Alcohol and Drug Dependency Repeal Bill 2021

Ms WEBB (Nelson) – I also was pleased to see this bill come forward to repeal the Alcohol and Drug Dependency Act.  I particularly welcome the lens of human rights through which that decision was taken.  I am pleased that we would apply a human rights lens to all the policy decisions that we take in this state and certainly all our legislative decisions that we take.  Would that we had an actual legislative instrument of some sort.  A charter of human rights or a human rights act in this state would formalise that process for us and would bring us to a contemporary point to align with other states like Victoria, Queensland and ACT – as a territory they have that – and other international jurisdictions. 

That sort of formality provides a wonderful accountability for any and every piece of legislation that would come through.  In the absence of that, and in anticipation that one day we will have that, it is nice to see with bills like this one, that thinking at least has been applied to the reasoning behind doing it, so I welcome that. 

While the law as it has sat there is underutilised – it has not been used for quite some time we are given to understand – having it sitting there provides the potential for what would have been quite a draconian application of constraint on citizens who have committed no crime and with very little evidence that it would lead to good health outcomes.  In fact it precludes treatment, so it really becomes very much inappropriate detention. 

When I was looking at the detail of the bill, noting questions which were able to be then put in our briefing – thank you for the briefing that was provided earlier – I picked up on things that other members had picked up on.  The member for Huon is now bringing us an amendment to consider and I, too, in that same section, had question marks around the need for and the clarity of the phrasing that was used.  I will be pleased for us to discuss that and the proposed amendment when we get to it in that stage of things.

I do note that some other states have dealt with this, not necessarily by removing a similar piece of legislation, but by adapting it to a more contemporary application.  They are states that are larger than we are and have different capacity, and from what I gather through the briefing, would have better provision of infrastructure and treatment options for short-term, well-defined opportunities for people to receive support through similar measures as this.  We do not necessarily have those in this state.  What we do have though, and it is clear, what we have and use now in circumstances where it is required, are our other legislative instruments like our Mental Health Act and our Guardianship and Administration Act.  So we are able to accommodate the sorts of situations that this act may have dealt with previously through more appropriate instruments in that way.

I certainly support the repeal bill and will be interested to be part of the discussion about the amendment during the Committee stage.

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