Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Thank you, Mr President. Notwithstanding some of the concerns that have been raised by hemp producers in the industry here, and I do look forward to hearing the honourable Leader’s response to the issues raised particularly by the members for McIntyre and Murchison. The Greens support this legislation. We support the growth of the industrial hemp industry in Tasmania. I want to acknowledge that this reform process actually began under a former minister for Primary Industries who is now the Premier of Tasmania, Jeremy Rockliff, and I remember having conversations with him at the time about his will to see this important industry, this significant and very useful fibre being able to be grown at scale in Tasmania.
We have certainly come a long way. I remember, as a journalist at WIN Television in 1993, going out to Frits and Patsy Harmsen’s hemp test plot at Cambridge. As a young person who had spent a fair bit of time in my youth doing things young people do, I was a bit more mature then, but I remember turning up to this field full of what looked like a massive marijuana crop.
It was such a sight, an extraordinary sight to see 30 or so years ago, and it was a beautiful crop too. Fritz and Patsy put a lot of care into this crop. I remember interviewing them and the hoops that they had to jump through to get the seed, to get permission to find a place to not have it, for example, to not have people going in there stealing the hemp, which they would have had to smoke for a week to get any sort of high out of.
It was such an admirable and innovative push on their part because Harmsens could see the enormous potential of this fibre. The reason that we are still having conversations about dissatisfaction about a regulatory approach, why it is still quite restricted, why it has taken us more than 30 years to really have anything like a hemp industry on this island is because of this massively failed war on drugs and a stigma that was attached to this plant.
It is a plant which, whether it is high THC or high CBD, has still untapped medicinal, industrial and economic uses. We have gone from a nation that participated in the war on drugs, charged people, sent people to jail for the possession of cannabis to now a nation that has rightly allowed for the prescription of medicinal cannabis. I have talked to people who are medicinal cannabis users. I am on CBD oil myself, and I know it can be life changing.
It is a medicine, it is a building material, it is a food source, it is a soil fertiliser and it is an amazing plant. If we, as a state, are able to develop a larger hemp industry, I think we could see it replacing other fibres that are much more contentious, like the fibres that come from native forest timber.
Hemp is a crop that is easy to grow at scale, low environmental impact and I do not think you would find conservationists out there fighting to defend farming land from a hemp crop in the same way that we do so passionately and with such resolve to prevent the logging of our beautiful native forests.
It is a good thing that we have come as far as we have and we are not demonising this plant and we are seeing it for its potential uses. I remember when the honourable member for Murchison was chairing the parliamentary committee into medicinal cannabis, the stories of people who came forward who, because of the nature of the law at the time, were technically criminals for using medicinal cannabis to treat epilepsy, anxiety, and depression. I think also that committee saw a Tasmanian Parliament first, where someone who was providing evidence to the committee decided to be a good idea to bring a massive marijuana plant into the committee room.
Ms Forrest – Yes, we did but it nearly got caught up in security. It was not that big, it was only that big.
Ms O’CONNOR – Well, it was the biggest one that has ever been in this building.
Ms Forrest – That is alive, anyway.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, that is true. Who can say? Who could possibly know? It is a good thing that we have come this far and at that time I remember going up to the medicinal cannabis conference in Tamworth, which was an international symposium organised by a wonderful woman called Lucy Haslam, whose son Daniel died of cancer and who benefited so much from being able to access what illegal medicinal cannabis he could before he died. There were a number of fantastic presenters there.
There was a presentation there about how Israel legalised medicinal cannabis and a groundbreaking researcher, I think it was at the University of Tel Aviv, Dr Raphael Mechoulam, did the first work that had a look at this incredible plant, and he identified within the plant more than 400 different compounds that may be useful to humanity.
In a video that we were shown, he went into an old persons’ home in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv where they were treating Holocaust survivors with medicinal cannabis and it is very moving, Mr President, because highly traumatised Jewish people who, because of their life suffering and the trauma they lived with were on a whole range of medications, just everything from anti‑anxiety, anti‑depression tablets, heart tablets, constipation tablets, to anti‑nausea tablets – it is this sort of cornucopia of legal chemical drugs that the residents of this aged‑care facility were taking. With the consent of the residents and families, this aged‑care facility tested shifting the residents from the chemical drugs onto medicinal cannabis, with the most profound results.
There was one old lady there who was in a wheelchair and she was almost in a foetal position. She was a quite difficult resident, the staff there called her ‘the tiger’. There was a section filmed in the documentary where this woman was provided with – the word I want to use is ‘toke’, but it is not the right word – vapourised cannabinoids and she unfurled from her chair within a minute or two of this vapour surrounding her and threw back her head and laughed joyfully.
Ms Forrest – I have seen the video of that.
Ms O’CONNOR – It is amazing, is it not?
Ms Forrest – We heard stories like that in the committee.
Ms O’CONNOR – That is right.
Ms Forrest – Where there are older people coming in with bags full of medications they were on.
Ms O’CONNOR – Amazing. It is a plant that has had a really bad rap; for a long time before last century it was in common use in many countries in the world as a tonic, medication and that sort of thing, and then the United States’ War on Drugs began and they actually changed the terminology for the plant, so instead of calling it cannabis, Cannabis sativa or indica, they wanted to demonise a little bit more and they wanted to associate it with Mexican drug gangs so they called it marijuana, which gave the plant a bad rap, really. That failed war on drugs saw the lives of countless, particularly young people, ruined by charges, convictions and in some cases jailing for cannabis possession and use. It is a good thing that we have moved on from there. In fact, most of the United States, which led the war on drugs, has decriminalised cannabis for personal use. It is certainly something that the Greens strongly support and will be advocating for. Obviously, a different lens needs to be applied to people who traffic in illicit substances such as cannabis.
We recognise the bill introduces a range of matters to be considered in determining whether a person is a fit and proper person for the purposes of granting a licence. Under the current legislation, there is limited guidance on what sort of assessment this should be. I concur with the comments of the honourable member for Murchison. When I read that, the first thought I had was that the same thing does not happen in the racing industry, where people are given control over lives. They can breed, train and profit from horses and dogs, and there is no fit and proper person test for that. The evidence of that is the fact that Ben Yole and Yole stables at Sidmouth are still in the racing industry despite the scandals and the evidence around that stable.
The bill also stipulates that a licence application is to be forwarded to the Commissioner of Police and that the Commissioner must investigate such matters the Secretary requests of them. The bill extends licences to allow for hemp byproducts to be used for horticultural purposes, such as mulch. It sets out a framework that requires the destruction or surrender of hemp that has a concentration of THC/tetrahydrocannabinol of more than 1 per cent in the leaves and flowering heads.
I am also interested to know what the proposed response is. I think we talked about this a bit in the briefing. Where is the flexibility around that marker of 1 per cent in THC? I understand that the Tasmanian industry would prefer for no or low THC to be a non‑regulated crop. With respect, I am not sure we are there yet. The argument for it as put by the member for Murchison is very strong. It is just a plant. It is just a useful plant that, unless you choke on it, cannot do you any damage. But parliaments move at their own pace. It would seem very clear that government is not ready to completely deregulate the industry. It is a good thing that there are review processes in this legislation as the industry evolves.
I note what we heard in the briefing. The industrial hemp industry has had some real ups and downs here. We have gone from our recent peak of 1500 hectares under industrial hemp to, I think, some 90 hectares last year. There is an issue there. I do not know whether that is an issue about lack of market opportunities, or a saturated market, or a perception amongst producers that there is too much regulation and too little profit. I think everyone in here would like to see the industrial hemp industry grow and flourish, and for us to produce the best seeds and the best plants anywhere in the country.
We can do this with poppies. We have a highly successful regulated poppy industry in Tasmania. It is regulated at a very robust level, somewhat differently – and rightly so – from industrial hemp. We are well used to growing crops here that have a chequered history as well as multiple beneficial uses.
I note that a broad power is set out for the Commissioner of Police to authorise persons to be able to handle and possess hemp without being in breach of the law. The bill provides that industrial hemp licence holders are also required to nominate a person who is a responsible person for the purposes of the act. While through the submission process on consultation for this bill, we could not find any submissions that opposed the legislation and the enabling of more uses of this plant. We did note that the local industry would like to see less regulation rather than more, which was expressed in the submissions that were read in by the honourable member for McIntyre.
Ms Rattray – Through you, Mr President, and that will mean some advocacy from Tasmanian minister to the Commonwealth.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, that is right. I mean, that is the thing is it not? We are bound by, or captured by Commonwealth regulations in relation to illicit drugs, dangerous drugs and that sort of thing. Not that you could call an industrial hemp plant a dangerous drug in any sort of way
I am pleased to support this legislation. I look forward to seeing how it evolves. I acknowledge that a lot of stakeholders participated in this review process or this legislative process, including the Tasmanian Hemp Association and the Australian Hemp Council and the Tasmanian Farmers & Graziers Association, and I am sure they will be keeping a close eye on its application too. I think it is a good bill and on behalf of the Greens I am pleased to support it.
