Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After the tragedy of Defqon on the weekend, with the death of two revellers and three others seriously ill in hospital, with hundreds of cases from that festival, there's been an outbreak of disagreement on how we deal with the difficult issue of illicit drugs in music festivals. I've spoken regularly on this topic as a registered medical specialist, making it utterly clear that this is not a case of harm minimisation versus absolute supply reduction. There is a middle ground here.

So far, we have had comments that have been regrettable, starting this debate about in-festival pill testing at a time when we should be pausing to remember the families that are going through such an incredible loss. We don't yet even have toxicology results, so it's just the wrong time to be engaging in this debate. But, unfortunately, it has started again.

I appreciate that there are many in my profession who love the idea of taking a spectrophotometer to a music festival, popping up a tent and giving drug-taking advice. I appreciate that there are people who want to do that. But it is not the view of the profession that this is the right way to go. I want to emphasise absolutely and clearly that, just because we have an unforeseeable, tragic circumstance like we saw on the weekend, it does not prove that one approach is failing and therefore we must—no, we are obliged to—take on every solo flight of policy that someone can dream up.

I will tell you what is not acceptable. What is not acceptable is surrendering to the concept that a music festival is a place where you openly take, sell and distribute drugs and encourage drug taking, and, if you'd like to go to a tent to check the purity and the safety of a drug, we wave the welcome flag, and the police stand back and allow it to happen. We're not going to accept that at all. My view is that, if a private individual runs a public event where drug taking is happening, they are absolutely liable for the safety of their patrons, just as licensed premises are if you're assaulted by an intoxicated person. I'm telling you that there is a big, big lawsuit just around the corner.

We must say that drug testing can occur somewhere safely for people over the age of 18 who are not drug affected or intoxicated but can be given professional advice, well away from the place where they're buying the drugs. The whole point is that, if you purchase drugs and you're told they're not clean, the first thing you're going to do is seek out the person who sold them, and there will be assaults and even mistaken identity at music festivals. We don't want that. Nobody wants deaths at music festivals.

What you need is high-performance liquid chromatography that tests a tablet absolutely, not spectrophotometry, which simply scans the surface of a tablet, because 95 per cent of the active ingredient can be in one half. We know now that there were high concentrations of MDMA in what was circulating on the weekend, and there are people in body bags every year from taking pure, 'clean' MDMA. Telling a young person that a drug is 'clean' suggests that it is safe and changes their consumption. That is so very, very dangerous, and I urge those proponents to step away from the proposal.