I rise to support this motion, mainly because I don’t think we have had a serious discussion and political debate about whether hard drugs like ice, meth, cocaine and heroin should be decriminalised in this country. I certainly didn’t have on my 2023 bingo card that, by the end of the year, hard drugs in this country would be decriminalised in any state or territory jurisdiction. I can’t remember a significant debate about this issue. There has obviously been a debate about injection rooms and a debate about marijuana, and they have been well discussed, but I don’t think anybody thought that, within this calendar year, we would somehow have a situation where in our nation’s capital—or any jurisdiction, for that matter, in this country—people could have lethal amounts of ice, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines and simply pay the equivalent of a parking fine for it. That is what the ACT government has passed and, if nothing else happens, that is what will be the law in the ACT come the end of this month—in fact, in less than two weeks time, on 28 October.
As other speakers have said, as a parent, I am very concerned about these changes. I have five children. One of your greatest fears as a parent is if any of your children were to succumb to the evil of drug addiction. It is a shocking virus that affects too many in our country. Those hard drugs, in particular, cause so much damage. They cripple people’s lives. They destroy people’s lives and they destroy the families of those who are touched by these drugs.
Decriminalising in this way somewhat normalises this behaviour, and we should never seek to normalise the use of these kinds of hard drugs, given how devastating they are to people’s health and given the impact on the loved ones of people who use these drugs. It needs to be stressed that the changes that the ACT government has put in place mean that somebody who is caught carrying these drugs—and, as I said, they amount to many times the lethal dose of those drugs under this legislation—if you have that small but still lethal amount of those drugs, you will, in effect, pay less than you would if you parked in the wrong place in the ACT. It is less than a parking fine here.
I think it is important to think about how we feel about a parking fine. I’ve had a parking fine before—I put my hand up—and I have had speeding fines. Yes, I have done the wrong thing—I admit it. But very few of us think that we have actually committed a crime when that happens. We are frustrated with our behaviour and we get disappointed with the fact that we have to pay sometimes large fines and lose points if it is a speeding violation. But it is not seen as criminal activity; it’s seen as kind of a human error. While we all, I am sure, strive to not speed or park illegally, there is no real social contagion from the issue. It is not deemed to be something out of the ordinary; everybody pretty much does it at different times. So, if we make a certain activity on a par or, in this case, far less than committing a parking violation, I think we therefore give a certain social licence from the government that acting in this way is not proscribed.
There is more at play here than just whether something is illegal or legal or exactly how much the fine is for it. There is a social stigma here around the use of hard drugs, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It probably deters some people from using those drugs because there is such a stigma associated with it. It provides a warning signal, especially to young people and often vulnerable people—at vulnerable times in their life—that maybe they should think twice about resorting to hard drugs, because there is such a social stigma about it, it is a criminal activity and they will potentially face significant penalties.
Keep in mind that very often those penalties are not applied, certainly with softer drugs like marijuana. I don’t think it is legal in any jurisdiction yet—not for recreational use—but people don’t tend to be arrested for it or put away for it.
I still think there is value in having severe penalties in place to create that stigma around hard drugs so fewer Australians succumb to the vile addiction that they present. I think those arguments many Australian parents would agree with. Most would be shocked that the ACT government has decided to do this.
We hear this evening that we have no rights here, that the Commonwealth should not be involved because the ACT Legislative Assembly, as a sovereign democratic body, has chosen to do this and therefore should be allowed to proceed. I think there are a few very important reasons why this case does require a greater degree of oversight from the Commonwealth government. I will go through those reasons but, if nothing else, as a Commonwealth, we have a duty of care to the employees of Commonwealth government agencies that will be affected by these laws and who do not seem to have been consulted or involved in their construction.
The ACT government does not have its own police force. These laws will not be enforced by ACT government employees; they will be enforced the Australian Federal Police, and the Australian Federal Police are employed under Commonwealth legislation. We have heard from others in this debate how the Australian Federal Police are somewhat perplexed by these laws. They are a little confused as to how they will be applied and how they could potentially conflict with Commonwealth laws, and that puts them in a dangerous position. It also potentially exposes them to greater risk because there is obviously a risk that criminals will seek to abuse the situation here in the ACT and expand their evil business models. That will put Australian Federal Police at greater risk in having to deal with such criminals who oftentimes resort to violence. So we have a duty of care here, at the very least, to those employees of the Commonwealth to have the investigation that Senator Cash has brought forward to this place so that we can fully understand what those risks are to those employees. That would seem to make a lot of sense.
There is also here an issue of the reputation of our national capital. We have provided the ACT government with a variety of self-government rights to run services throughout the ACT. I think that is right and proper that they have that self-determination. But the ACT still has a special role within our country. It is our nation’s capital, and the Commonwealth government does still reserve certain rights around the capital. It isn’t true to say the ACT government can do whatever it likes, even with the absence of Commonwealth legislation. There are various parts of the ACT that remain under the administration of the National Capital Authority and, therefore, under Commonwealth government agencies because it is our nation’s capital. This parliament and its surrounds are part of that jurisdiction that remains in Commonwealth hands.
This particular change proposes so great a risk to the reputation of our nation’s capital that it is worthy of us to look into these laws that seem to have been rushed through the ACT parliament. We don’t want our nation’s capital to have the reputation as the nation’s drug capital and that is clearly a risk here. Others have quoted the shocking descent that we have seen happen to various American cities that have either decriminalised or are failing to enforce drug laws. I don’t think we see anything like that in this country, notwithstanding way too high uses of illicit drugs. But there is a risk that the streets of Canberra will become like the streets of San Francisco. Because this is our national capital, I don’t want Australia to suffer that reputational damage unnecessarily, and certainly not without looking at the issue very clearly and in a detailed fashion.
The ACT is not an island, as Senator Scarr said, quite rightly. In fact, it borders many other large population centres in New South Wales—growing centres in Queanbeyan and Jerrabomberra, Yass and Murrumbateman to the north, and any legalisation or decriminalisation of hard drugs here obviously has potential impacts on the communities of those regional New South Wales towns. Those people in those towns have no votes in the ACT Legislative Assembly. They get no votes to elect members of the ACT Legislative Assembly yet they, potentially, and I think quite clearly, face a risk of being impacted by the fallout from these laws. So that’s another reason why we should have an investigation here, where representatives of those communities and towns from New South Wales can have their particular concerns put on record about any of the changes in these laws.
The final reason I want to raise is that this appears to be, once again, where the ACT Legislative Assembly have rushed through laws. My understanding is that it was a private member’s bill brought forward that led to this—that is, what I think are the most radical drug laws in this country and some of the most radical in the world. Therefore, it presumably did not follow proper cabinet processes that would normally occur for a bill from a government. It seems to have come out of the blue a little bit and been rushed to implementation. It’s not clear why the ACT government has put a date of 28 October for its implementation, which is only a matter of weeks after the legislation passed the ACT Legislative Assembly. They’re giving very little time for police forces and other agencies affected to respond to any implications.
This is not an isolated example from this particular ACT Legislative Assembly. They’ve done similar dirty deeds around the Calvary hospital where they rushed through that legislation. There was no specific inquiry into that particular legislation. I think this activist ACT government is putting Canberra’s reputation for good governance here in the territory at grave risk. Because it is a unicameralism parliament there, the government is completely in charge of the ACT Legislative Assembly. There is no review body, and I think we, here, in the Senate, should take that issue up as well. Of all the parliamentarians here in Canberra, we, I think, would understand and cherish the need for review of serious and radical legislation, and when we act at our best—
Senator Shoebridge: Queensland.
Senator CANAVAN: I will take that interjection, Senator Shoebridge. I completely agree with you about the issue in Queensland as well. I’ve supported, publicly, many times the creation of the upper house there. And the ACT is not being singled out—we often have Senate inquiries into state government activities. We are still conducting one on the Olympics. In regard to the Queensland government, I remember the Labor Party pursuing the Newman government for many years, through a Senate inquiry here, into their activities. So it’s not unusual at all, and, as a member of the Senate, I think good Westminster governance does require the checks and balances of multiple chambers of parliament so that you do not get these radical experiments that can cause so much harm and damage from time to time. So that’s another reason I think that we should look into this as the Senate. There is no Senate in the ACT. There has been no proper non-partisan inquiry in their legislative assembly.
Finally, I think if we don’t do this, if we wash our hands of this situation, as the government seems inclined to do, any particular fallout from these laws has to be partly the responsibility of this government too. I think the government here are running scared on this issue. None of them are giving fulsome support to the ACT government’s changes. I would think it would be political suicide to do so. As I said, if parents in this country understood what was going on here they would revolt right across the country. So they’re not giving any fulsome support to it. They’re washing their hands, as the nation’s parliament, as ultimately the government in charge, in providing a check and balance to territory governments under our Constitution. They’re washing their hands of that responsibility and, therefore, if there is a fallout—if there is an increase in drug addiction in the ACT, a breakdown in social standards and behaviours, an increase in risk to our police forces, if that happens in this territory—then some of that blame has to fall at the feet of the Albanese government, who are failing to take their responsibilities seriously under this Constitution. There is nothing wrong with a Commonwealth government checking and overseeing laws of this radical nature passed by a territory. It’s how our federation is meant to work. I would hope this motion gets support. It is simply an inquiry to look into these grave risks from these radical laws which could cause so much harm to many Australian families.
