solution than one involving complex theories. But, again, this demonstrates one problem that representative government and Executive Government face, not only in Australia and in New South Wales but throughout the world. There are all sorts of trends similar to the increasing problem of illicit drugs with which we have sought to come to grips. Some of those trends - described in different ways, depending on which point of view one adopts - are understood in different ways. We talk of economic globalisation, cultural globalisation and the mind-boggling array of economic and social changes being brought about by what we describe in shorthand as "information technology" and "telecommunication technology". A new millennial trend has started. It is a coincidence that this is all happening at a time when the calendar is literally changing to a new millennium and once again people are starting to use terms such as "revolution" with increasing frequency. People who are concerned talk about conspiracies, some of which are dark and some of which are benign. The common language of both politics and popular culture is often couched in terms of catastrophic events. One need only think about debates relating to ecological catastrophes, let alone recent additions to the cinema or popular culture involving comets yet again arriving from the skies to destroy all civilisation. I expect three things to come out of the Drug Summit. The first thing is an information base - something that the Premier has made clear on a number of occasions when dealing with this issue. It seems that the elementary facts about drug addiction or drug abuse elude most people. Indeed, they elude some or all members of this House. There are facts, many of which can be put simply and in a straightforward way, which give the community a much better understanding of the scope of the problem and perhaps enable people in the community who have more commonsense than all of us put together to start addressing the issue in a way that allows us to move forward. We need to put aside the two models that have dominated public debate about this issue. All of us have become familiar with those two models, and across the Chamber there are probably radically different views about them. Those two models are so-called harm minimisation and so-called zero tolerance. I use the term "so-called" because there are probably many legitimate points of view in between. The two models of harm minimisation and zero tolerance, while very useful to summarise, eventually become terms of abuse by one side or the other. They eventually become models that take away from a real understanding of the problem. Similar to the way the Parisian doctors were distracted by the stars in their theories about the way the stars worked, people can become distracted about the models they apply to understanding political and social problems. So we must accept that the summit will not necessarily provide an answer based on one of the models but may well start the process of breaking through both of the models as a way of understanding the ability of the community and the Parliament to get on top of the issues. On the other hand, people need to think about a rational discussion in the context of the drugs summit, in the Page 58 community and elsewhere. I have already said that we need an information base. Do we need a reduction in the level of passion? No! We need a transformation of that passion into solution-oriented passion rather than zero-sum passion, rather than expecting that someone will win the debate and there will be free heroin and free injection rooms or someone will lose the debate and there will be a greater concentration on total prohibition. I hope that all of us would not necessarily want that to be what the summit is about - supposedly a solution presented in a neat package.

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