Pubdate: Sat, 03 Sep 2005
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Author: Jonathan Pearlman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

LIBERAL LEADER VOWS TO CLOSE INJECTING ROOM

A day after replacing John Brogden as the Liberal leader, Peter Debnam gave 
the first indication he would distance the party from his predecessor's 
social liberalism, saying he would close the heroin injecting room in Kings 
Cross.

"I will certainly be putting to my colleagues that in a government 
post-March 2007 we would look at closing the injecting room and diverting 
those funds into treatment of addicts," he said.

"We need to crack down on drugs at the street level. We need to make sure 
people who are addicted to drugs are treated."

The head of the Uniting Church's welfare division, Reverend Harry Herbert, 
said the injecting room had saved lives and Mr Debnam should reconsider.

"It has helped redirect people into treatment and made life better in Kings 
Cross," Reverend Herbert said.

"We don't want to go back to people injecting in public spaces."

To the consternation of the party's hard-right faction, Mr Brogden crossed 
the floor in 2002 in a conscience vote on the injecting room. But Mr 
Debnam, whose takeover of the leadership was strongly backed by the hard 
right, has said he does not plan to steer the party to the right. 
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He won the leadership in an uncontested ballot on Thursday after Mr Brogden 
resigned on Monday. The former leader, who attempted to take his own life 
on Tuesday night, is recovering in a North Shore private hospital. His 
office said yesterday that his condition was improving.

Mr Debnam will face his first electoral test in a fortnight, when the 
Liberals contest a byelection in the safe Labor seat of Macquarie Fields. 
He ventured into the electorate yesterday to give his backing to the 
Liberal candidate, Nola Fraser, even if he first had to tell voters who he was.

Many had never heard of him, and some thought he was the Labor leader. Even 
Ms Fraser knew little about him, and erroneously believed he was from 
Maroubra. But Mr Debnam, the member for Vaucluse, was warmly welcomed on 
the streets of Ingleburn, as he introduced himself and Ms Fraser to voters.

"Today is really just to show that we are getting back to work," he said. 
"It has been a week from hell in NSW politics."

Outside the electorate office, where posters of Mr Brogden had been 
replaced by extra posters of Ms Fraser, Mr Debnam soaked up plaudits from 
middle-aged women who declared him more handsome than Prince Charles.

Mr Debnam was joined by several shadow ministers, MPs and members of the 
party's state executive, all keen to try to shore up a sizeable swing for 
their new leader and Ms Fraser, the nurse who claimed she was bullied by 
the former member, Craig Knowles.

Elsewhere in the electorate, Labor also sent their leader, Morris Iemma, 
and several cabinet members to support the ALP candidate, Steven Chaytor, a 
Campbelltown councillor and former employee of Gough Whitlam.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman