The New South Wales Liberal party has targeted ice users as part of its pitch to country voters while the Labor party has pledged to increase police numbers as the parties angle to be seen as tough when it comes to law and order.
The premier, Mike Baird, has also announced more than 20,000 victims of crime who had their compensation cut retrospectively will have their claims reassessed.
As the Nationals prepared for their official campaign launch on Sunday afternoon Baird announced $20m would be invested in tackling ice. The package focused heavily on the criminal side of the ice problem with drug counsellor advocates saying there needs to be more investment in early intervention and rehabilitation.
The number of roadside drug tests will triple to almost 100,000 a year by 2016-17, the threshold required to charge dealers with having a commercial supply of ice will be halved from 1kg to 500g, state-wide online recording of the sale of pseudoephedrine – a primary ingredient of ice – will be made mandatory and three new stimulant treatment services will be opened with more money to be provided for non-government services, under the proposed plan.
Baird dismissed concerns there was not enough investment in early intervention saying the government had consulted widely and most of the money for the package was going towards rehabilitation.
“We are actually seeing these [rehabilitation] services work. That’s the important thing. Obviously there is a three-prong approach. If we can get people off ice, they won’t be out on the roads on ice,” he told reporters in Dubbo.
“We have to provide the support and it’s shown that it works. So the rehabilitation is a significant investment but at the same time we need enforcement. So if anyone decides they can take drugs and think that’s a good idea while we are tripling the number of tests to ensure we catch them. As a clear message across NSW, you can no longer take drugs and drive because we will catch you and you will face the full force of the law.”
The new treatment centres will open on the mid-north coast, in the Illawarra region and western Sydney and Baird said the government would be “open to further action” on the issue.
The deputy premier and leader of the Nationals, Troy Grant, said the drug was “tearing families apart” in regional communities.
“In my 22 years as a country cop I have not seen a drug as corrosive to human decency as ice,” Grant said in a statement. “Country towns need a tough package like this to stop the damage this drug is causing in our communities. These measures will put our boot on the throat of ice peddlers whilst supporting current ice users to kick the drug for good.”
Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president, Alex Wodak, labelled the strategy as “nonsense on stilts”, criticising the strong focus on law enforcement.
“This is all window dressing,” he told Fairfax Media. “If they’re lucky, they will shift the market from drug A to drug B because fundamentally, this is a problem about demand, not supply. And while there is demand – and no legal supply – other sources will emerge.”
The opposition leader, Luke Foley, used Sunday morning to announce Labor would increase the police force by 480 officers, invest $100m in improving technology for police, put $50m towards a fund to boost security at police stations and fund $17m to the police force wellbeing program.
Foley said the party would take advice from the police commissioner on where to station the extra police officers.
“Upon coming to office and throughout the term, we will be guided by the police commissioner rather than making any political judgments of our own about where to deploy officers,” Foley told reporters in Sydney.
The NSW election is on 28 March.
