CARNELL PRESSURED ON DRUGS

Chief Minister Kate Carnell is facing increasing pressure from her own party
over her support for the planned safe injecting room for drug addicts.

According to Liberal sources, the Belconnen branch of the Liberal Party
passed a resolution this week, calling on the parliamentary party to take no
further action on a safe injecting room or a heroin trial without a
referendum.

It is an unusual flexing of muscle from the party rank-and-file, and will
put pressure on parliamentary Members like Brendan Smyth, who has had to be
persuaded to support the safe injecting room in Cabinet.

The resolution will now go to the party's policy convention, probably next
month. If it is passed there, it will bind the Carnell Government.

ACT Health Minister Michael Moore was hoping to have an injecting room
operating this year.

Mrs Carnell had intended to allow a conscience vote among the Liberals, who
are divided on the issue. She is a supporter, along with Deputy Chief
Minister Gary Humphries and Mr Smyth.

But Bill Stefaniak, Greg Cornwell and Harold Hird are opposed.

Mr Stefaniak, the only parliamentary Member at the branch meeting, supported
the resolution.

It was put by former Liberal candidate Warwick Gow, who said last night a
"shooting gallery" was not the answer. It would attract addicts to Canberra,
the crime rate would "go through the roof", and it would not be able to
handle the number of addicts, he said.

"All I'm doing is forcing through a conscience vote for everyone in the
ACT - so I'm being quite fair about it," he said.

Mr Gow believes he has the numbers to get the resolution through the policy
convention.

Mrs Carnell's spokesman shrugged off the opposition as part of the normal
range of views on within the "very broad church" of the party.

"She doesn't see it as dissension," he said. "We see it as a divergence of
views which exist on some social views within the Liberal Party - as they
would in most political parties."

The Belconnen branch is also calling for the relocation of the
needle-exchange centre to a hospital or medical centre.