Mrs CROSIO(3.49 p.m.) —The campaign for a national drug summit has reached fever pitch over the last week—so much so that even the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) is beginning to show some interest in the issue.

Let us take a look at the answers given by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Family Services (Dr Wooldridge) when they were first asked if they would even consider convening such a summit. Their somewhat candid responses give you an indication of just how little they expected the public pressure—less than three months later—would have them now seriously considering convening such a meeting. `Unnecessary', they both said. `Wasteful of resources!' they exclaimed. The minister for health went even further, calling it `window dressing', `a cheap stunt', `a talkfest' that would mean `zilch'. I am sure they assumed they would hear no more of it, but then the ball began to roll.

In close succession, you have had groups and individuals as diverse as the Directors of Public Prosecution in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, the Ministers for Police from all states and territories, the Australian Medical Association, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, the Salvation Army, the Premiers of New South Wales and Western Australia, and the list goes on and on—all calling for this Prime Minister to show some leadership and convene a national drugs summit.

The popular press have come on board as well, I am pleased to see: the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age—newspapers that were both supportive of the ACT heroin trial—both gave their approval for the national summit. Also in Sydney, the Daily Telegraph—a paper which, unlike the other two, had an almost violent objection to the trial—also threw its support behind a national summit.

In just the last week, the Premiers of New South Wales and Western Australia—perhaps two of the most ideologically opposed politicians you could hope to meet in this country—have made their strongest statements yet in favour of a summit. Let me refer to Premier Carr's comments first. He said:

We've had a debate in which people put forward different views about a heroin trial in the ACT—I want to go beyond that debate now and unite the community behind a program of action.

We have got a meeting for Ministers of Police in November, so my proposal to the Prime Minister is that we make that a national summit on drugs.'

And Premier Court, in Western Australia, said:

I believe that there is a need for us to tackle this as a national issue, and that requires coming together at the highest level. You can call it a drugs summit, you can call it what you like, but I think it's important that we do something together and at the highest possible level.

And yet the Prime Minister and the minister for health poured scorn on the same suggestion when it was put to them time and time again. That is, until last Monday's question time.

It was on Monday, following the Leader of the Opposition's question regarding a national drug summit and the 54 people who have died in Perth this year from heroin overdoses that the Prime Minister changed his tune. He said, `Oh, I have an open mind on the subject of a national drug summit if there could be a public benefit in holding such a meeting.' Maybe he has been polling again. Those comments came less than three months after his initial comments that it was a talkfest and a waste of resources.

I and this Labor opposition welcome the Prime Minister's dramatic change of heart. I would welcome a similar public change of heart in the Minister for Health and Family Services. But the Prime Minister's conversion is not yet complete—not by a long shot. Expressing an open mind, although a giant leap from what seemed a hopeless position just a few months ago, is quite different to offering one's full and unconditional support.

Full and unconditional support for a national drug summit is what the majority of Australians with an interest in solving the heroin problem want to see. They want a summit with the leadership and the involvement of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Family Services. It is our best chance of reinvigorating our fight against heroin while at the same time making sure the public are comfortable with and supportive of any changes that we put forward or decide upon. But, as I said, we have still a way to go before we get that `St Paul on the road to Damascus' conversion from this Prime Minister, especially judging by the attitude that he displayed in question time on Monday.

The Prime Minister's obvious discomfort at answering the Leader of the Opposition's question regarding the government's strategies on fighting heroin were palpable. It certainly lay at the heart of his unnecessary and baseless allegations that we on this side of the House are attempting to suggest that the country's heroin problem began on 2 March last year. Perhaps one of the following speakers on the government side can point out to me when any member of the opposition has actually made such an accusation.

What the opposition has said is that the government's cutbacks in areas such as the Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs have further jeopardised the dire situation in which we currently find ourselves. What we have said is that the federal government cannot continue to spend less and less on anti-drug measures while raking in more and more on Commonwealth excise and taxes on alcohol and tobacco. What we have said is that the Minister for Health and Family Services seems determined to defend and persevere with a national drug strategy that has quite obviously failed. What we have said is that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Family Services have been too quick to dismiss the idea of a national drug summit when the positives of holding such a meeting should have been apparent to anyone, let alone our national leaders.

But what has the Howard government done? I would like to present some facts and I would like to ask them: how can you cut $37.6 million from the Australian Federal Police, resulting in a loss of roughly 130 officers, and not in some fashion be weakening the force's operations, particularly those aimed at combating the heroin trade? How can Australian Customs do its job properly when, for example, because of drastic budget cuts, there are insufficient staff to even monitor closed-circuit television cameras at border control checkpoints, leaving videotapes to be viewed long after any heroin courier has skipped the country? How can this not be a weak link in our fight against the heroin trade?

Why is the Premier of Western Australia, Mr Court, talking about requesting the help of the Australian armed forces in his state's war against drugs if he does not think that the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Customs lack the resources to do the job themselves? How, in this current climate, can we continue to stomach the discrepancy between spending only $33 million, or roughly $2 per head, on the national drug strategy—and remember, that is the national program which deals with all drugs, both legal and illegal—when government income from taxes on alcohol and tobacco has increased to over $4 billion, or roughly $200 per head, in this last budget alone? The member for Bradfield (Dr Nelson) knows this to be true because even he admitted that his government's efforts here are `tokenistic'. That is possibly why he has been gagged in this debate today. I say `gagged' because where is he?

Then, of course, there is the structure of the national drug strategy itself. Talk to the health authorities. Talk to the public servants in the state and federal health departments. Talk to the people who work with the addicts on the street, day in and day out, and they will tell you that the national drug strategy, while effective in parts, is a bureaucratic shambles that needs urgent and renovation.

I say to the Prime Minister and to the Minister for Health and Family Services: just take a look around. Take a look at my elec torate, for example, or the electorate of the member for Fowler (Mr Ted Grace). Our streets are awash with heroin. Have a chat with the member for Bradfield. He has been there; he has had a look. He might tell you what it is about. The national drug strategy has quite obviously failed to halt that tide.

I appreciate that the Minister for Health and Family Services is currently considering the review of the second five-year period of the national drug strategy. My suggestion to him is that he resists the temptation to simply make cosmetic changes. He must resist that. New and dramatic steps need to be taken towards solving the problem. We need new approaches that have the public's confidence and support. That is where the national drug summit again comes in.

I notice the Sydney Morning Herald, when giving its approval for such a move, began its editorial with the sarcastic comment: `When in doubt, have a summit.' I can appreciate the wariness of some people when you talk about a national drug summit. The last thing any of us want is another round of bureaucratic nonsense where the same old people swap the same old tired opinions about illegal drugs. That is one of the dangers of the Prime Minister's recently announced departmental task force. How many studies do we need to tell us that the system is broken and that it needs fixing? A national drug summit, if handled correctly, can offer so much more and, quite frankly, I am surprised that both the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Family Services still fail to see that.

Perhaps, more importantly, a national drug summit offers us the opportunity of bringing politicians and non-politicians together to discuss new strategies and new approaches regarding the heroin problem, while keeping the public thoroughly up to date. As I have said previously, whatever its value or faults, if the failure of the ACT heroin trial has taught us anything, it is the crucial importance of maintaining public support for something as delicate and as significant as devising new and better strategies to combat heroin.

A national summit offers a public, who are cynical and suspicious about politicians and the decision making process, a transparent and engaging debate. It is about making sure that the public feel confident that not only are their leaders coming up with more effective ways of fighting heroin but that those new methods are in line with what they consider to be morally and socially acceptable.

It is up to this Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Family Services to set the parameters of the conference so that it does not turn into a talkfest. It is up to this Prime Minister to provide the summit with the same sort of ultimatum he delivered to the premiers at the gun law conference after the Port Arthur tragedy. It is up to this Prime Minister to say, `Don't come out unless you have some definite proposals to put forward.' So far the Prime Minister has proven very reluctant to do any such thing—and the question has to be asked why.

The opposition does not suggest a national drug summit will be simple. It does not suggest that it will deliver in our laps all the solutions to the heroin problem in a single week. Nor does it suggest that boosting funding to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Customs would miraculously dry up the country's heroin supplies overnight. But certainly they would all be steps in the right direction.

Above all, that is what the Australian people are now crying out for—direction, Prime Minister, direction. Following the Prime Minister's decision to pull the plug on the ACT heroin trial, Australians—whether or not they approved of the proposal—felt that the one fresh strategy which had seriously been put forward had disappeared without an equally serious alternative being offered to replace it.

The Prime Minister's departmental task force on drugs is certainly hardly an adequate replacement. Those uncharitable souls among us may accuse the Prime Minister of putting forward the task force as a stalling tactic, hoping that by November the whole heroin controversy, the whole matter of the national drug summit will have just blown away, been swept under the carpet. I can assure the Prime Minister, if that is what he is hoping for, come November he is in for a rude awakening.

The Prime Minister's task force is just another committee immersed in bureaucracy. It will just file a report to the National Drug Strategy Committee, which will then file a report to the Prime Minister, who will then discuss the findings with cabinet, and so on, and so on, and so on. It is all red tape and files. Meanwhile, kids in my electorate and kids around Australia are dying, are continuing to buy heroin for less than a week's pocket money.

I do not doubt the Prime Minister's concern over the hundreds of Australians who are dying heroin related deaths each year. But I am coming quickly to the conclusion that he has not cottoned on to the fact that we are facing a plague out there at this very moment. That is why I have invited him, over and over again to come to Cabramatta and Fairfield with me. But to no avail. It is when he makes such a visit that I am sure he will discard the whole notion of wasting time on task forces and the like, and then seriously consider the opposition's proposals.

No, the heroin problem did not begin on 2 March 1996. No, those of us in the Australian Labor Party do not claim to be the only members in this House concerned with the heroin plague which currently grips our nation. However, we do see measures which have been introduced by this government exacerbating the heroin problem. We do see a failure on behalf of this government's leadership to recognise that what Australia is facing at this moment is a national emergency, requiring rapid national action.

We see a Prime Minister unwilling to tackle what is an extremely difficult issue, requiring inventiveness and initiative, with anything other than stale strategies and platitudes. We need action, Prime Minister. The people of Australia are crying out for it. The people of Australia are demanding it. Prime Minister, get up and act.