DANA news

In May this year DANA emailed all members  with a document supplied by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)  and a request for feedback to be included in a DANA response.

DANA has now prepared its response and will be submitting it on-line on Friday 24^th 2018.

The final document is available here to download for any final comments: WHO Feedback from DANA

Please send any comments to dana.mail2access@gmail.com no later than the close of business on Thursday 23^rd August 2018.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA)  has opened public consultation on a proposed endorsement for registered nurses to prescribe scheduled medicines in a prescribing partnership model.

Associate Professor Lynette Cusack RN who is the Chair of the NMBA tells us that ‘the proposed model is evidence-based and has been developed in consultation with nursing stakeholders, governments and consumers over several years’.

Read the consultation documents and have your say about this initiative. Click here.

We’d love your feedback about  the DANA 2018 Australasian ‘It Starts with Us’ Conference

Create your own user feedback survey

If you’d like to view the survey in a new window click here

The DANA Conference Delegate’s Tool Kit was sent by email on Wednesday afternoon July 18^th 2018,  but sometimes emails just don’t get through.

In case you haven’t received your Delegate’s Tool Kit you can access it at this link http://bit.ly/delegateskit

Start tweeting at DANA 2018 Australasian Conference!

There will be prizes!
The Conference hashtag is #DANAconf2018
The DANA handle is            @DANAnews1
If you are new to tweeting, visit the DANA You Tube Channel to view a step by step info-graphic, then set yourself up with a Twitter handle.

(Look for Lucinda at the DANA Help Desk if you need some additional support to get you tweeting).

The full info-graphic is available here to download…

DANA Twitter infographic

Last chance to register #DANAconf2018

Do it now! Click here http://bit.ly/DANAlastchance
(and don’t forget to register for networking drinks)

The AGM will be held on Friday July 27th 2018 at Storey Hall, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria.

A light breakfast will be available prior to the meeting at 7:00 am. Please advise if you are attending for catering purposes.  Send an email to project.officer@danaonline.org

The annual report, the agenda, a proxy voting form and the minutes from last year’s AGM are available below.

DANA AGM 2018 Annual Report

AGM Agenda

Proxy Voting Form 2018 AGM

Minutes DANA AGM 11.08.2017

 

Closing  soon…

We want stories from AOD nurses, about AOD nursing.  We want stories that paint a picture of what we do and why we do it.

Every story will be published on the new DANA website (right now it’s quietly undergoing an upgrade).

Find out more…http://bit.ly/DANAwriters

Call to action! Drug testing in the job seeker system

The Federal Government is again looking at drug testing people in the job seeker system but they are struggling to get the numbers to pass the Bill.

Key points:

• the Bill could be in the Senate any time from Monday
• three Senators are needed to join the Greens and Labor in opposing the Bill,
• the senators to focus on are Senators Griff, Patrick and Storer.

The Bill

The Drug Testing Bill 2018 will establish a trial with the following parameters:

• ‘the drug trial areas are the local government areas of Canterbury-Bankstown, New South Wales; Logan, Queensland and Mandurah, Western Australia;
• the trial period is 24 months and  will apply only to certain illicit drugs (testable drugs);
• trial participants who test positive to a testable drug will be placed on income management for a period of 24 months;
• trial participants may request that a positive drug test sample be retested, but the trial participant will be required to pay for the retest if it returns a positive result;
• failing to comply with a notice from the Secretary to provide a sample means a trial participant’s payment is not payable and will be cancelled. The trial participant will be required to serve a 28 day drug test refusal waiting period before they are eligible to receive the payment again.’[1]

The numbers

To stop the bill three or more cross bench senators  need to oppose, alongside Labor and The Greens. The senators that might do this include:

• Tim Storer (Independent) – centre-left leaning. Position on the Bill not clear at this point.
• Rex Patrick (Centre Alliance) – doesn’t see testing as a big issue because he draws a parallel with his experiences in the navy where drug testing is common occurrence for personnel. Not clear whether he understands that the purpose of testing in the Navy is different from testing jobseekers. Has said he is still to decide whether the government’s intention was to ‘help or to harm’. If he decides their intentions are genuine, then he will likely vote for it. But if he felt it was punitive, he won’t.  He has more recently shifted from ‘what’s wrong with a trial?’ to ‘probably need to consider this a bit more’.
• Sterling Griff (Centre Alliance) – seems to be relatively sympathetic to opposing the Bill.
• Derryn Hinch (Independent) – may oppose the bill on a technicality about what kind of income management is involved. Has his own experiences with alcohol that may lead him to be sympathetic towards people with drug-related problems.
• David Leyonjhelm (Independent) – proposed extensive amendments to the 2017 Bill, including adding alcohol to the testable drugs, and these were not taken up by government. For him, the absence of alcohol represented an unjustifiable prejudice against illegal drug use. He is likely to oppose on the grounds that his amendments are unlikely to be accepted (even while he supports the idea that government can impose these kinds of rules on people in the jobseeker system).

What to do

• Contact Senators to encourage them to oppose the Bill: phone calls, requests for meetings, emails of encouragement
• Focus on Senators Storer, Griff and Patrick, as they are still in the process of forming a position
• Senators are likely to be at their electoral offices this week, and will be in Canberra next week and the week after (i.e., weeks commencing 18 and 25 June)

Contact details

Tim Storer:

Electorate office (08) 8232 0220

senator.storer@aph.gov.au

Canberra phone (02) 6277 3500

Rex Patrick:

Electorate office (08) 8232 1144

senator.patrick@aph.gov.au

Canberra Phone (02) 6277 3785

Stirling Griff:

(08) 8212 1409

senator.griff@aph.gov.au

Canberra Phone (02) 6277 3128

Derryn Hinch:

(03) 9820 2222

senator.hinch@aph.gov.au

Canberra Phone (02) 6277 3168

David Leyonjhelm

(02) 9719 1078

senator.leyonhjelm@aph.gov.au

Canberra Phone (02) 6277 3054

 

The Welfare Reform Bill 2017 and the Drug Testing Trial Bill 2018

This 2018 Bill is almost identical to Schedule 12 of the Welfare Reform Bill which government introduced in June 2017. On 7 December 2017, following sustained opposition within and outside Parliament, the Senate, on the motion of the government, agreed to remove Schedule 12 from the Welfare Reform Bill.

In February 2018, Dan Tehan, Minister for Social Services, introduced the new Bill (Drug Testing Trial) in the House of Representatives. The Bill was read in the House. The Senate then referred the Bill to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for review.

The committee’s report was tabled on May 7, accessible here.

There were 52 submissions to the Senate Committee review. The only one unambiguously in favour of the Bill was the Government’s own Department of Social Services. Organisations that made submissions opposing the Bill included St Vincent’s Health Australia, the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Public Health Association of Australia, the Kirby Institute, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Salvation Army, Anglicare, St Vincent de Paul, Mission Australia, Uniting and more. This was consistent with the Senate Committee review of the 2017 Bill – in that case, all 43 organisations that made a submission opposed the Bill.

The Senate Committee, chaired by the government, nevertheless recommended that the Bill be passed. (The Committee also recommended that the government publish an evaluation plan prior to commencing the trial, and publish the results of the evaluation after the trial is complete.)

[1] Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018.

Dear Colleague

The DANA Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held in Melbourne on Friday 27^th July 2018 from 07:00-8:00am at Storey Hall, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria. A light breakfast will be served prior to the meeting at 7am for those attending.

DANA is incorporated under NSW law and as such is required to provide seven (7) days notice of the AGM.  The DANA Constitution is available to download  DANA Constitution. 

One of the items to be addressed at the AGM is the election of the DANA Management Committee.  The following positions on the Management Committee are now open for nomination. A nomination form is  available to download Nomination Form

For inquiries relating to the positions vacant please contact the DANA President at president@danaonline.org

Vacant positions:

• President
• Secretary
• DANA Officer – Advancing practice (Credentialling and Advanced Certification)
• DANA Officer – Event management (Conference, Forums, coordination of regional events)
• DANA Officer – Scholarships, policies & procedures
• DANA Officer – Education, training, research and workforce development (curriculum development, standards of practice)

Note: Each DANA Officer will also be responsible for specific chapters of the DANA membership. These can be fluid, based on the needs of the membership. This allows for some areas to have more than one representative on the Management Committee. It is preferable that the Committee Members live within their Chapter, although this is not always possible.  Each DANA Committee Member will be responsible for a sub-committee of DANA members to assist in achieving the goals of their portfolio. 

The DANA Management Committee encourage you to consider nominating for one of these roles.  You will be supported and encouraged in your new role, and it will challenge you to learn as well as give back to your professional body.

Additional documentation relating to the AGM will be circulated in the near future.

I look forward to meeting you at the AGM.

Regards

Darren Smyth

DANA President