00:00Well, interestingly, this report is based on figures which had to be obtained from Parliament
00:06by the Greens MP Kate Fairman after the Redfern Legal Centre applied under freedom of information
00:11laws for this police statistics and were knocked back.
00:14So what it's delivered is basically a decade's worth of data about the number of searches
00:19that have been happening and also the, I guess, the success rate about whether they've found
00:23drugs and in 86.5% of cases over this period from 2014 to 2023, no drugs have been found
00:31in those searches.
00:32So obviously we do see at music festivals in particular in New South Wales, a large number
00:36of people be searched, but it turns out that it's only 13.5% where any amount of drugs is
00:42found.
00:43And of course that doesn't take into account that only a much smaller fraction of people
00:46are found with any, you know, large amount of drugs on them, which is obviously what
00:50police always say they're targeting, that drug supply.
00:54So looking at these figures, for example, in 2014, less than 1% of cases actually resulted
01:00in a conviction for drug supply.
01:02So it's a very small number of people that are being caught in this net and it has prompted,
01:07you know, renewed calls to end these searches, particularly for searches which are done on
01:12the suspicion of drug possession, which is the vast majority of those music festival cases,
01:16certainly.
01:17I should say that this report also doesn't say where the searches took place.
01:21So it might be that some of them were in prisons or people were in custody, but we do know
01:24that a very large number of them do happen at music festivals, which has been really under
01:29a lot of scrutiny in recent years.
01:31So people like the Redfern Legal Centre and Harm Reduction Australia, who are responsible
01:36for analysing these figures and putting out this report today, are calling for an end to
01:40those searches which are based on the suspicion of drug possession.
01:43They're calling for an end to all searches for people under the age of 18, because in
01:47New South Wales, you can still be searched if you're 10 years old and above, which is
01:53obviously quite young.
01:54And they're basically saying that, you know, these figures show it's a lot of money and
01:58resources that are being put into these searches without a lot of result.
02:03The Premier, Chris Minns, this morning has said that there have been some changes made
02:08to the practice in the last couple of years.
02:10There was a big report in 2023.
02:12The LECC, which is the internal sort of police investigation, looked at this practice and
02:18came up with a number of recommendations.
02:20And a lot of those, Chris Minns says, were about training and they have been implemented.
02:24So here's what he's had to say.
02:26We don't want people to be in a situation where, you know, police have to undertake these
02:34searches.
02:35But there's really no alternative in many circumstances because police are faced with the widespread
02:40distribution of illegal substances that, in the right circumstances, can be deadly.
02:46And I know, I mean, I think training must be a part of the process.
02:51I think having a common sense trial about pill testing is important as well.
02:56But if we were in a situation where there was absolutely no searches, there was no drug
03:00detection dogs, it was really carp's lunch at music festivals, I think that you would
03:05have, you would have major health challenges and I think you'd have more deaths at music festivals
03:09than we're currently seeing.
03:11So Chris Minns there saying essentially that he thinks they are a necessary procedure to continue.
03:16Interestingly, there are still a number of those recommendations from the LACC that haven't
03:20been implemented.
03:22And some of them actually call for parliament to legislate around this practice, particularly
03:26what sorts of requests can be made.
03:29Some of those invasive requests that are sometimes made as part of a strip search.
03:32It wants parliament, it's suggested that parliament should look at those.
03:35Now that hasn't happened.
03:36So there are a number of areas which even from that report by police themselves in 2023
03:41haven't, haven't yet been addressed.
03:42So obviously we'll continue to see this being an issue.
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