Page 2481 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019

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It is critical that a comprehensive drug strategy action plan consider how to include members of our community who are unable to access voluntary treatment. Young people who are trapped in complex substance use disorders are Canberra’s children, our children.

We in this Assembly constantly talk about making policies for all Canberrans. What about these young Canberrans who are fighting through life with drug addiction? These are boys and girls, some as young as 13 years, who have made one mistake in their life and are now hooked on drugs. Their normal lives have been replaced by the need to get the next fix, including turning to law breaking to fuel the never-ending drug addiction craving. Parents have said to me that they are watching their children slowly killing themselves.

This is a crisis in our society, a crisis that is on our front doorsteps. These are Canberra’s children, our children, and we have a drug strategy action plan that identifies young people as a “priority population” and then almost never mentions them again. As Magistrate Bowles has noted:

A valuable opportunity to assist them whilst they are young, and the rehabilitative prospects are potentially at their greatest [is] being lost.

Why are we letting them fight on their own? I fear that we are failing these young people and their families and we will continue to fail them if we do not act now and seriously explore the full range of options. These children and families are in need of a system that works for them and they deserve it.

MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety, Minister for Health, Minister for Urban Renewal) (11.34): I thank Mrs Kikkert for bringing the motion before us today. This motion does indeed touch on some of the complex issues that young people and families in our community are forced to grapple with daily, and I appreciate Mrs Kikkert’s concern for those families and the passion with which she speaks about some of the very difficult and complex circumstances that families in our community are facing.

I share the commitment that this motion articulates, to helping young people who have drug and alcohol problems, and their families. I can assure Mrs Kikkert, and all in this place, that the ACT government is committed to evidence-based interventions to reduce the harm of drugs and alcohol in our community and has led the nation in many of its approaches. To this end, the government will always engage with those who bring forward well-thought-out and evidence-based approaches to helping families and young people affected by drugs.

I thank Mrs Kikkert for highlighting the work of Magistrate Jennifer Bowles who, as part of her 2014 Churchill fellowship, produced the report What can be done? Residential therapeutic treatment options for young people suffering substance abuse/mental illness. The call to action in the motion today specifically calls for consultation with experts about whether compulsory therapeutic drug treatment


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