State Ice Taskforce

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (14:53): Supplementary question: in its work has the taskforce been able to draw comparisons from the work against ice in interstate regional centres of similar sizes to the most affected South Australian communities?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:54): The task force, of course, is doing a scan of what is happening around the country in other jurisdictions; they may be able to inform this government's policy response. In turn, I think that will help deliver a better outcome. I want to be really clear about the task force and provide some information that has surprised me as we have gone around and familiarised ourselves with this issue.

The first thing is that this task force, regardless of whatever policy response it comes up with, is not going to fix the problem of crystal methamphetamine consumption in our community. That is just a blunt reality that I have been at pains to stress to anybody who has been engaged in this process. We are not deluding ourselves that somehow overnight there is a suite of policy measures that we can implement or there is a range of resources that we can provide SAPOL that will somehow fix very quickly the supply of ice into our communities or the demand amongst some users. That is simply not going to happen.

I think we have to be far more pragmatic, which would, of course, equate to also being responsible by ensuring that we are actually delivering outcomes that help us address the issue without unfairly inflating expectations among some community members that this is an easy thing to fix. Taking on issues like illicit substance abuse has been around forever. This has been a challenge that has plagued public policymakers globally for decades, and that is not about to change anytime soon. But I think it is equally true that this drug does deserve a specific response.

I have shared this story in a number of different forums. In Whyalla, there was a rather lightbulb moment for me as I was talking to a number of police officers, asking them about what is the most important issue to them on a day-to-day policing basis within that particular community. Almost without fail, every one of the officers I was speaking to over a cuppa in the lunchroom explained to me that they thought ice was a major problem not just in terms of the dealing of the drug but in terms of all the flow-on consequences that ice consumption has, including lower-level crimes like breaking and entering and so forth.

As I was getting around, I asked people what they thought was different about ice, and one police officer particularly summed it up well by saying—and this gentleman was clearly an experienced police officer and had been in the service of SAPOL for many, many years—'I've seen all these drugs come and go. I've seen a cannabis boom, I've seen the rise of cocaine, speed, ecstasy, heroin. I've seen the rise in the consumption of each of those drugs, but nothing is quite like ice.'

When I asked him why, what makes ice different to every other drug, he explained that every other drug, while it has a large number of policy consequences to it and effects on communities, when people overdose on those other drugs it doesn't necessarily have the same violent reaction that ice, or crystal methamphetamine, can induce. He recounted a number of stories where he himself had engaged with users of crystal methamphetamine acting irrationally and rather aggressively and incredibly violently, in a way that wasn't consistent with the way other drugs have affected users.

This drug does deserve a specific response. We are going to come up with a response in the appropriate time line. It is the government's intention to make that response and that policy public in May. We are on track to deliver it. It is a difficult piece of work. We are not going to fix this problem, but if the work of the task force and the resulting policy can result in just one less family being affected by this drug, that will be a positive outcome. We are striving to achieve, of course, a lot more than that.