Ms Anna Quigley:

If I could come in there, I think this is linked to the issue of structures and the fact the current structures under the drugs strategy are so ineffective. It again highlights the reason we need those structures, as Ms McCaffrey said. The Department of Justice, for example, says we cannot remove section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act because that would lead to unintended consequences whereby it could not follow up people for possession, but these issues the Senator was talking about are difficult and challenging because there is a range of needs to balance. The whole purpose, however, of a high-level, interagency structure is that people would have these conversations, with everyone getting an opportunity to speak from their perspective and other people listening. We would work it out. As a modern democracy, we cannot say that, unfortunately, we cannot do something because it might have an unintended consequence. We should look at the possible consequences and allow for them.

Moreover, while we are critical of the current structures, we also have a sense that it is possible to make them work because of our experience for the first ten years, from 1995 onwards, when the national drugs strategy team and those oversight structures were in place. They worked. They were not perfect and not everything worked, but they amounted to a genuine interagency partnership where these kinds of conversations could happen. It is crucial that we look at that and at how we can put effective structures in place. It is worse to seem to have structures doing that job if they are not doing it. We need effective structures. Conversation is what this is all about. We have to have formal places to have the conversations. We do not have them at the moment and that is linked to everything the Senator is talking about. We should not be talking about this now just because we are hearing this. It should be part of how we do our business all the time.