Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre

Consideration of Resolutions

Working Group No. 3 Health Maintenance And Treatment Services

Extract from Report of Proceedings of 05/20/99

(Page 220)

Ms MOORE: I move:

That recommendations 3.15 and 3.16 of Working Group No. 3 be agreed to.

I explain, for the benefit of those members of Working Group No. 3 who concede that these resolutions are different from the resolutions we agreed to in committee, that the resolutions committee amalgamated recommendations in the reports of working groups Nos 6 and 8. So the proposals of working group No. 3 were widened to include the concerns of working groups Nos 6 and 8. We are not about encouraging or condoning drug use. Much has been said about sending the wrong message, but I would like to say on behalf of those who support this proposal that the message we really want to send is one of tolerance, compassion, help for survival and keeping young people alive long enough for them to be able to come off drugs.

The trial of a safe injecting room would enable injecting to be carried out in a supervised environment rather than in public on the streets, where people are at risk of injecting fatal overdoses. It will increase safe disposal of syringes and needles instead of the present disposal in streets and parks. This is of particular concern to my constituents. Business, church and community leaders, as well as residents, have shown their support for the setting up of a safe injecting room because they find the situation in their neighbourhoods intolerable. A safe injecting room would make sterile equipment available to reduce the spread of blood-borne viruses, and that would save lives.

Probably the most important thing that the provision of safe injecting rooms would do is provide a gateway to treatment, counselling and rehabilitation for young people and promote increased contact with health services. This is of particular benefit for the most marginalised young people in our community. They are the ones who are injecting on the streets. Many other people do it at home, as delegates would know. The people this recommendation focuses on particularly - whether they can be found on the streets of King Cross, Darlinghurst, Redfern or other areas of Sydney and New South Wales - are the most marginalised people who need help. The Wood royal commission - Commissioner Wood has been part of this Summit - recommended this trial.

Mr ROWE: No. He did not. That is a lie.

Ms MOORE: Would Mr Rowe like to speak on this?

Mr ROWE: Yes, I would.

Ms MOORE: I would be delighted to hear his contribution when I am finished. The Wood royal commission recommended the trial of a safe injecting room and that led to the setting up of a joint parliamentary select committee. The committee heard not only from parents who had lost their children to drug overdoses but also heard about support from the New South Wales Law Society, the Australian Medical Association and the Bar Association among many groups that also supported the proposal.

The committee considered a recommendation that three sites could be set up. They were to be selected following full consultation with community representatives, local police, health and welfare organisations and they were to be subject to ongoing monitoring by an expert committee. This is a particularly important issue in my electorate, which includes Kings Cross and Redfern. It is important to include consultation and, indeed, the people who live in Redfern would like the injecting room to not be in a residential area. I know that consultation is also very important to the member for Cabramatta, who will probably also want to speak to this motion as she has proposed an amendment. I know that many people want to speak on this matter, which has been debated in Parliament previously.

In conclusion, I call upon everyone to be compassionate and support a practical response to a serious problem. The recommendation will improve the health and safety of drug users. It will reduce street injecting and needle disposal in people's neighbourhoods and, importantly, it will free the police to focus more resources on drug trafficking and drug supply. I commend the resolution to the Summit.

I have moved recommendations 3.15 together with recommendation 3.16. Recommendation 3.16 simply recognises that the smooth running of a trial safe injecting room would be assisted by giving police clear guidelines about how they should police nearby areas. Again, this is a practical matter. Guidelines have (Page 221) already been developed between the police and the Health Department in relation to needle and syringe exchanges and methadone clinics. These two recommendations go hand in hand.

Dr van BEEK: I second the motion. I have visited several injecting rooms where they are run in overseas countries. Despite the fact that I have worked out on the streets with drug users for more than 10 years, I found what I saw in each and every injecting room one of the most confronting scenes that I have ever come across. Frankly, I found it almost repugnant and it really brought home the shocking reality of what the drug problem is all about.

If people are quite sincerely concerned about the sorts of messages that injecting rooms might send to young people, I can only say that, if anything, these rooms are so far from glamorous environments that I would go so far as to say that it might almost be worth considering having young people attend the facilities to prevent them from taking up drug use. I feel very strongly that not only do these rooms not send the wrong message, but also they may well send the right message as to where drug use ends up or where it can end up.

I feel it is also necessary to say that the only thing that I have found more confronting and repugnant in my career on a day-to-day basis is when young people whom I have been managing over a period - sometimes years - have died. One of their friends would come in to Kirketon Road and say that they heard that a particular person died over the weekend. Nobody tells us this information officially: as I say, it comes via the grapevine. We ring the morgue to find out whether or not it is true, and it is not unusual for us to be asked to identify the body because a lot of these young people have been well and truly out of contact with their families for a long time.

When their parents have been contacted, on more than one occasion they have asked if they could take the young person's medical file home because that is the only tangible thing that they have to prove that their child was ever alive. That is a lot more repugnant than safe injecting rooms and, as much as I know that this is not a strategy that is going to be universally popular, I really feel that this is a moment for courage. I urge this Summit forward to consider what probably can best be described as a necessary evil. Safe injecting rooms are not something that should be in every suburb, but certainly where there is street injecting and a public order issue, I think this recommendation is well worth considering on a trial basis.

Motion by Mr Walsh negatived:

That amendments 1 and 2 be considered last, not first.

Mr FRASER: I move:

That recommendation 3.15 be deleted.

Injecting rooms send all the wrong signals. I have spoken to many addicts - including addicts to whom I spoke yesterday - parents of addicts and people very close to me, who have said that one of the major problems with the drug trade is that there is no support for them and support is not there when they need it.

The establishment of an injection room sends a signal that we will support addicts in their habits; we will not assist them to beat their habits. People have asked for more programs, more funding of programs and more placements on methadone treatment programs. They are unable to access those programs because they are chock-a-block. Are we saying that we need a safe - and that word is somewhat peculiar - injecting room because we cannot provide addicts with an alternative?

We must give addicts an alternative. This is not an alternative. Funding must be put back into programs that can and will work. We need properly constructed detoxification and rehabilitation centres right across the State. When addicts overdose, intentionally or otherwise, and are taken to hospital and revived, they are given an option: Do you want a relative notified? Their answer is no, because in many cases it is an embarrassment. They are asked: Do you want a detoxication or rehabilitation program? They say no, because their peers or suppliers are there to take them home and support them. Programs should be in place to support those people. (Page 222)
Prior to Christmas I called for compulsory notification of overdoses to detoxication and rehabilitation centres. I got bucketed in certain areas. But they should talk to addicts, as I did yesterday, and hear about the support they wanted and craved. They did not want a clean and safe injecting room, but the support to get them off the addiction was not there. The only support they had was from people saying, "Come back into the fold. Give us the money, we will give you the drugs." I draw the attention of the Summit to an article in a newspaper today from a Swedish expert. It states that these sorts of programs did not work overseas, that they created a major problem. Statistics could be found to support anything. I urge the Summit not to take the easy option. Put the money where it is required.

Mr STONER: I second the amendment. Over the last four days we have heard from a number of experts with a range of views about social experiments, such as safe injecting rooms. This resolution ignores the experience of many other countries, including Sweden, which, as Andrew Fraser stated, was reported in one of this morning's newspapers. The article states:

Supt Brannmark, who has been in the Swedish Police Service for 36 years, believes the only way to begin to solve the drug crisis is to rehabilitate addicts and stop today's children becoming tomorrow's users.

They get tough on the suppliers, manufacturers and importers of drugs but would "sentence" users to rehabilitation rather than jail.

"We never ever put anyone in prison just for using drugs," she said.
Sanctioning the use of illegal drugs through harm minimisation education policies, shooting galleries and prescribing heroin to addicts will only make the problem worse.

Supt Brannmark said shooting galleries may afford addicts a relatively safe area to get their fix but also provide a contained customer base for street-level dealers to prosper.

"Most of the heroin addicts, they are not using only heroin," Supt Brannmark told The Daily Telegraph.

They are using cocaine, methamphetamines, amphetamines, and cannabis as well.

"Even if you give them the heroin they will still want the rest of the drugs they are used to. So are you going to give them those drugs as well?"

I believe it was Einstein who said the definition of insanity was to keep doing the same painful thing over and over again in the hope that the outcome will be different. Let us not deliver an insane resolution and the wrong message to the young people of New South Wales. The message we need to get across is: "Don't get on drugs. If you already have, get clean and live a free and healthy life." This recommendation must be rejected.

Mr SOTIRIOU: The establishment of safe injecting rooms is a message to addicts not that you are going to accept their habit but that you care about them. This is an opportunity to reach those people who need help. Do not forget that youth have a mentality that they are invincible. If they feel they have no hope, they will not go and look for help. They will not go off the streets and pick up a phone. The majority of them will not go looking for services.

The establishment of safe injecting rooms is an opportunity to get in contact with the youth. When they are in the safe injecting rooms they will begin to feel safe, and that will provide an opportunity for experts or counsellors, the appropriate people in such areas, to try to communicate with them about altering their habits. Safe injecting rooms will minimise the harm that they inflict on themselves. Otherwise they will remain on the streets and, unfortunately, the majority of them will kill themselves. One further point, I do not know why you are trying to have Einstein on your side.

Mr PITTS: I am the General Manager of Odyssey House, one of the largest abstinence-based rehabilitation programs in the State. I have been involved in the drug and alcohol field for over 22 years. I will start and end with a quote. The first quote is:

In order to make progress it is necessary to change. If a person can't change their mind they can't change anything.

I was the co-facilitator of the Treatment and Maintenance Working Group from which this resolution came about. Some 10 to 15 years ago when the proposition about harm minimisation first came about as a result (Page 223)
of the establishment of the national campaign against drug abuse, I was vehemently against the idea of handing out needles and syringes. Yesterday Alex Wodak and I were joking about the fact that as the co-facilitator it was at my instigation that we tried to get this proposition agreed to.

Part of the difficulty is the nomenclature. One aspect we insisted on, and I insisted on personally, is that there not be too much concentration on the idea of safe injecting rooms. We proposed a health facility in which one of the activities that may take place would be the injection of drugs. But there was also an emphasis on it being a multi-modality service, a contact point for health facilities and counselling. I will end with this quote:

There is nothing more difficult to conduct or perilous to take in hand than the introduction of a new order of things for the proposition has for it enemies from all those who have done well under the old regime and lukewarm supporters who may do well under the new.

Mr CARR: I am speaking against the amendment. There is no-one more repelled by the whole business of injecting heroin than I. But the proposition is one that will be given the most careful and painstaking consideration by the Government. The question before us is what proposition it should be. I would want to consider over the next six weeks the proposition set out in recommendation 3.15 rather than the others indicated in the range of amendments before you. I speak in this debate to urge you to proceed to consider the proposition that the amendment asks you to jettison at this stage. The Government will be weighing all the considerations bearing on this very seriously. The last thing any government headed by me would do is take a decision that would make the situation on our streets facing your children worse than it is today. For that reason we will proceed with the utmost care to weigh all the propositions that you have laboured on for us.

This is a matter that must be faced up to. If there are activities taking place in parks and back lanes that the community wants to deal with in a better fashion, we will explore the options you put to us for dealing with it in a better fashion. I speak as someone whose repugnance for the whole business of injecting addictive poisons into people's bodies is as repulsive as anything I can contemplate, but we will give the fairest consideration to this as fashioned by this conference, to see that all the concerns and aspects of dealing with this horrendous problem are dealt with as fairly and critically as possible.

Ms McKAY: I take exception to the word "safe" and the assumption that drug users will inject heroin. My son was not a heroin addict. He got methadone. The third time he got it over the telephone and the fourth time he walked into a doctor's surgery. He had never seen the doctor in his life but he got rohypnol, rivotril and physeptone, which is methadone. He got those drugs cheaply; it cost him $3.20 to get the script for physeptone. It had taken us three years to get him really well. His tolerance was down. He went into a hotel. He died instantly. They told us his finger was still on the plunger. His heart stopped instantly; he would never be brought around.

If my son had died in the injecting room would I be able to sue the people? What would have happened? My son injected all sorts of stuff. He could not afford heroin - he would not go out and steal. He would inject anything. These kids will inject anything. The word "safe" upsets me. It is not safe. I would rather have these kids put in long-term rehabilitation, get their life back again. Have them alive, not existing. If we are to have injecting rooms - and it looks like it is a foregone conclusion - please take out the word "safe".

Reverend the Hon. F. NILE: The proposal in recommendation 3.15, the so-called safe injecting rooms, confirms the statement I made when we had the controversy over the Wayside Chapel shooting gallery. I said then, and it has been proved now, that this was designed to put emotional pressure on the delegates at this Summit to adopt this proposal. It must be clear: we all want to save the lives of young Australians. We all want to save lives, particularly drug addicts. That is the principle - there is no question about that. That is not to say that one group wants them to die and another group wants to save their lives.

Would no addicts ever die in this new shooting gallery? Can anyone give that guarantee? No. Would all drug addicts use these so-called safe injecting rooms? No. Would all addicts in the injecting room inject harmless drugs, safe drugs? No. I note that the Premier gave us an assurance that he would control this whole process. Mr Premier, the recommendation states that the Government should not veto proposals. This motion takes away your power. You are voting away your power. You are signing a blank cheque. I do not
(Page 224) know from your remarks whether you realise that. People are concerned about addicts and needles on the streets.

This sounds like a clean-up for the Olympic Games. Let us get all the addicts off the streets. Let us put them in these so-called shooting galleries. Let us make Sydney look nice. We do not care. As long as the drug addicts are out of sight when they are injecting the residents of Kings Cross are happy. We met some of the residents the other day. They want the addicts off the streets. They do not care whether the addicts are dead or alive. They do not want the needles or the addicts there - put them away. I want to save the lives of addicts. Put them into long-term rehabilitation programs. If they are so sick that they cannot make the decision, let us do it for them. If that means coercive or compulsory rehabilitation, that would be the way to go. I oppose the proposition and support the amendment.

Mr FRASER: Mr Carr said that this is something we have to face up to. I put it to you that what we need to face up to is that current programs are underfunded, too narrow and do not assist those who need them, that is, the addicts. I put it to you that the assumption that fewer addicts will die on the street is inaccurate. I put it to you that statistics that show us overdoses are often suicides. I can quote personal examples of that. I say to you all that this, to me, is an easy solution.

It is a solution that you shut the door on other solutions. You say that we have this in place and we do not need to fund proper rehabilitation, properly constructed programs, which are necessary. By saying that we have government-funded, community accepted injecting rooms, we are sending the message to young people that drugs are not too bad. We are all here because we have seen the personal, direct and community effects of this hideous problem. In closing I offer you another quote from Eva Brannmark, who said:

In the mid-1960s, Sweden dabbled with the idea of offering legally prescribed opiates and amphetamines.

Supt Brannmark, then working as a beat cop, said the policy was a disaster. Drug use soared, crime rates stayed the same, and any control the police once had was lost.

A few years and a number of drug-related deaths later, the government abolished the policy. But Supt Brannmark says Sweden is still paying the price 30 years later.

Do not let us have that happen here.

Amendment negatived.

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): Reverend Nile, I rule that your circulated amendment is covered by the decision we have just taken.

The Hon. J. RYAN: I move:

That recommendation 3.15 be amended by omitting "safe" from the heading and wherever else occurring and inserting instead "medically supervised".

I did not speak in the early debate, but I want to make it clear that I support a proposed trial of safe injecting rooms, as I said earlier. However, I was of the view that the word "safe" was something of a misnomer: anyone who injects heroin into his or her veins, no matter how clean the environment, is not doing something that is safe. I am not suggesting that the words "medically supervised" are the best words in the world, either, and I would be perfectly happy if someone were to come up with some other words at a better time.

We have to stop using the word "safe" because it misinforms the community. When the Government examines these proposals in the spirit suggested by the Premier, should these facilities open, I hope to God that addicts' lives will be saved and that they will be rehabilitated. I accept that it is an ugly proposition, but sometimes ugly propositions have to be embraced to get a better world - for example, war. Nobody likes killing, but sometimes we have to do it for a higher purpose. I sincerely hope that this works. I commend my amendment to the Summit.

Mr RICHMOND: I second the amendment.

(Page 225)

Ms MOORE: I accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr STEWART: I withdraw amendment No. 4.

The Hon. J. RYAN: I move:

That recommendation 3.15 be amended by deleting from the first line "proposals for trial in safe injecting rooms" and inserting instead "proposals for a tightly controlled trial of medically supervised injecting rooms in areas where there is a high prevalence of street dealing in illicit drugs.

The one signal I would not want to send to the community is that one of these places will open up on their doorstep at any time. In my view there is not a strong point for such facilities to be generally available, but they need to be available in hot spots in tightly controlled conditions. To ensure that the amendment is not misinterpreted, it is my intention to tighten the meaning of the motion so that it is not misunderstood that this is something that is coming to a town near you. It was not to become general policy throughout the State but a tightly controlled policy in response to a specific problem. The specific problem is in places where there is a higher prevalence of street dealing in illicit drugs, and we know where those sorts of places are. But it is something that will be seriously considered under tightly controlled conditions. That is the purpose of this amendment.

Mr BROGDEN: I second the amendment.

Ms MOORE: I do not accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): Senator Payne has queried the status of her amendment in light of the passage of the amendment we have just adopted. I suggest they are slightly different, although obviously the words that are particularly different are "no more than five strictly controlled and scientifically monitored and evaluated". The fact that she has included numbers renders the amendment different.

Senator PAYNE: I move:

That recommendation 3.15 be amended by:

adding after "The Government should not veto proposals for trialling" the words "no more than five strictly controlled and scientifically monitored and evaluated"
adding at the end of the first sentence after "community and local government level" the words "The trials should be fully scientifically evaluated after two years, and the results of the evaluation should be subject to consideration by a Joint Select Committee of the New South Wales Parliament."

Earlier today I said that I supported the introduction of safe injecting rooms, as they were then called, and I do. But I move this amendment to place a discussion of such trials in proper context, that is, to establish clear parameters as to the extent of monitoring, evaluation and duration of any trial. To that end I have suggested that there be no more than five trials, and I take up the Hon. J. Ryan's very constructive words in this regard: people should not expect them to pop up on every suburban street. It is a trial process. I have also suggested that they be strictly controlled and scientifically monitored and evaluated; that they receive a full scientific evaluation after two years, that evaluation to come back to this Parliament by way of a joint select committee. The amendment retains the community consultation inherent in the original motion. It involves local agencies, the NGOs, volunteers and community organisations. Medically supervised injecting rooms are not the only solution. They are not the only answer. But they are part of the response to a very complex problem that requires appropriate responses at several levels from the most marginalised members of the community - and this is what we are talking about when we talk about the use of medically supervised injecting rooms - with absolutely no support in their lives to the other end of the spectrum of drug users. I (Page 226) hope that this amendment, which will provide those parameters for a trial, will put it in a framework that will enable delegates to consider supporting it.

The Hon. P. FORSYTHE: I second the amendment.

Dr WEATHERBURN: This is just a small point, but you will really tie the hands of the evaluator if you commit to a number of safe injecting rooms now that are to be evaluated. I would urge you to consider something like "a small number". At this stage of the game, not knowing what the research design would be - and I hope this job does not fall to me - to say "five" might really put the evaluator in a delicate position.

Ms TOOHEY: That would be one million people per injecting room; five million people in New South Wales, five injecting rooms. That is my understanding of what is being proposed, that is, five injecting rooms to be trialled. Let us say users want to come, you have to access about one million people.

Senator PAYNE: I take Mr Weatherburn's point. I thought that the figure of no more than five was a small number. I am happy to accede to an amendment from the floor of a small number, strictly controlled, if that is more appropriate.

Amendment negatived.

Ms MEAGHER: I move:

That recommendation 3.15 be amended by deleting "preferably" and inserting instead "subject to a formal poll of the defined local community areas which is to be by the Local Council".

The amendment acknowledges that the scope and magnitude of heroin problems differ from community to community. The amendment gives communities the right to have a say about whether they want that facility in their area. It gives the community the right to acknowledge that a safe injecting room is an appropriate harm minimisation strategy, given the nature of the problem in that community. However, it also gives the community the right to say no. I was a member of the Joint Select Committee into Safe Injecting Rooms that took evidence on the trial of safe injecting rooms. The first thing that concerned me was that when people talk about trialling safe injecting rooms, they talk about Cabramatta. The Cabramatta community has been canvassed broadly on this issue time and again and has overwhelmingly rejected it. I support that position. However, my community is not the sum total of the heroin problem in New South Wales and I acknowledge that other communities may differ.

Some statistics from the Kings Cross area show that a vast majority of residents have indicated that they see a safe injecting room as an appropriate strategy to manage the heroin problem in their community. Give those people the opportunity to express their support in a formal poll after an appropriate community action plan has been developed. Give the community ownership and if that is the way they want to go, then we must support that trial.

Ladies and gentlemen, what is appropriate in Kings Cross may not be appropriate in Cronulla, Newcastle or Cabramatta. The overwhelming evidence that came before the committee on safe injecting rooms is that if these trials are to be successful they require the community to support them. That is why we need to fully gauge each community's support. I urge you to support my amendment. It will also go a long way towards alleviating the debate that will inevitably ensue after this evening's resolution about it being the thin edge of the wedge.

If we empower local communities to say no when this proposition involves their area, we will then be able to smooth a trial into the Kings Cross area because if any other area is mentioned, people will know that as individuals they are empowered to determine the kind of facilities that will exist in their areas.

Mr McBRIDE: I second the amendment. There was extensive discussion in our group as to how we should deal with this proposal and how it should be accepted by the community. We talk about community consultation. Those of you who have had experience with local government community consultation, State Government community consultation and Federal Government community consultation will realise that (Page 227) basically it is those stakeholders and those with an interest in pushing the proposal who actually are the "community" that is consulted. That has been my experience as a State member of Parliament and through being involved with local government. I have never been in Federal Government but I have observed it at the Federal Government level.

I mentioned this concern in my opening address at the commencement of this Summit on Monday. We have to change community attitudes. We have not achieved that yet. My challenge to those people who support the trial of injecting rooms is this: you have to convince the community, that is, the public out there, not those who are in this Chamber, that what you are doing is right for the community. If your argument is right, you have to convince the community. Then you fairly test it with the community by allowing them to pass judgment. Within the Local Government Act there is already an instrument that allows this to happen. If you believe this is the right thing to do, convince the community, go through all the consultation processes, but at the end of the day do what we are going to do: give the community a vote.

Mr ASHTON: Members and delegates, the decision with regard to recommendation 3.15 already encompasses a great deal of community involvement in the decision making. The amendment moved by the member for Cabramatta relates specifically to an issue in her area. If the amendment is agreed to, we might as well have not bothered with the last four days here. I am only a new member of Parliament and I have never seen a Summit like this before. I will say this in another place, but the Federal Government should consider this matter as well because we must have an Australia-wide process.

We have heard from police, ministers, nurses, doctors, unionists, educators, drug addicts and recovering drug addicts at this Summit. Some of the best performances were delivered by two students. I hope Kate also goes to a government school; that will make me feel even better. What worries me is that this amendment suggests that we should forget that the Summit includes people from the State Government, the State Opposition, addicts and people who know about these things and that we should throw it down to local councils. I have been on a council for 14 years and not one council I can think of would carry this resolution.

Mr DEBNAM: Why not?

Mr ASHTON: Because once you put anything back to a local street, they will say, "Not in my backyard". I do not mind being controversial. The point I am making is that a couple of years ago the State Government made a decision about legalising brothels in certain areas, it was put to councils and every council objected to it. If you are silly enough to carry this at the end of the night, you will have wasted four days and the time of your working groups.

Mr K. JONES: In the past four days I have spent here in Parliament House I have heard many times the phrases, "What message are we sending society? What message are we sending young people? What message are we sending the community in general?" I want you to think deeply about this: What message are the young people sending us? Have you missed the message in trying to score political points? I ask you to consider just that.

Mr Phil O'GRADY: I support Reba Meagher and what she is trying to do for Cabramatta. I am well aware of that area as I have known it for 40 years. I know how the council works at times, which is often very difficult. Reba gets the complaints dumped on her. It is her problem and people expect her to have the answer. I would like to tell you what has happened at Merrylands. There is a proposal by that council to dump two methadone clinics on the boundary of Fairfield and Merrylands to get them out of its street. The people did not want them, but the aldermen voted to dump them there so that when they bought lunch and shopped in Merrylands they did not have that problem. I support Reba's remarks. She has a difficult problem. We ought to let her influence us because she is speaking on behalf of the people.

The Hon. H. TSANG: I am also a newly elected member of Parliament in the upper House. I support this motion because if we want a successful trial, it must be in those places where the people want it to happen. I understand that we need to save young children. The best chance for a trial to survive is in Kings Cross. If you have it in Cabramatta where the people do not want it, it will not be successful. I strongly support the amendment to allow the local people to decide. The Indo-Chinese do not want drugs in Cabramatta. They do not want people to deal in Cabramatta. If they are not successful with getting dealers (Page 228) off the street, they certainly do not want trials in Cabramatta. If you want a successful trial, have it in Kings Cross and not in Cabramatta.

Mr GRIEW: This amendment to recommendation 3.15 is incredibly important. I make it very clear that whichever way this goes, I will vote for recommendation 3.15 as amended. I understand absolutely as I am sure any of us involved in advocacy for safe injecting rooms and service providers understand what the member for Cabramatta is saying. We would not advocate it in an area that did not have community support. My concern is entirely about whether a formal poll is actually the best way to establish that community support. It seems that community drug action plans as articulated and as we have grappled with that concept over the last four days with partnership between communities, service providers, police, other parts of the community and users is a much better mechanism to actually grow a consensus from the ground up.

I am profoundly worried about the potentially divisive effects of formalising a poll. I totally understand and would not advocate in an area where there was not community support and a clear plan linking the service to other services and all the things that have been talked about. That is covered in the motion, as is the possibility of a poll if that is the best mechanism locally. To enforce a poll is potentially profoundly divisive and unhelpful. However, as I said, I will vote for this recommendation, whichever way it goes.

In the remaining time I would like to recount to you again that after four days and a long conversation with Brian Watters and Ingrid van Beek earlier today, the three of us come from different parts of this debate. Our conversation was about how much we agreed on, whether it was 90 per cent or 95 per cent. There is an increment of difference and whether we call it Christian compassion or harm minimisation, the words are potent. I stress that what we have is actually a description of an increment of growth on mechanisms that we have all supported with very good intent. I appreciated that dialogue.

Mr P. WOODS: I suggest that it is necessary to go back and look at all the words. In the working party it was felt necessary in order to overcome some of the difficulties to put forward some words such as, "subject to a formal poll in a designated area". However, the drafting party has included a range of things including, "submitted to full public and community consultation processes such as those in urban planning law and preferably a local poll". So, in other words, it is giving the discretion to the local government in consultation with the people to ascertain the extent of that process. I believe local government needs to stand clearly in partnership with the State Government to ensure that this procedure is able to be enacted.

We should not shirk from our responsibilities and take some wishy-washy position. I can point to a number of areas where local governments and their communities will fully endorse the establishment of injecting rooms so that the process can be properly and objectively assessed. I would say also that with local governments who are not like other parties - a mob of drongos - there seems to be an obsession with my constituency at the moment, but I assure you that I will be round for a while. There are areas where these rooms can be established and they will be established with the support of the communities. I urge the original proposition.

Mrs CHIKAROVSKI: I find myself in an unusual position in that I agree with the member for Cabramatta. We have spent the last four days in this forum talking about the need for whatever we do to be supported by the community of New South Wales; indeed, importantly by those communities most directly affected. How can we possibly suggest to a community that we should be putting into that community something which it does not support and is not prepared to welcome, something for which it is not prepared to say, "We believe this is an important part of our community"? If the community is not prepared to take it, you are setting it up for failure. If a community is not prepared to accept an injecting room, there will be continued objection to its operation and it will fail. I have strong reservations about the whole concept of injecting rooms.
I have had those reservations from the time this debate started and throughout this week, and I am still not persuaded that injecting rooms are an appropriate response to the problem of what is to be done about drugs. Having said that, if this recommendation to allow an injecting room into any community is passed the community must be given the right to decide not only to allow it but also to support it. Failure to do so will mean that the approach will fail.

Reverend CREWS: One of the first things I learned in anti-drug education was that most people have an attitude, and to change that attitude the behaviour has to be changed. We are only talking about a small (Page 229) number of injecting rooms. Once the community realises their benefits, that is when attitudes change. It may be better to have consultation two or three months after they are set up because by that time people will have seen whether they are of benefit. To decide now that everybody will say "No" could destroy something which will do the community a great deal of good.

Ms MEAGHER: Most of the drug and alcohol workers in this room, who deal with addictions, and the politicians have been locked in here for nearly three days discussing the issue and we are all a little desensitised. The vast majority of people in the community are scared of addiction, needles and safe injecting rooms. If we are serious about getting a trial up and running, that fear has to be alleviated. The best way to alleviate that fear is to empower people who do not want a safe injecting room to say "No." Furthermore, if we are serious about running a safe injecting room, of course the State Government will have to work in partnership with local government. The speaker who said that it is throwing it into the backyard of local government is wrong because any trial will require an amendment of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking (Amendment) Act. Politicians will have to take some responsibility for any proposed trial.

I ask people to stop and think about the matter because it is not about us feeling good about trying to come up with harm minimisation strategies; we have to manage community fear and resistance. I am keen to have a trial in Kings Cross because the Kings Cross community feel that it is an appropriate service. So it is not argued that it is the thin edge of the wedge, and we generate community fear, people must be empowered to say "No" to having an injecting room in their community.

Question - That the amendment be agreed to - put.

A count was ordered. The result was 83 ayes, 92 noes.

Amendment negatived.

Ms MOORE: in reply: I thank delegates. We have made a truly historic decision here tonight. I commend you all. As both Ingrid van Beek and the Premier said, we are dealing with something really confronting and very abhorrent to many people but it is a very real problem in our society. We have been working on it all week and now we are doing what we said we would do at the beginning of the work: We are showing courage and we are moving forward. I particularly thank the Premier. Tonight he has shown real leadership, and I commend him for that. The majority of delegates have shown tolerance and compassion. You are showing that you want to keep young people alive so that they can be rescued. I commend you all for that. I commend the motion to you all.

Reverend the Hon. F. NILE: Mr Chairman, can I call for a counted vote and division on this most important motion?

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): No, you cannot. Under the Summit standing orders, if there has been a show of hands and you dissent from the outcome, you can call for the show of hands to be counted, but not otherwise.

Recommendation 3.15 as amended agreed to.

++++++++++++++++++++

Reverend the Hon. F. NILE: Mr Chairman, under the rules I call for my name to be recorded as -

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): No, there were more than two votes. Therefore you cannot have your name recorded. I have received two amendments to recommendation 3.16. I am sorry that I did not have the second one before me when we commenced the proceedings. I would have dealt with the first one differently had I known about the other amendment. I apologise to the Summit for that. The first amendment would delete recommendation 3.16. I call Mr Andrew Fraser to move that amendment.

Mr FRASER: I move:

That recommendation 3.16 be deleted.

(Page 230) I ask some questions that I believe are very pertinent. What are appropriate protocols? Are appropriate protocols having police turn a blind eye to the importation, sale and distribution of heroin and other drugs, or merely heroin? If that is the case, they would be breaking the law. Can we bring in protocols and give the police an opportunity to operate under a protocol legally? Is the protocol contrary to a law that says that you cannot sell or distribute heroin? If that is so, the recommendation carries no weight. I would therefore suggest to you that if the Summit accepts the recommendation it will be asking police officers to break the law. Was that not what the Wood royal commission was about - officers acting illegally and improperly? Yet, because of a motion or motions passed with some division - a fairly close division I would suggest, because of the composition of the Summit - we as a Summit are going to request that those officers support a protocol asking them to turn a blind eye to or not support laws passed by the Parliament, previously and currently. How would the protocol be applied? If someone is picked by police in the northern suburbs and says, "The heroin with me is being taken over to a safe injecting room at Kings Cross" in what position is the officer placed? Does he make a judgment? What if someone boards a plane at Coffs Harbour with heroin in his pocket and says, "I am going to a safe injecting room"? These are hypotheticals but at the end of the day we are asking police officers to adopt protocols which are opposite to their sworn duty. I ask that the Summit reject the recommendation.

Mr STONER: I second the amendment.

Ms MOORE: Recommendation 3.16 goes hand in hand with recommendation 3.15, which we have just voted on. As I said before, it simply recognises that the smooth running of a trial of a safe injecting room would be assisted by giving the police clear guidelines about how they police nearby areas. This is a practical matter and guidelines of this type have already been developed between the police and the Health Department in relation to needle and syringe exchanges and methadone clinics. I am proposing that the same approach be adopted.

Mr FRASER: in reply: The mover of the motion just said that this gives clear guidelines. It does not; it gives appropriate protocols. I do not think that they are anywhere near the same.

Amendment negatived.

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): I understand that Reverend the Hon. F. Nile wishes to move an amendment.

Reverend the Hon. F. NILE: I will not move the amendment.

Recommendations 3.15 as amended and 3.16 agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

(Short adjournment)

CHAIR (The Rt Hon. I. Sinclair): As delegates would be aware, tomorrow morning we will debate a communique. I formally table a communique received from the Special Resolutions Group, which will be distributed to give delegates an opportunity to consider and determine it.

Document tabled.

Text Taken From NSW Drug Summit 1999 Website -

http://203.147.254.2/NSWDS/NSWDrugSummit.nsf/ArticleLookUp/A052199N10Recommendations

and

http://203.147.254.2/NSWDS/NSWDrugSummit.nsf/ArticleLookUp/A052099N52

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