Well the Federal Opposition has today unveiled its drugs policy in Melbourne, with a strong focus on law and order measures. The Labor leader Kim Beazley detailed a range of policy initiatives which he said his government would introduce if elected to power, including the establishment of new coast guard service, declaring community drug safety zones and confiscating the assets of people who profit from drugs, when they're convicted. Luisa Saccotelli was at the launch, and she joins us now in Melbourne.
Labor wants a new coast guard, drawing together coastal surveillance and protection resources.
Programs that are currently undertaken by Coastwatch and the Navy and Federal Police, they'd all be brought together to form this Coastwatch service, and how much that would cost of course we don't know. Then as we do know, Labor would confiscate the assets of drug profiteers, they've already signalled this, the pushers and the traffickers. And the burden of proof for who could be targeted will be the civil test based on the balance of probabilities. So that means that many more drug profiteers would wind up having their assets ripped off them, as Kim Beazley likes to put it. Then there is a focus on rehabilitation and drug treatment trials, and the creation of what Labor's calling new drug safety zones, where a lot more federal money would go into making neighbourhoods safer.