Liberal politicians have denied influencing a National Capital Authority decision not to allow pill testing at an upcoming Canberra music festival, as the Barr government considers allowing the drug-checking service to go ahead at a different site during the event.
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This is despite a successful pill testing pilot at The Groovin The Moo festival in Canberra in April, which picked up two lethal substances - one that was responsible for the hospitalisation of 13 people in New Zealand a month earlier.
ACT Justice Minister Shane Rattenbury said he was "bitterly disappointed" about the NCA's decision.
"I’m not clear where the NCA is coming from on this one, I think from their point of view as a land manager, their job is to make sure the garbage is picked up, there’s safety around the event and those sort of things," Mr Rattenbury said.
"It does seem quite clear the federal government has played a role in this, we saw the Canberra Liberals engage them last year to put a view forward on this, I don't see any reason why the NCA would be taking this approach. It’s well outside their business unless they’re being given some sort of political direction."
However, Canberra Liberals' legal affairs spokesman Jeremy Hanson said he had not made any approaches to his federal counterparts since the letter he sent last year, urging them to intervene in the pill testing trial planned for Spilt Milk 2017.
He said it was the ACT government, not the NCA, that was out of step on the issue of pill testing.
“What the NCA is doing is consistent with every other jurisdiction in Australia. State governments and territory governments, Liberal and Labor across Australia oppose pill testing for a very good reason," Mr Hanson said.
Liberal senator for the ACT Zed Seselja said he believed the NCA made the right call but denied there had been federal intervention.
"They’re an independent body so they can make their own judgements around what’s appropriate on Commonwealth land that they have responsibility for," Senator Seselja told ABC Radio.
Mr Rattenbury said the territory government could instead allow pill testing to happen on ACT-controlled land during the festival, but it would have to be discussed further with the STA-Safe consortium.
"It is a model I’ve seen operate overseas, the Netherlands run a service at the local health centre on a Wednesday and Thursday night but that’s not the culture we have in Australia yet, it’s still very early from a pill testing point of view and I don’t think our festivalgoers are that preemptive," Mr Rattenbury said.
"You could imagine setting up somewhere like the bus interchange but it’s not clear you’d get enough of the festivalgoers going there on their way to the festival or the day before the festival."
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr told Canberra radio station 2CC if the federal government wouldn't budge, a change of venue could be in order for future festivals.
"I recognise in relation to the Spilt Milk festival that whilst ever it is held on Commonwealth land that is a decision that both the Commonwealth are within their rights to make," Mr Barr said.
"As to whether the organisers of Spilt Milk would want to move their venue, it might be too late this year for them but in the future, if they wanted to we would certainly be open to a discussion with them about an alternate location that would allow pill testing."
Meanwhile, former AFP commissioner Mick Palmer, Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Dr Alex Wodak and Greens Senator Richard Di Natale are among those who've co-signed an open letter to all Australian governments, asking them to consider pill testing at events where there's a risk of drug overdoses.
It comes as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian ruled an expert panel convened after the death of two people at a music festival in Penrith on the weekend would not look at pill testing.
"The National Capital Authority and NSW Government’s refusal to accept the evidence is just grubby pandering to conservative lobbyists - and if there are any preventable deaths on their watch, they will have to bear responsibility," Senator Di Natale said.
Mr Palmer said the weekend deaths were "stark evidence ... of the futility of a zero tolerance, law enforcement approach to such issues".
"The lives so tragically lost and the other serious harms experienced at youth and music festivals, even before the needlessly sad events at the Defqon. 1 festival last week have convinced me beyond all doubt that the benefits of pill testing - as evidenced by pill-testing results overseas - far outweigh any possible risks," Mr Palmer said.
