Rich Katherine: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Rich Katherine: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21487] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I thought the contribution from the Associate Minister of Health was most unhelpful. If anybody is attempting to score political points on this issue it was quite clear from that last contribution that the Minister was attempting to score political points. He has to look at himself in terms of the amount of hysteria he has created over this issue by making such contributions. Mr Williamson in undertaking a huge amount of constituency work in his electorate sees at the front line the sort of problem that these drugs create. I think his contribution was very well-thought-out and raised some pretty important questions that the Minister did not deal seriously with in his contribution. 
Many of the issues that come to Parliament are incredibly serious but if we have a Minister who reacts to polls public hysteria or a lack of evidence about particular drugs a whole bunch of things that have a normal commonplace use will be banned. Imagine if the Government decided to do a poll on the use of hairspray or some nail polish removers! We get the impression from this Government that if a poll indicated that something was a point of huge concern to the public a Minister would make a change and ban a whole group of products for which there was no evidence of harm. We are saying that knee-jerk reactions can be dangerous. Although the Minister in the chair might have huge confidence in his colleagues around the Cabinet table that confidence is not shared by the rest of the country. We will have instances whereby Ministers for the sake of a poll or for the sake of looking like they are doing something want to ban products that have quite innocuous uses. 
It has been suggested that this measure go back to the select committee. Well we all know that the Government has the numbers on select committees. A select committee will not raise pertinent issues with or point out issues to a Minister who is hell-bent on changing the status of a particular substance. A select committee will not tell the Minister that he is nuts that he should not make those changes and that frankly there is no evidence that certain things should be banned. So the measure would come back to Parliament. Frankly no one will stand in the way of a Minister who wants to react to what he sees as an issue for the public. 
We need to make decisions on banning substances based on scientific evidence. So far when it comes to party pills we have not seen any scientific evidence. We have had a whole host of anecdotal incidents where party pills have been proved to be the problem. It is usually a mixture of substances. Sure those incidents are very concerning to any parent but the role of Parliament and the role of any Minister is to look carefully at the science the evidence and the information before making a considered decision. 
The contribution from United Future is interesting. I think many of that party’s amendments are more to do with a fear that cannabis will be legalised. I do not see that as being an issue. 
One of the things that we are seeing is a bill to raise the legal age for the purchase of liquor and I think people should consider how they will vote on it. Many members in this Parliament will vote for 18-year-olds to be able to buy party pills but then will raise the age at which people can buy alcohol. There is certainly more evidence about alcohol than there is about party pills. 
We cannot have knee-jerk reactions to those sorts of issues. We must act in a timely fashion but with evidence so that hysteria is not the basis for our making decisions about substances; otherwise we will see a whole bunch of wacky decisions being made driven by Ministers who want to react to public concerns about a particular issue that have no evidence to back them up. Yes P has been an issue but I do not think anything the Government could have done would stop it.