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PHILIP LYNCH[*] AND ALEX WODAK[#]
On 1 November 2003, Prime Minister John Howard announced a proposal to enact legislation -the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) -that would make it legitimate and lawful to discriminate against 'drug addicts' in diverse areas of life. including employment, education, the. provision of goods and services (including medical and health care services), accommodation, sport, club membership and access to Commonwealth programs. According to the Prime Minister and the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, discrimination against illicit drug users must be allowed to, among other things, 'keep the work and social environments safe' and encourage drug users to 'take responsibility for their own actions by undergoing treatment'.[1] In the Howard Government's view, drug users should be coerced to undergo treatment by withholding the fundamental protections of anti-discrimination legislation and basic human rights if they do not.[2]
Following debate in the Senate, the Bill was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee for inquiry and report on a joint motion of the Australian Democrats and the Greens. On 15 April 2004, the Senate Committee tabled its report following an extensive inquiry into, and consultation regarding, the proposed legislation. The Report recorded the following important findings.[3]
1. The Committee received 118 submissions from a diversity of organisations, including the medical-profession, the legal profession, the alcohol and drug sector, welfare agencies and people affected by drug use and their families. 116 of the submissions 'opposed the Bill in whole or in substantial part'.
2. The Committee received persuasive evidence that the Bill is unnecessary and unlikely to achieve its purported objectives.
3..The Committee considered that the Bill would have 'significant public health impacts' including a potential decrease in the preparedness of drug users to seek treatment or access needle exchanges for fear of being identified as an 'addict' and therefore subject to discrimination. The Committee heard expert evidence
that this could lead to an increase in the transmission of blood-borne viruses such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C
4. The Committee was concerned that the Bill would increase the marg1nalisation of, and the incidence of discrimination against, drug-dependent people. Recent medical and social research demonstrates that discrimination 'has detrimental effects on people's health and quality of life, as well as significant social and economic costs'.[4]
5. The Committee was concerned that the Bill violates the right to equality before the law and would 'exclude a particular set of person's from basic human rights protection'.
In light of these findings, the Committee recommended that the Bill be referred to the Ministerial Council on Drugs Strategy for further consideration and that, if subsequently enacted, the Bill should only permit discrimination on the ground of 'drug addiction' in the area of employment and not in other areas such as accommodation, education, the provision of goods and services and the like.[5]
The Labor Senators and the Australian Democrats both issued dissenting reports. While substantially agreeing with the Committee's findings, the Labor Senators and the Australian Democrats both recommended that the law not proceed, with the Democrats also recommending that policies should be formulated to address the 'accessibility, availability and cost' of drug treatment services.[6] This is an important recommendation in light of the lack of availability, accessibility and affordability of drug treatment service across Australia.[7] Significant funding increases are required in the areas of drug treatment, needle exchanges, peer support and education services, and other harm minimisation strategies to improve health care and outcomes for drug users.[8]
Despite the Attorney General's assertions in December 2003 that the Bill had 'broad community support' and that the Howard Government would not resile from it as part of their 'Tough on Drugs' strategy,[9] it is now difficult to see the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) being enacted. This is a significant victory for socially just public health policy and the protection of drug user rights; a victory made all the more significant by the fact that the Committee was chaired by a Liberal Senator and that 'drug addicts' are potentially a very vulnerable and lucrative target for 'wedge politics'. In our view, the campaign against the Bill is also an excellent example of the role and importance of advocacy by, and strong cooperation and partnerships between, the legal profession, the medical and health care profession, and drug user groups in achieving progressive public policy and social justice for drug users.
Using the campaign against the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) as a case study, this article examines, discusses and further develops strategies for cross-sector campaigning and collaboration in the interests of socially just public health policy and outcomes for drug users.
Within a week of the Prime Minister announcing his intention to amend the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA) to permit discrimination on the ground of 'drug addiction', representatives of the Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres and the New South Wales Combined Community Legal Centres Group wrote to the leaders and the members responsible for the justice portfolio in each of the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, the Australian Democrats and the Greens. Broadly, the letter outlined our concerns in relation to the proposal, including that it was unwarranted and unnecessary, infracted fundamental human rights, subverted the stated objects of the DDA, would exacerbate many of the underlying causes of problematic drug use, and would have negative consequential impacts on the families and dependents of drug users. Following this, a delegation of community lawyers travelled to Canberra in late November 2003 and met with members from each of the parties, including then Labor Shadow Attorney General Rob McLelland, Democrats' disability spokesperson Senator Brian Greig and Greens' MHR Michael Organ, to discuss the proposal's likely impacts and implications. At that stage, the Bill had not yet been made publicly available or tabled in Parliament At the suggestion of the Labor Party, the delegation also met with a number of so-called 'wet' Liberals with a view 'to ensuring that the Bill was carefully scrutinised when it was presented to the Liberal party room. This proved to be a successful tactic, with the media later reporting that a number of these Liberals had opposed the Bill in the party room.[10] Further, although a draft Bill was later endorsed by the Liberals, it contained some measure of protection for 'associates' of drug' users and continued to prohibit discrimination on the ground of medically acquired conditions often associated with injecting drug use, such as hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. These protections reflected some of the concerns raised by the delegation with the 'wet' Liberals.
Following these meetings, both the Australian Democrats and the Greens publicly voiced their opposition to the proposed legislation, with the Democrats outlining their concerns in a media release and an adjournment speech incorporated in the Senate Hansard on 3 December 2003. The Labor Party remained disappointingly silent, perhaps reflecting apprehension as to the potential 'wedge' use of the proposal and concerns about perceived party cohesion given that the New South Wales Labor Party, under Premier Bob Carr, had enacted similar legislation (although confined to permitting discrimination in the area of 'employment') in 2002.[11]
On 3 December 2003, the Attorney General introduced the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) to the House of Representatives. This was the first time that the Bill had been seen outside the Liberal party room; the Government having failed to consult at all with the medical profession, the legal profession, the drug and alcohol sector, welfare agencies, the Privacy Commissioner, the Australian National Council on Drugs or even the National Expert Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs.[12] It was fortunate then that, on 4 December 2003, in line with the tactical recommendations made by community lawyers, the Bill was referred on a joint motion of the Australian Democrats and the Greens to a Senate Committee for inquiry and report.
Recognising the importance of a coordinated but diverse response to the call for submissions to the Committee, community legal centres, in concert with drug user groups, set about to inform and equip other interest groups (including drug users and the medical, health and welfare sectors) to make submissions to the inquiry by analysing, explaining and translating the legal meaning, impacts and implications of the Bill.
This education occurred through the organisation of large community education forums in Sydney and Melbourne, the dissemination of fact sheets and discussion papers about the Bill, the establishment of a campaign website and e-mail distribution list,[13] and the early circulation of draft submissions to the inquiry for use, information or endorsement The success of this communication strategy is evidenced by the fact that, of the 118 submissions eventually received by the Committee, 52 (or 44%) were made by, referred to, or explicitly endorsed the submissions of community legal centres.
In addition to calling attention to the potential effects of the Bill, community lawyers also set out to comprehensively deconstruct the purported rationales for the Bill and demonstrate that it was unlikely and unable to achieve its stated objects and purposes. In particular, in consultation with and informed by drug users, drug treatment services and the medical and health care sectors, community lawyers asserted that
• The Bill Will not achieve the object of 'encouraging people to take responsibility for their own actions by undergoing treatment' because:
- drug addiction may constitute a disorder that impairs a person's capacity to 'take responsibility' or to 'choose' to undergo treatment
- treatment is not appropriate, affordable or accessible for many people, particularly financially or socially disadvantaged people
-treatment is less likely to be successful if it is compelled or coerced (through, for example, the abrogation of rights) than if it is undertaken voluntarily.[14]
• The Bill is not necessary or appropriate to achieve the object of 'keeping the work and social environment safe from other people's behaviour' because:
- under the DDA, it is already lawful to discriminate against a person on the ground of drug addiction if that discrimination is necessary to ensure that the requirements of a job are fulfilled, unjustifiable hardship is avoided, or in the interests of workplace and community safety. The imposition of reasonable conditions or requirements to promote workplace and community safety is also lawful, notwithstanding that they may disproportionately impact on people with drug addictions
-the appropriate mechanisms for regulating and sanctioning dangerous behaviours are the criminal law and the police, not the DDA
-the appropriate mechanisms for ensuring a safe and secure workplace are occupational health and safety laws and standards, not the DDA.[15]
• The Bill will not achieve the object of 'giving certainty to individuals and organisations covered by the DDA’ because:
-the Bill does not define key terms such as 'addiction', 'program', 'services' or 'treatment'. The resolution of disputes about the definition of these terms is likely to involve costly litigation and expert evidence
-the lawfulness of a 'discriminator's' conduct turns solely on whether the other person is 'undergoing a program', meaning that the legality of the same treatment of the same person may vary from day to day.[16]
• The Bill does not achieve the object of protecting 'associates' of people with drug addictions from unfair discrimination because the partners and dependents of people with drug addictions will still bear the impact and consequences of discrimination; for example, when the person experiencing drug addiction loses a job or home.[17] Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Australian Government has an obligation to protect people from detriment or discrimination experienced as a result of the drug addiction of their partners, parents, guardians or family members.
Pre-empting the use of the Bill as part of a 'Tough on Drugs' election platform, community lawyers set about to debunk many of the myths propagated by the Howard Government to support such an amendment For example, submissions and media releases demonstrated that the Bill is not required to ensure that disability discrimination laws are not used in an unjustified or vexatious manner. Since the 2000 decision of the Federal Court in Marsden v HREOC and Coffs Harbour & D1stncts Ex-Servicemen and Women's Club,[18] which established that 'drug addiction' may constitute a 'disability', there has only been one reported case in which an employee has alleged disability discrimination on the ground of 'drug addiction'.[19] Submissions and media releases also addressed the misconception that the Bill is needed to somehow ensure that 'drug addicts' are not afforded special treatment or additional protections. The DDA does not confer additional rights or protections; it merely prohibits 'less favourable treatment' on the ground of disability in circumstances in which that treatment is unjustified or unreasonable.[20] The so-called 'benefits' of the anti-discrimination regime are, in fact, core minimum protections that should not be violated in an attempt to prescribe behaviours.
Many submissions from community legal centres framed the Bill as a violation of international human rights law, including in relation to the right to freedom from discrimination entrenched in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Given the diverse range of legislative, educative and social measures available to the Howard Government to encourage drug users to seek treatment in a way that would promote rather than abrogate human rights, it is highly unlikely that, at international law, the Bill would be regarded as valid or legitimate. Submissions also asserted
that the Bill is inconsistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Guiding Principles of Drug Demand Reduction, which requires that policies or programs directed towards reducing the consumer demand for illicit drugs must protect human rights, and promote social integration and supportive environments.
In our view, the analysis of public health policy in a human rights framework was and can be a powerful strategy. Human rights enable marginalised and disadvantaged people to make claims against governments as of right. Human rights norms impose obligations on governments to respect, protect and fulfil fundamental rights, including in relation to the right to freedom from discrimination and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Crucially, they also impose an obligation on governments to take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, to progressively realise these human rights and to remedy violations. A human rights approach to public health policy enables debates about, and responses to, illicit drug use to be framed in the context of state responsibilities. By framing issues pertaining to illicit drug use in human rights terms and, by extension, structural terms, we can shift the 'blame' for much problematic illicit drug use away from individuals and on to governments and the lack of social, economic and health care supports they provide.
Community lawyers were not alone among the legal profession in condemning the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth). The Bill was also criticised and opposed by professional bodies, such as the Victorian Bar, the Law Institute of Victoria and the Law Society of NSW, and by special interest groups, such as Australian Lawyers for Human Rights. No strangers to law reform work and public policy advocacy, each of these organisations contributed substantially to the campaign against enactment of the Bill.
Reviewing the Senate Committee's Report, however, it was two 'newcomers' to legal debates about drug addiction and discrimination - conservative commercial law firms Clayton Utz and Arnold Bloch Leibier-that most effectively persuaded the Committee that the Bill is unwarranted, unnecessary and will not achieve its stated objects. The submissions of Clayton Utz and Arnold Bloch Leibier, which, on their own account, focused on the purely legal and technical rather than social and economic aspects of the Bill, are repeatedly cited by the Committee in its consideration of the need for and potential effects of the Bill.[21]
While many commercial law firms undertake significant pro bono casework in partnership with community legal centres and public interest law clearing houses across Australia, the involvement of law firms in law reform work and public policy advocacy is an innovative, exciting and important development in pro bono. Clayton Utz and Arnold Bloch Leibler strengthened the campaign considerably by working closely with community lawyers but being seen publicly and politically to bring a 'non-aligned', 'non-partisan' and 'respectable' perspective to the debate on drug strategies. As the Chair of the Committee, Senator Marise Payne, stated to the National Director of Pro Bono at Clayton Utz, David Hillard, in the course of public hearings:
The Committee is very grateful to receive a submission from Clayton Utz. It is not an area in which we often find the major law firms providing submissions. These are issues that the committee considers from time to time. We have 'usual suspects', as it were, and it is a great credit: to your organisation that you have provided such a detailed submission and have assisted the committee in this way.[22]
Medical and health care professionals played a significant role in the campaign against the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth). The medical profession is overall regarded by the community as a source of credible, reliable, informed and objective commentary on health and social issues. The combination of the medical profession's argument that the Bill would have significant public health impacts with the legal profession's argument that the Bill would infract human rights and result in social injustice therefore carried considerable weight.
The Howard Government's claim that the Bill would increase recruitment into drug treatment was a pivotal argument made in support of the amendment, though unsupported by any evidence. However, although inherently implausible, it was not a proposition that could be refuted by any specific data. Doctors and health care professionals providing drug treatment services therefore focused attention on the fact that, regardless of the efficacy of such a measure, there is no need to stimulate demand for drug treatment because demand for such services has generally long exceeded supply, with rare exceptions. Emeritus Professor Ian Webster, a physician and member of the Australian National Council on Drugs, submitted that
The amendment fails to acknowledge that there is in Australia a continuing mismatch between the number of persons dependent on substances and their access and acceptance into effective treatment and rehabilitation programs.[23]
Similarly, the Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies gave evidence that
The amendment fails to recognise that many people will not be in treatment not as a matter of choice but because they are unable to access treatment due to a lack of capac1ty in drug treatment agenc1es to meet demand. For all the pharmacotherapy, detoxification and drug free resident1al rehabi11tat1on treatment programs it is clear that demand constantly outstrips availability.[24]
Doctors and health care professionals also called attention to the fact that it is misconceived and simplistic to legislate to exempt people from the bas1c protections of anti-discrimination legislation unless they 'choose' to seek drug treatment. As Emeritus Professor Ian Webster told the Committee, a 'choice' to use drugs in the first instance does not constitute a 'choice' to become drug dependent and, further, drug dependency may significantly impair a person's ability to make a 'choice' to seek treatment
This legislation seems to bel1eve that people are making these free-will choices and that you can suddenly tum that around. I think that IS a fantasy and not in accordance w1th the experience of anybody who has worked with, seen or had to live with a person who has had a problem of dependence.[25]
As discussed above, another key argument advanced in support of the Bill was that it would give 'certainty to individuals and organisations covered by the DDA'. Medical and health care professionals, however, were able to comprehensively deconstruct this argument with evidence as to the likely difficulties in interpreting and applying undefined and imprecise terms used in the proposed legislation, particularly 'addiction' and 'treatment'. For example, the Committee received evidence from the. Royal Australasian College of Physicians that, in both the medical and psychiatric fields, 'drug addiction is exceedingly difficult to define'[26] and that 'making an assessment as to whether a person is undergoing treatment or not can be blurred by the fact that drug dependence is a chronic relapsing condition'.[27]
The Senate Committee received submissions and evidence opposing the Bill from, among others, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Chapter of Addiction Medicine of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. No doubt, opposition to the Bill from such venerable and generally conservative organisations would have made some impact on even the Bill's most ardent political supporters. The Australian Medical Association was also approached and was equally opposed to the Bill.
Drug users, drug user groups, and drug users' families and friends played a crucial and influential role in the campaign against the Bill, including through community education and peer education and empowerment.
They also offered powerful first-hand testimony refuting the Howard Government's propositions that the Bill is necessary to encourage drug users to seek treatment and to increase community safety, and demonstrating instead that the Bill is likely to exacerbate many of the underlying causes of problematic drug use.
The Committee received a very significant number of submissions from past and present drug users and their families. These submissions were identified by the Committee as particularly 'important' in its deliberations and conclusions.[28] Many such submissions endorsed or were informed by submissions by drug user groups and affiliates such as AIVL (the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League), VIVAIDS (the Victorian Drug User Association), the NSW Users and AIDS Association, the Territory Users' Forum, the Hepatitis C Councils of NSW and Victoria, and the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations. AIVL and VIVAIDS co-hosted the community education forums (referred to above) in Sydney and Melbourne respectively and also prepared and disseminated comprehensive fact sheets, online resources and draft submissions to assist their constituents to make representations to the inquiry. The instrumental role that equipping constituents to make submissions can have on empowering and giving voice to such constituents, together with the substantive role that such submissions can have in informing and developing policy through first-hand experience, was well recognised by drug user groups:
Submissions by drug users, drug user groups and drug users' families and friends proffered powerful testimony and case studies contradicting the Howard Government's key arguments in favour of the Bill; namely that it would coerce drug users to seek treatment and is necessary to protect the community from harms associated with illicit drug use. Drug user groups, such as AIVL and VIVAIDS, argued that the Bill would inhibit drug users from seeking treatment for fear of being identified as an 'addict' and therefore 'fair game' for discrimination. Drug user groups also highlighted the fear of identification as a significant potential barrier to accessing health and support services, harm minimisation programs, peer education and support, needle exchange services, and testing and treatment for blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.[29] Warning that the amendment could result in a 'major public health crisis', AIVL stated that:
Harm reduction programs such as needle and syringe programs and peer-based drug user organisations provide a whole range of health, legal and social services, including referral to drug treatment services. If people who use illicit drugs are scared to use these services, it could create an additional barrier to drug treatment access.[30]
Submissions by drug users, drug user groups and drug users' families and friends also compellingly called attention to personal experience that discrimination against drug users is likely to significantly worsen social outcomes and exacerbate many of the underlying causes of problematic drug use, including unemployment, homelessness, social exclusion and poverty. One witness to the inquiry wrote powerfully of the impact of such discrimination on a close associate:
In the three years since my friend, Stephen, first developed his disability, I have watched as he struggles daily, dreading the judgment and close-minded attitudes of others who do not understand what it is like to be different. He has fought to maintain some semblance of his former self ...[31]
The mother of a young man, Brendan McIver, who died aged 27, reproduced a poem for the Committee that Brendan wrote just months before he died. It reads, in part:
They want us to have self worth
So they destroy that very self worth
They want us to be responsible
So they take away all our responsibilities
They want us to be part of the community
They want us to be positive and constructive
So they degrade us to make us feel worthless...[32]
Recognising the significant links between disadvantage, poverty and drug use, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs recently recommended that all drug use prevention and treatment strategies should be delivered in conjunction with programs targeting areas of disadvantage such as poverty, poor housing, ill health and poor school attendance.[33] Further, the Committee found that focusing on substance abuse alone is not enough and that opportunities must be created for people to actively engage with and participate in family and community life in order to enhance early intervention and prevention outcomes.[34] Research compiled by the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia demonstrates that factors which lower the risk that a person will use drugs in a harmful way include connectedness to community, good family relationships, and feeling loved and respected.[35] This is consistent with the principles adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in relation to drug demand reduction which recognise that drug use is best treated by an integrated approach that focuses on social welfare, public health, education and social reintegration.
The apparent failure of the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) is important in its own right, but also important as an indicator that attempts to define illicit drug use as a criminal justice issue have reached their peak and have now begun to decline. The leadership of the medical profession, for example, sees clearly that attempts to define and respond to illicit drug use as a criminal justice issue have failed lamentably and supports a return to the approach adopted in the first half of the 20th century where illicit drug use was regarded primarily as a public health and social justice issue.
The Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth) is now likely to be quietly dropped. Continued strong advocacy, collaboration, cooperation and partnerships between drug users and the legal, medical, health care and drug treatment sectors can ensure that its demise signals a new era of drug policy that is determined by science, human rights, compassion and common sense.
PHILIP LYNCH is Coordinator of the PILCH Homeless Persons' Legal Clinic in Melbourne. email: projects.pilch@bicbar.com.au
DR ALEX WODAK is Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vi cent's Hospital in Sydney. email: awodak@stvincents.com.au
© 2004 Philip Lynch and Alex Wodak
REFERENCES
[*] PHILIP LYNCH is Coordinator of the PILCH Homeless Persons' Legal Clinic in Melbourne. email: projects.pilch@bicbar.com.au
[#] DR ALEX WODAK is Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vi cent's Hospital in Sydney. email: awodak@stvincents.com.au
[1] Philip Ruddock, Attorney General, 'Government Amends Discrimination Legislation as Part of 'Tough on Drugs" Strategy' (Press Release, 3 December 2003), Explanatory Memorandum, Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (Cth); Commonwealth, Hansard, House of Representatives, 3 December 2003, 23541 (Philip Ruddock, Attorney General).
[2] lbid
[3] Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, Parliament of Australia, Provisions or the Disability
Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003 (2004) 35-42, 45-8.
[4] Lisa Waller, ‘Living with Hepatitis C From Self-Loathing to Advocacy' (2004) 180 Medical Journal of Australia 293, 293. See also S Zickmund, E Ho, M Masuda et al, 'They Treated Me Like a Leper Stigmatisation and the Quality of Life of Patients with Hepatitis C' (2003) 18 Journal of General International Medicine 835
[5] Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, above n 3, 48
[6] lbid 51-8
[7] lbid 30-2
[8] This is particularly the case given the high return on investment in harm reduction strategies relative to the low return on investment in demand reduction or supply reduction strategies C Rydell and S Everingham, Controlling Cocaine Supply Versus Demand Programs (1994)
[9] Meeting between Public Interest Law Clearing House, Disability Discrimination Legal Service, VIVAIDS and Philip Ruddock MP (Melbourne, 6 December 2003)
[10] David Wroe and Annabel Crabb, 'Drug Addict Rights Set Off Rebellion', The Age (Melbourne), 3 December 2003
[11] Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Drug Addiction) Act 2001 (NSW)
[12] Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, above n 3, 43
[13] <www.disabilitydiscrimination.info> at 28 July 2004
[14] Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, above n 3, 24-34.
[15] Ibid 8-18.
[16] Ibid 19-34.
[17] Ibid 41
[18] [2002] FCA 1619 (15 November 2000) (Branson J).
[19] Carr v Botany Boy Council [2003] NSWADT 209 (9 September 2003)
[20] See also Purvis v New South Wales (Department of Education and Training) [2003] HCA 62 (11 November 2003)
[21] See especially, Senate Legal and Constitutional Leg1slat1on Committee, above n 3, 5-34
[22] Commonwealth, Hansard, Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, 16 March 2004, 48 (Senator Manse Payne, Chair).
[23] Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, above n 3, 31.
[24] lbid
[25] Ibid 33-4
[26] Ibid 20
[27] lbid 30
[28] lbid 45
[29] lbid 36-7
[30] lbid 37-8
[31] Name withheld, Submission 53, Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee inquiry into the Provisions of the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003, 9 February 2004
[32] Christine McIver, Submission 83, Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee inquiry into the Provisions of the Disability Discrimination Amendment Bill 2003, 5 February 2004.
[33] House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, Road to Recovery Report on the Inquiry into Substance Abuse in Australian Communities (August 2003) 34.
[34] Ibid 33
[35] Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, Policy Positions of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia Prevention (September 2003) 1.
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