Pubdate: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Copyright: 2001 The Sydney Morning Herald Contact: GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001 Fax: 61-(0)2-9282 3492 Website: http://www.smh.com.au/ Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/ Author: Mark Metherell YOU MUST BE J-J-JOKING, MR HOWARD It was the cool media opportunity for the Prime Minister to tune into, if not turn on, Australia's youth. Triple J, the radio network with the biggest youth audience, had Mr Howard on to talk about his new drug campaign. But when Mr Howard came to defend his call for parents to have a role in educating their children about drugs, he started sounding very much like ... a parent. He said he didn't pretend that as a parent communication with his children was always easy. "But what I'm saying to parents is the more you try and the more you are able to establish effective communication with your children, the greater opportunity you will have to get some positive messages over," Mr Howard said. When the young interviewer, Peta Donald, suggested a lot of people who developed drug problems came from troubled families, Mr Howard said he did not have the "naive view" that you only get drug abuse in dysfunctional families. It was "plainly ridiculous" to ignore the 90 per cent of people who had parents to talk to. Mr Howard also chipped Donald for saying "the reality is that people will use drugs ..." He shot back: "No, the reality is not, I am sorry, but the reality is not that people will use drugs." When Donald asked about shortage in treatment resources, Mr Howard accused her of throwing up questions based on Opposition "nitpicking". He contradicted Donald's claim that most experts supported heroin trials and injecting rooms. And when she asked about his approach to Greens preferences, Mr Howard said "you're asking me political questions". Surely her audience was more interested in what the Government was doing for the environment "than political bobbing and weaving". - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe