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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-26 Daily Xml
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Citizen's Right of Reply

CITIZEN'S RIGHT OF REPLY

The PRESIDENT (16:08): I have to advise that I have received a letter from Dr David Caldicott, requesting a right of reply in accordance with the sessional standing order passed by this council on 11 September 2008.

In his letter of 23 November 2008, Dr Caldicott considers that the Hon. Ann Bressington has 'impugned' his reputation in matters raised in debate on the Controlled Substances (Palliative Use of Cannabis) Amendment Bill on 13 November 2008.

Following the procedures set out in the sessional standing order, I have given consideration to this matter and believe that it complies with the requirements of the sessional standing order. Therefore, I grant the request and direct that Dr Caldicott's reply be incorporated in Hansard, as follows:

Re: Comments made by Ms Bressington in the Legislative Council, on November 13th 2008, in which I am explicitly named.

Further to Ms Anne Bressington's address to the South Australian Legislative Council on the 13th ofNovember 2008, I am writing to express my concerns regarding her further use of parliamentary privilege to impugn my reputation, and also raise the possibility that she may have knowingly mislead the Chamber.

I am an advanced trainee in emergency medicine, with an interest in acute overdose from recreational drugs, and I have only ever represented myself as such. To suggest that I am not recognised by the Australian Medical Association as an addiction specialist is as valid a comment as saying that I am not recognised by NASA as a rocket scientist. Her suggestion implies that I have mislead the public about my qualifications, which is offensive. The deliberate impression that I am at odds with Australian Medical Association is simply incorrect. For example, as a consequence of the representations that my research group made to their Federal Public Health committee, they currently support a medically supervised, ethically approved trial of pill-testing at raves to reduce the harms associated with ecstasy consumption.

I write this letter having just returned from Sydney as an invited speaker at the National Drug Trends 2008 (NTD2008) conference, hosted by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Council. I was asked to speak at this conference at the Club Health 2008 Conference in Spain, where I was an invited plenary speaker. These are academic gatherings to which I have been invited because of my publication record and academic credentials.

I was asked to speak at NTD2008 about the work that I have done at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, monitoring harm from illicit drugs in the emergency department. This is generally not considered to be the realm ofaddiction medicine, but emergency medicine, as those familiar with the field would know. Our research at the RAH (the TRAUMATOX and D2EWS projects) has attracted, in total, over a million dollars of funding support from both state and federal sources, This weekend, I have been asked to contribute to reviews of the American Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), and a program for the United Nations on the monitoring of hospital attendances for illicit drug related problems in the Third World. I am a modest man by nature, and am happiest when debating science and medicine with my academic colleagues, but I am happy to forward you a copy of my CV for your perusal.

Although I have never called myself a drug 'expert' as such, others have. They include the NSW Coroner, who called upon me last year to give 'expert' testimony in the inquiry into the death of Ms Diane Brimble.

In summary, there are many aspects to drugs research that are conducted by those other than 'addiction specialists', a fact which Ms Bressington may not be aware of.

Ms Bressington alleges that 6 people turned up to Ms Kanck's briefing. That is untrue; there were certainly more than that, including the Hon. Vicki Chapman, who can confirm this. Ms Bressington alleges that the briefing consisted of only showing a film. That is also untrue. Had Ms Kanck not introduced her briefing by saying that there was going to be a discussion and seminar after the film, Ms Bressington might have been excused not knowing about it, but she was there at the start, and left early. Had she stayed longer than 20 minutes, she would have had the opportunity to raise some of her objections to my presentation and position in person, rather than using parliamentary privilege to disseminate her own peculiarly immoderate interpretation of scientific and medical fact. I have offered her, on multiple occasions, the opportunity to publicly discuss her understanding of the issues that supposedly form the bedrock of her parliamentary career, but these have been declined in favour of reading from her notes in the Legislative Council.

She has implied that my dismissal of school-drug testing is merely a personal opinion. It is not. I happen to agree with the considered opinion of the American Academy of Paediatrics, The National Education Association, The American Public Health Association, The National Association of Social Workers and The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, who in an unprecedented joint position document have stated that 'Our experience, and a broad body of relevant research, convinces us that a policy of [random student drug testing] cannot work in the way it is hoped to and will, for many adolescents, interfere with more sound prevention and treatment processes.' There was not one recognised expert in South Australia from DASSA, the State's peak body, who agreed with her bill, and yet she continues to portray herself as misunderstood by a cabal of conspirators.

This is not the first time that she has used parliamentary privilege to attack me. She has deliberately misquoted statistics that I have used—and are a matter of public record—to falsely promote Sweden as role model for Australian drug policy. Sweden has one of the highest death rates from illicit drug overdose in Europe, at 28.4 per million in 1997, and climbing. It has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C in Europe and in the 20-39 year old age group, drug overdose accounts for 10 per cent of all deaths, as many as those by traffic accidents. Prof. Reto Scholl, the Chief of Aarau Hospital in Sweden, has publicly asserted that the figures quoted on drug use by Swedish officials represent state expectations, and not document facts: 'there are no data upholding the contention that a permissive drug policy would increase the number of users.'

To date, all of her most vitriolic attacks have occurred under parliamentary privilege. I do not believe that this is either brave or fearless, but instead intellectual cowardice, and I note that I am not the only person to have been targeted by this member, in this manner.

I am not hurt personally by these attacks, because they are made on a background of personal and tragic loss. In my profession, we learn to make allowances for certain otherwise unacceptable forms of behaviour because of the circumstances in which they originate. It is also for these reasons that I have not generally attacked Ms Bressington in the manner in which she has attacked me; I believe that it would be unfair and one-sided, and I would loathe to be perceived as someone who would take pleasure in humiliating one less capable of defending themselves. This does not excuse her sustained behaviour, over a period of years, and no amount of personal tragedy can permit those with an influence over legislation to so grossly misrepresent science and medicine, albeit in good faith, to pursue her own personal goals.

I am very happy for history to be the judge of our relative positions, but I cannot in good faith allow her charges to go unanswered. At the very least, it may give the impression that nothing in what she says bears correction, which is far from true, and at worst may encourage her to further use parliamentary privilege to insult those less thick-skinned, and more vulnerable than myself.

As a doctor, I have responsibilities as to how I behave and represent my patients. I believe that our elected representatives should conduct themselves with a similar gravitas. Parliamentary privilege should not be used as a free kick. I believe that Ms Bressington has over-stepped her tenuous mandate, and holds the Legislative Council in contempt when she misleads it or uses it to pursue her own vendettas.

I would be delighted to meet with you and explain my position in greater detail, and would ask you to take steps to ensure that a modicum of scientific honesty be maintained in a chamber for which I generally have great respect.

Sincerely

Dr David Caldicott

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