SUMMARY OFFENCES (DRUG PARAPHERNALIA) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 5 March 2008. Page 2452.)

Clause 4.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: When we were last deliberating on clause 4, the member for Mitchell asked me for an adjournment so that the members of the committee could consider their position on his amendment. The member for Heysen, on behalf of the parliamentary Liberal Party, backed the member for Mitchell on that and said that she pledged the Liberal opposition to support the member for Mitchell's amendment, which was to take hookahs and narghiles out of the scope of the bill. Any pleasant surprise that the members for Mitchell and Heysen may have had about my adjourning the bill at their request was soon dissipated when the member for Heysen realised that she had pledged the parliamentary Liberal Party to smashing a huge hole in the ban the bong bill.

The member for Heysen recanted on the Leon Byner program later that day saying, if this was the biggest mistake she made in the course of being a member of parliament, she could retire happy. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of the parliamentary Liberal Party meeting when the member for Heysen came into that meeting and told them what she had done. I take it that the member for Heysen has now recanted her support for the member for Mitchell's amendment, and I think she has done it for much the same reason that I oppose it.

The member for Mitchell does not want narghiles or hookahs to be prohibited because they are used to smoke macerated fruit pulp by Turks, Egyptians, Persians, a range of people from the Middle East. I know that is true because I and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition have smoked with them. I am the owner of a narghile, which is on display in my ministerial office.

So, the member for Mitchell's amendment is a worthy ideal but it is unworkable. The definition of 'water pipe' in the bill speaks to the design or the specification of the implement to be prohibited from sale, that is, a device capable of being used for smoking by means of the drawing of smoke or fumes through water or another liquid. The phrase that is the subject of the member for Mitchell's amendment is an evidentiary tool. It does not really matter what one calls the device. If it is a device capable of being used for smoking by means of the drawing of smoke or fumes through water or another liquid, then its sale will be prohibited by my bill. What the phrase in question does is allow evidence to be adduced about what the device is commonly known as to bolster the case for the prosecution. Presumably, that would be by way of expert evidence. Where one finds a legitimate expert in bongs is another question altogether—an anthropologist, perhaps.

Mr Hanna: A Lebanese bakery.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Well, that is one suggestion. What this amendment means is that retailers will market variations of bongs and call them hookahs and narghiles and encourage the use of illicit drugs in that way. The government believes that for this law to be workable all of these implements must be banned from sale.

Mr HANNA: When the matter was adjourned, it was just after I suggested that the Attorney might like to postpone further consideration of the bill 'to enable further consultation with the groups that might be affected'. It looks to me as if the Attorney-General has not consulted with anyone from those communities to which he has referred in the time since we last debated this bill, and that really exposes his political motivations behind this in absolute nakedness. It is not a pleasant thought, but he is exposed once again in playing politics with a serious issue. I would have expected more from the Minister for Multicultural Affairs.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Heysen, last time this was debated, pledged the Parliamentary Liberal Party to support this amendment, so the member for Heysen has some explaining to do to the chamber about her position. I have known the member for Heysen for a long time and I think, if she was willing to front up on the Leon Byner program in front of tens of thousands of listeners and say that she made a mistake, she could at least share that with the committee. I find it extraordinary that she is going to let this go to a vote on the voices without saying a thing. That is not the member for Heysen that I know. So I will give the member for Heysen this last opportunity to make a clean breast of it with the committee.

Amendment negatived; clause passed.

Schedule 1 and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Bill read a third time and passed.

At 17:07 the house adjourned until Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 11:00.