E&OE...........
Well thank you very much Major Watters. To my parliamentary colleagues Trish Worth and Ross Cameron, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, other officers of the Salvation Army, citizens, fellow Australians.
I am always delighted to be associated with the work of the Salvation Army. It is a force for good and a force for tackling, at the coal face, at the grass roots, the social problems of our community. And there is no group of men and women who are held in higher esteem in the Australian community when thoughts turn to helping people that need assistance.
My purpose in being here today is to formally launch the Salvation Army post-detoxification service here in Parramatta. It will be supported by Commonwealth Government funding of $450,000. It was promised that funding during the election campaign and I';m pleased to be able, in announcing the launch of this initiative, to confirm the delivery of funding over a period of three years and it will support the Follow on Youth Recovery Support Team of the Salvation Army. This team will provide support and assistance to young people aged 16 to 25 who have been through detoxification and rehabilitation. And it will help them at that crucial moment after having been through the programme to re-establish themselves in a healthy and positive lifestyle within the community.
Brian Watters understands better than most the challenge of the drug problem in Australia. Nobody has a simple easy solution, nobody anywhere in the world has a simple easy solution. And the progress you make on something like this is incremental and steady over a period of time against the background of having a strong commitment to doing something and also a willingness to devote the resources that are needed over a period of time. And the team that we are supporting here in Parramatta will work in a comprehensive way to address the complex issues that young people and their families face in recovering from drug problems. And what this service recognises is that detoxification is only the first step in recovery from drug problems and that people need continued support to prevent a relapse.
The Tough on Drugs programme which we launched about five years ago has involved committing $625 million at a Commonwealth level. And I';m pleased to say that as to the great bulk of our activities and our objectives we work in total cooperation with the State Governments, irrespective of their political persuasion. Major Watters talked about the diversion programmes which involve the court mechanisms, if I can put it that way, of the states and additional federal money for rehabilitation. And I';ve had excellent cooperation from the New South Wales Government and I';ve had excellent cooperation from governments around Australia. And offering people the opportunity of going into the rehabilitation programme rather than being ensnared in the criminal justice system is a really positive step forward and it has the support of Governments, it has the support of people such as the Salvation Army working in the field, it has the support of the police and it also has the support of most importantly the families of people who might be caught up with the drug problem.
Now we posited our Tough on Drugs approach in three areas. We said we had to be uncompromising in law enforcement, in trying to stop drugs getting into Australia and catching and prosecuting and throwing in jail and where possible throwing away the key in relation to the drug traffickers. We believe very strongly that rehabilitation had been neglected for too long by governments at all levels. We also believe very profoundly in a greater educative role for governments to persuade people of the ills of drugs in the first instance and to try and talk them out of trying, rather than trying to pick up the pieces later on. And we all understand that great injunction that prevention is better than cure and that applies with everything. I';ve always found that one of the more bizarre things of modern society that we quite rightly here in Australia have devoted enormous effort into persuading people not to start smoking yet hand in hand with that are some people who believe that the way you handle the drug problem is not so much to try your hardest to stop them starting but somehow or other manage the problem once they get involved with it. The two things don';t seem to fit particularly well together, but life is like that on occasion.
We have been as Brian said very successful, not complacent when I say this, but we have been very successful in our campaign to increase the number of seizures and to slow down the rate of drug entry into Australia. There has been an unprecedented rise in the seizure of the hardest illicit drugs since 1997, almost six tonnes including 1.3 tonnes of heroin and 2.6 tonnes of cocaine, compared with just two and a half tonnes of illicit drugs seized in the five years immediately preceding the commencement of the programme. And a reduction in the availability of heroin on Australia';s streets and there has been a reduction in deaths from opiate overdose. Now I don';t want to claim in any sense victory on that, nobody can. It might go into reverse in the future, we all hope and pray it doesn';t. But there has been some progress, we are seizing more drugs, there are fewer deaths, the programmes that we are implementing in cooperation with the community are working. We can';t as I say declare any victory, we can';t be complacent, but we are making some progress and what the message that is contained in this little booklet that is being made available to the public is that we are making progress on a number of fronts. We are, through greater seizures, and can I pay unqualified tribute to the Australian Federal Police, to the Customs services of Australia and also to the state police forces, all of which have worked in cooperation and we have a higher level now of cooperation between the police forces of the Commonwealth and the States than I believe we';ve had for a very long time. And all of that is contributing to the good news, and those figures that Brian read out earlier, I hadn';t heard them before, they';re terrific figures, they are encouraging and they ought to give heart to all of the people who are here today but more importantly they ought to give heart and encouragement to the parents of Australia who have to grapple with this problem.
And on that particular subject I remember when we released our booklet as part of the education programme we were attacked and you know the usual suspects said oh well he';s wasting money on this, it should be better devoted to other programmes in the drug area. Now that';s an easy criticism to make but we';ve had an evaluation done of the campaign and that found that three in five parents found that the campaign made it easier to talk to their children about illicit drugs. All of us who have been parents know that difficult conversations with children are difficult conversations, doesn';t matter who we are, from time to time you might have some communication challenges with your children as no doubt our parents had with us. And getting parents communicating with their children about difficult social challenges is one of the biggest responsibilities that parents have. And we tried to provide a bit of easy to read, easy to understand assistance in relation to that and the result of the survey is that three in five parents found that the campaign made it easier for parents to talk to their children. One in two young people felt the campaign helped them to talk to their parents. And 78 per cent of parents talked to their children about drugs. Now once again it';s only part of a whole series of things you';ve got to do. But the message out of that is we are making progress, we are seizing more drugs, we are starting to see some impact on overdose deaths. We all hope that it will last. We cautiously, but nonetheless genuinely welcome the figures, we see evidence that the education programme is working and importantly we are putting a lot more money into treatment services. Treatment services had been neglected. I mean people were entitled to say it';s not much good putting all your resources into law enforcement if you don';t provide enough help to people who are trying to kick the habit. And that really brings us back to what I';m launching today.
This programme is about the Salvation Army doing what it does best and that is helping people who need help and also helping people who recognise they';ve got to help themselves. And the first and most crucial decision that people have got to make when they';re involved in drugs of course is to try and do something about the problem. And if you';ve been through a detoxification programme then you';ve certainly taken that first step and you';ve gone through the programme. And then as you start to re-enter a normal life pattern you inevitably run into the challenges that people face, and the enticements and the inducements to go back and the temptation to return to former patterns of behaviour, and that is where this programme will be of enormous assistance. So I';m delighted that this Commonwealth money is being made available to it, every last dollar of that money will be extremely well spent.
I do want to thank in launching this programme, I naturally wish to thank the Salvation Army for the wonderful work they do in the drug area. I also want to thank Trish Worth and her office for working so very hard in coordinating arrangements for this launch and also the particular responsibilities that she has really effectively running the health and ageing side of the Tough on Drugs strategy. It is a never ending fight, you never win the fight against drugs and people in the community who search for a point at which you can say we have beaten the drug problem are deluding themselves and they';re defying human experience. But what you can do is to make a difference with a comprehensive programme. Now I believe very passionately in what the Federal Government is doing about drugs. I';m an uncompromising opponent of the philosophy of throwing up the hands and saying it';s all to hard and you can';t make a difference. That doesn';t mean to say you don';t adjust your programmes, it doesn';t mean to say you don';t listen to new views and get new advice. We';ve done that. But if you look at what';s happened over the last few years I think we have begun to make a difference, and that';s been possible because we';ve put more money into it, it';s also been possible because we';ve been able to enlist the involvement of the community, of great organisations like the Salvation Army. We have involved the police and the welfare agencies in giving advice, not only on their immediate areas of responsibility but in relation to the overall problem.
So can I say I';m delighted to launch this initiative. Relieving human misery is the great mission of the Salvation Army and there';s a lot of human misery involved in drugs. It';s all human misery unfortunately but from time to time it';s tempered and brightened by individual success stories and there are a growing number of those and that';s the message that comes out of this booklet. I thank you to the officers of the Salvation Army for their magnificent work and I have great pleasure in launching this initiative, it';s one of many that I believe is making a very positive contribution to creating a better environment in this country and to slowly, not conquering, as you never totally do the drug problem, but certainly turning the tide of battle in the fight against the drug scourge in our wonderful country.
Thank you.