DRUG GRANT WINNER'S DARK PAST

A $100,000 ACT Government grant to provide peer support for injecting
drug users has gone to a group whose control of a similar organisation
in 1997 was strongly criticised for financial mismanagement and an
inability to resolve personal and professional conflicts over their
personal drug use.

The now-defunct ACT Intravenous League was closed when "serious irreg-
ularities and anomalies" were found in its financial management by a
review, conducted internally by the umbrella organisation responsible
for ACTIV, Assisting Drug Dependents Incorporated.

The review substantiated a litany of allegations - including sexual
harassment and widespread unaccountability - made by ADDInc staff and
clients of ACTIV.

The contents of the review, a copy of which has been obtained by The
Canberra Times, were known to ACT Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, who
was health minister at the time, and to long-time drug law-reform
advocate, Independent MLA Michael Moore, the ACT's Health Minister.

The report was commissioned by the management committee of ADDInc, of
which ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Richard Refshauge, was the
president.

The review was also known to the head of the ACT Department of Health,
David Butt.

But the Health Department has just recently recommended that ADDInc
lose the funding for its successful peer-education program, which
replaced ACTIV when it was closed at the end of 1997, in favour of the
new group called the Canberra Injectors Network.

Canberra Injectors Network is headed by Jude Byrne, who was
coordinator of ACTIV, and a close associate of Marion Watson, who is
awaiting sentence after pleading guilty in the ACT Supreme Court last
week of selling heroin. As revealed last week by The Canberra Times,
the recommendation to grant the network the latest drug-user
peer-support program contract ahead of ADDInc was made, in part, by a
senior official in the Department of Health, Martin Van der Kleij, who
is also a close associate of Watson and who posted her $10,000 bail
from police custody.

Watson, who as the former head of ADDInc was awarded a Medal of the
Order of Australia for services in the field of drug rehabilitation,
was a client of ACTIV after she left ADDInc.

Ms Byrne, who has publicly admitted to being an intravenous drug user,
is a member of the Prime Minister's National Council on Drugs.

Ms Byrne is also a member of the ACT's Sexual Health and Blood Borne
Diseases Committee, appointed by Mr Moore, and works as a consultant
to the national drug agency, ADCA.

All of the public appointments held by Ms Byrne have taken place since
the ACTIV review.

At least one other member of the former ACTIV management committee who
came in for criticism at the time of the review, Tarquin McPartlin, is
also a member of the management committee of the Canberra Injecting
Networkers.

ACTIV operated from the rear of the shopping centre in Ainslie from
1988 and received $150,000 funding annually.

The report of the review, titled Survival, recommended the
organisation's closure.

Ms Byrne resigned from her position before the organisation was folded
and the review was shelved.Mr Refshauge said that, at the time, ADDInc
has been concerned about the recommendations of the report.

"We proceeded to do what we could to implement them, both in terms of
addressing the issues relating to management of ADDInc itself and also
endeavouring to investigate and deal with the issue surrounding ACTIV
and the peer-education provision of services," Mr Refshauge said.

He declined to comment on why the report had never been referred to
the Australian Federal Police.

ACT Greens MLA Kerrie Tucker said she would be referring the issue to
the ACT Auditor-General.

"The situation raises a whole series of questions about the nature of
contract service provision in the ACT."