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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 405 ..

MS HORODNY: My question is to Mrs Carnell, Minister for Health. It has been brought to my attention by a client on the methadone program that it is still extremely hard to access methadone in the Civic area. Could you detail, for the Assembly, where methadone is available in the city and other central areas in Canberra?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I think that is the sort of question that should have been asked on notice, but I am very happy to tell Ms Horodny the sites which I know are available in Civic; and then I will see whether that is all of them. Obviously, we have a methadone clinic in the Civic Health Centre. That one is run by the Government. You would also be aware that there has been an extension of methadone places in community pharmacies, that is, the extension from 350 to 400 places that we announced in the last budget. There are community pharmacists who are willing to do it, who are properly trained and who have been identified across Canberra.

I understand that there has been some difficulty in getting a community pharmacy in the actual centre of Canberra that is willing to do so. I do understand, though, that the Canberra Arcade Chemist, over near the Canberra Club, is actually distributing methadone from that pharmacy. We have that pharmacy and the Civic Health Centre distributing in Civic at this stage. We would certainly like to have another pharmacy, possibly in Garema Place or that part of the world; but at this stage the pharmacists involved are not interested in being part of the program. I have to say we cannot make them if they do not want to. Equally, we have one pharmacy in Civic and the Civic Health Centre. That is one more outlet than we had before we put pharmacies into the program. We will certainly continue to urge other pharmacists to take up the challenge.

MS HORODNY: As a supplementary question: What other avenues are you exploring, given that you have presented some of the problems that exist at the moment in the central area?

MRS CARNELL: Ms Horodny may not be aware that under the legislation there are not any other options. Under our legislation, the only two outlets that are actually possible are health centres - and we already operate from our health centre in Civic - and pharmacies. There is not another option that is legal.

I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.

MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I would like to provide an answer to a question that Ms Horodny asked me on 20 February. It had to do with the inclusion of advertising material with registration renewal notices. Ms Horodny asked me under what arrangement this was done. There was some comment about whether the Government is very hard up and needs the revenue. Then she asked what arrangement the Government had with a particular company, named Ultra Tune, in this connection. Then, as a supplementary question, Ms Horodny asked what guidelines, ethical or otherwise, the Government uses to determine advertising or corporate sponsorship.

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