Well thank you very much Major Watters, Mr Mayor, Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police Mick Keelty, my two ministerial colleagues Julie Bishop and Chris Ellison, both of whom have a very direct responsibility in this area, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
This is not the first occasion over the last few years that Brian Watters and I have done this double act. He is chairman of my drug committee and a very wonderful and effective chairman at that. And it won't be the last time that we will do it because both of us have a very strong personal commitment to the philosophy behind the Tough on Drugs strategy that was introduced by the Government some years ago and has already involved the expenditure of an additional $1 billion or more of Federal Government money in fighting the scourge of drugs in our community. And I'm very happy to welcome here today as well as the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and his regional commander in Western Australia, I'm very pleased to welcome officers of the Western Australian police because this is a co-operative effort and there is, I'm pleased to say, at most levels, not all levels and not on all issues, but there is at most levels very close co-operation between the state and federal authorities in fighting the scourge of drugs and the Australian community demands no less of their political leaders and that they co-operate to the maximum extent possible.
Today I'm announcing about $6.6 million to 89 community organisations across Australia as part of the community partnership initiative which is an element of the Tough of the Drugs strategy. The Tough on Drugs strategy is really built on three pillars, law enforcement, rehabilitation, and education. We have an uncompromising approach to people who are involved in drug trafficking, we seek, when people need assistance, and especially when they seek in out, we seek to improve the rehabilitation services that are available and finally and very importantly we seek to educate people against starting drug use in the first place. And in the number of years that I've now been Prime Minister and involved in campaigning around Australia in favour of the Tough on Drugs strategy it has never ceased to amaze me how people can question the doctrine of zero tolerance towards commencement of drug taking in the first place or indeed dealing with the problem. There are so many things that we take for granted that you must do, I mean we don't argue with the proposition and it's certainly not being argued with here in Western Australia right at the moment because it's in the news that children should go to school. We don't sort of have a harm minimisation approach to school attendance, we have a zero tolerance approach to school attendance because we know that it is good for the child in the long run that that child go to school. Well for the life of me I can't see why we shouldn't have a completely zero tolerance, uncompromising approach to illicit drug taking. There is no safe level of marijuana use, there is no safe level of the use of any kind of illicit drugs and the clearer that message can be communicated the better and that is why of course the Government, amongst other things, has an uncompromising approach at a federal level towards any resort to heroin injecting rooms, and I'm not suggesting all of the states are considering doing that, some may be, some may be not, but at a Federal Government level we will do everything in our power to prevent states from doing that because we don't think in the long run it is in the best interests of the community.
Now we are making progress, I'm not declaring victory, it would be insane of anybody to declare victory, but we are making progress. We have seen a significant decline in the number of heroin related deaths. Now whenever I say this in public my critics always seek to explain it away, they say oh they're not growing their poppies, they're not doing this, they're not doing that, it's all something else, it's got to do with some other thing and when that all stops it's going to start again. Well I hope they're wrong, I can't prove that they are wrong, what I can point to though is that since 1999 there has been a 67 per cent reduction in heroin related deaths for people aged between 15 and 55 years and you can't argue with that, it's got to mean something and even if not all of it is due to our initiatives some of it is due to what we've done and I therefore think that alone has been worth the billion dollars to mean, as Brian says, that those people are now spending their Christmas dinners with their parents or their children or their friends is reward enough for the contribution that's been made.
I think the law enforcement effort in this country has been magnificent and I want to congratulate of course the Australian Federal Police, but also their state counterparts, here in Western Australia and all around the country, and also of course Customs officers and Immigration and Chris Ellison as the Minister responsible for both the Federal Police and the Australian Customs Service, is here today. And the evaluations that we have carried out indicate that three out of five parents in our education campaign thought that that literature that was derided at the time by our critics that we distributed encouraged parents to talk to their children more about drugs and actually gave them in many respects the lead in and the confidence to do so. And we all know as parents that sometimes it's difficult to broach a subject and you've got to creep up on it or surprise them or whatever, but eventually when you directly engage your children on an issue there's a great sense of relief when you get a response and you think at long last you have made a contact. Now we all go through as parents the challenges of raising our children through the more difficult years, and I can only say that I share all of the sense of concern and compassion that Brian feels and I encounter and we all do, people who through no fault of their own make that awful discovery that one of their children has a drug problem and it has to be most alarming experience I guess that any parent can have.
So this is a great programme, we are working with the states, we are very importantly, and that is the significance of today's announcement, we are very importantly working with local organisations and the whole purpose of the community partnerships programme is to fund small organisations to work with people and the local communities in different ways in tackling the problem, by providing young people with support, with information, with alternative strategies to prevent illicit drug use in their communities. Of course a lot of our resources are going into the diversion initiatives that we operate in conjunction with the states, where in effect we say to somebody who's got a drug problem and for the first time has come into touch with the criminal justice system, we say to this person righto you've got a choice, you can either ignore the opportunity of going into a rehabilitation scheme and then run the risk of getting caught up with the criminal justice system and inevitably ending up in jail and your life being ruined, or alternatively you can go into a rehabilitation programme and if that works out okay let's forget about you having any kind of record or being regarded as in any way caught up with the law and you really (inaudible) it works in different ways and perhaps a bit unevenly about the country (inaudible) success, we have provided a lot more money, the states have provided obviously the infrastructure of the police and the courts and so forth and it's a good example and when Commonwealth and State Governments have worked together.
So I'm, in announcing these initiatives, I particularly draw attention to three of these projects, one of them is the Kurrawa Community project in Perth, the Young Men's Christian association in Perth, and the Wesley Mission in Perth, all of which provide programmes under the community partnerships and they're but a few of the 89 organisations that are going to receive funding.
So ladies and gentlemen, I again want to thank everybody who's been involved in this effort, I want to thank Brian and his committee, I want to thank the health professionals who've supported so very strongly, I want to thank the police at both at a national level and a state level and all of the Customs services, but very importantly I want to thank people who volunteer at a community level to tackle this problem, I think it is one of Australia's greater challenges and I believe when it comes to great challenges you've got to send strong, sharp, unambiguous messages. There is no such thing as an accepted level of illicit drug use in my view and unless that is communicated very, very strongly to the Australian community, especially to younger people, I don't think we're going to tackle the problem. The approach of zero tolerance might be derided but in the long run it does send a very strong message, and I think the results are there and if we persist with it we'll get further results. We'll never totally eliminate the problem, you can never totally declare victory on something like this. But you can record a very significant improvement and we've had some improvements to date and I think if we continue to persist we can, as the years go by, we can record an even greater improvement and it will be one of the more important legacies that can be given to any community that a particular group of people having responsibility at a certain time were willing to persist with a strategy to tackle the scourge and producing very effective results.
So can I thank you again Mr Mayor for having us (inaudible) senior citizens centre here, thank you for your hospitality and I have great pleasure in launching these programmes and again to thank my friend and colleague Brian Watters for his counsel and advice on this very challenging and social issue.
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