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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 3066 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I remember saying naively at the time to one of my health advisers, "Well, given that we are giving them this methadone, which is not a very nice drug in itself, why don't we just make heroin available, at least at some stage of the process?" The answer was simply: "Because we cannot," and that was the situation. Subsequently, the methadone program was expanded a number of times and more people were able to get involved in the program either on a maintenance basis or on the basis of rehabilitation, and the rest is history.

We moved to the provision of methadone in the private sector, which I opposed at the time. I think it is going pretty well, but I still maintain that there were some aspects of the public sector management of methadone which might have been more helpful to people dependent on heroin. Nevertheless, that is history and we have moved on.

I think I was the first person to raise at a national forum the issue of a heroin trial. From memory, this matter was raised at a ministerial conference in Sydney in about late 1991. I can still remember the wide eyes around the room at the suggestion of such a step. At that time I said, "It's time we started discussing this because sooner or later we are going to have to change the way we deal with this issue."

Here we are 11 years or so down the track and not a lot has changed, except for community attitudes. I think community attitudes have changed a lot. There is a wide recognition that we have got to do something different to what we are doing now, otherwise we will be in effect heading nowhere.

This brings me back to the referendum. Well, what will it prove? It will not prove a thing because it is a plebiscite. We have heard all the discussion about how and when people may or may not take notice of a plebiscite. I have heard the Liberals say that they will abide by the plebiscite, whatever the result. Before the last election I heard them say something about Actew not being on the agenda, so I do not have any confidence that they would ever stick to that sort of promise. It is too difficult for them to go to the electorate and tell them exactly what they stand for on this issue.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have long been an opponent of willy-nilly referenda to sort out problems that politicians find difficult to deal with. I have always been of the view that people ought to declare themselves clearly and openly, subject themselves to the scrutiny of the community at an election, and then, hopefully, after the election move to implement whatever it is they say they stand for. That is what I have always tried to do, and I think that is quite applicable in this case. I welcome Mr Moore's continuing commitment to that approach.

Mr Deputy Speaker, there is a bit of an attraction in having a referendum on this issue because I think it would travel alright. But I have this overriding concern about a principle which I just cannot breach. I flirted publicly with the idea of introducing a referendum on abortion. I knew that such a subject would travel well in a referendum. But I cannot breach the principle that I hold in respect of referenda, no matter how attractive it might be to do so.

Abortion is a difficult issue for some of us to deal with because of the varying positions that are held. I have three issues in my mind. One is whether the people support the clinic in the ACT. It is a question of whether people will stand up for the decriminalisation of

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