Expert panel announced to review safety after Defqon.1 dance deaths
PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian today established a high level expert panel to provide advice on how to keep people safe after two people died and many others were treated for drug-related injuries at the Defqon.1 music festival.
NSW
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THE state government will seek urgent advice on what extra safety measurers need to be introduced at music festivals to prevent further drug-related deaths.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced a panel was being convened to advise the government on what to do.
The panel consists of Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant and Chair of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority Philip Crawford.
They will investigate whether new offences or harsher penalties are required to “stop drug dealers endangering lives”, how music festival promoters and operators can improve safety at festivals and whether more drug education is needed to stamp out “culture” of illicit drug use.
“This is not about stopping people having fun it’s about keeping people alive,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Ms Berejiklian also backed down from comments she made on Sunday that she would shut down the Defqon.1 music festival in Penrith. Today she said the event couldn’t continue in its “current form”.
“Clearly action needs to be taken to make that event safer and we will be taking advice from the expert panel in the next four weeks on how that needs to happen.”
“I stand by my words ... in its current form it can’t continue, clearly there was a massive failure in safety, clearly there was a failure in the zero tolerance approach,” she said.
“I was aghast at how many issues were revealed during that concert, I want people to have a good time at these events but clearly the operators at that event need to step up and do something differently if that event is going to continue.”
If the panel advises how Defqon.1 could be run more safely and these extra steps are implemented than it could return in 2019.
Ms Berejiklian again ruled out pill testing.
“We do not support a culture that says it’s okay to take illegal drugs,” she said.
“Pill testing doesn’t guarantee a safety of a drug, what might be safe for one person might not be safe for another person. The last thing we want to see is people get a false sense of security, that’s issue number one.
“Issue number two is what is deemed safe for one person isn’t deemed safe for another. And issue number three which is something I feel strongly about – if something is illegal it is not okay to break the law. We have to accept and respect the law.
“And if something is illegal it is inappropriate for us to turn a blind eye and say it’s okay for that to happen.”
“I do worry about the slippery slop that pill testing provides, I worry about the false sense of security it gives people because what would be horrific would be if you had such a regime is that something was deemed safe and you had multiple deaths as a result.”
Ms Berejiklian said she was determined to address the “culture” of illegal drug taking.
“We can’t turn a blind eye to unsafe practices which are leading to death and injury and yes a lot of this occurs outside of these events but the important point to note is hitting the culture on the head.
“(The culture) that says it’s okay to take illegal substances, that’s the culture we’re dealing with and unfortunately it’s become more prominent at these events and other such events and that’s what we really need to deal with.”
“I don’t want to see an escalation in a culture that says it’s okay to turn a blind eye to illegal activity.”