ROOMS FOR DISSENSION

ACT Politics:

THE ACT's drug-law reformer is at it again, Michael Moore outlining plans
this week for a safe injecting room in the ACT.

The room would be set up in Civic (probably near the needle-exchange
centre), and would be a place where heroin users could go for clean needles
and to inject in the presence of a nurse, with access to counselling and
other services to help them kick their habit.

Moore hopes to bring the plan to the Assembly for a vote in February and
get it up and running as early as March.

But he has some fairly major hurdles to face yet, not least equivocation
within his own Cabinet and Labor's veiled threat yesterday to torpedo the
plan unless Moore can get his own side on side. That wlll come down to
Education Minister Bill Stefaniak.

Moore's plan has a most unusual political status.

In the Liberal ranks, it is apparently a free vote. But on aspects of the
project, the formal Government position has been struck.

Cabinet took a decision last week to bring safe injecting rooms to the
Assembly, but Stefaniak has already been allowed to speak against them, and
Chief Minister Kate Carnell says that when it comes to the vote, Stefaniak
is entitled to vote on the opposite side to his Cabinet colleagues.

The Labor Party does not have the same luxury. Its more stringent rules
allow conscience votes on only two issues - euthanasia and abortion - and
if Labor decides to support the Moore plan, it will mean the Labor Caucus
locking in some distinctly ambivalent people in its ranks.

When Moore joined the Carnell Cabinet this year, he reserved the right to
introduce his own private legislation - such as the anti-leaflet
legislation passed recently. But not in the portfolio of health. As Health
Minister, Moore has acknowledged that he cannot go his own way and
introduce non-govermnent health business. That is one of the reasons safe
injecting rooms went to Cabinet.

It has been to the Liberal Cabinet two weeks running, and the result of
last week's meeting was the position that Moore put to the Assembly -
essentially he outlined his plan of attack, and tabled related legislation
that deals with the civil liabilities of staff and government in the case
of overdose or other problems with the safe injecting room.

Four of five Cabinet members are on side - Moore, Carnell, Deputy Chief
Minister Gary Humphries and Urban Services Minister Brendan Smyth, no doubt
the one who took most convincing.

But Stefaniak is implacably opposed. And questions have been asked about
just where that leaves him. Normally if a member of Cabinet disagrees, he
or she wears it or resigns. In fact, the principle of Cabinet solidarity
gave some grief to Carnell and Moore when they were negotiating for him to
join Cabinet earlier in the year. The deal in the end was that Moore would
be allowed to dissent on a range of issues that he set out in writing, and
on those issues - there have been no more than a handful so far - he
physically leaves the Cabinet room. On all other issues he is bound, and he
votes with the Government (thus his support for closing the Downer
Pre-school, a stance that an unbound Moore would have been most unlikely
to take). With four of the five Cabinet members backing an injecting room,
Stefaniak could have been locked in.

The non-executive Liberals, Greg Cornwell and Harold Hird, are vehemently
opposed, and any attempt to bind them to a party position could be
disastrous. It would be difficult to imagine Cornwell staying loyal on this
one.

But it would be an unusual hybrid if Cabinet solidarity was required, but a
free vote was allowed for Hird and Cornwell.

Carnell does not see any of this as an issue. While she acknowledges that
the Government did take a formal position last week in deciding to lay the
issue before the Assembly, she says the Government will not take a formal
position to give the project the go-ahead.

When Moore seeks the Assembly's support, the Libelals, in and out of
Cabinet, will vote according to their conscience.

She says the Liberal Party feels comfortable with the position it has taken
on such issues - the heroin trial among them - and it would be "bad
leadership" to force people to vote for things they believed morally wrong.

In all of this. Labor is feeling used and bruised. Its rules do not allow a
conscience vote on drugs policy. So despite the ambivalence of some in its
ranks, Labor will have to take a binding Caucus decision.

Labor is angry that the Liberals have apparently adopted an unusual model
to allow their own members a way out of a difficult issue, while expecting
Labor to back the Moore proposal.

Moore cannot get it through without them.

Thus Labor leader Jon Stanhope's call for Stefaniak to fall into line, or
resign. Stanhope quotes House of Representatives practice, which says all
ministers "must be prepared to accept collective responsibility for, and
defend publicly, the policies and actions of the Government, or else resign".

Stefaniak says he will support the civil-liabilities legslation tabled last
week, on which the Government took a position, but will not support the
injecting room itself, on which the Government will not take a formal
position.

Stanhope says that is a mockery of normal process, and he made this threat:

"If the Minister for Health does not have the support of his Cabinet
colleagues or the Liberal Party room, he cannot expect support from other
members of the Assembly or the community."

It is a mark of the influence Moore has in the Carnell Cabinet that safe
injecting rooms have got this far (Carnell, by the way, is an enthusiastic
supporter).

But Moore says he is advancing cautiously, keen to take the Assembly and
the community with him. He says it is not an issue that will be resolved by
number-crunching and forcing anyone's support, and he outlined his plan
last week so that no-one is taken by surprise when the Assembly is asked to
vote, and to allow time for public debate.

If Moore is being cautious, the Labor Party is being exceedingly so,
acutely aware that safe injecting rooms are not a vote winner. Labor does
not want to carry the can for a plan pursued by Moore.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan