ACT Greens Push For Defqon Relocation To Allow For Pill Testing At Festival

There’s now a push to move Defqon.1 festival to Canberra following the deaths of two punters at the Sydney event last month and subsequent calls from NSW Premier to shut it down.

According to the ABC, ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury has written a letter to festival organiser Q-Dance, inviting the company to bring any future events to Canberra where pill testing could potentially be carried out.

Speaking about the relocation, Mr Rattenbury said, "It would be great to bring it to Canberra from a tourism point of view, to have something for our young people to go to.

"At Defqon, because there was no pill testing, we saw people were obviously taking drugs without any ability to check them.

"A really important part about having it here in the ACT would be offering that service."

Canberra's Groovin the Moo festival saw Australia's first official pill testing trial earlier in the year, however more recently the National Capital Authority announced they will not allow a pill testing trial to go ahead at this year's Spilt Milk festival.

Spilt Milk festival is held on federal government land, requiring a license from the National Capital Authority whereas Groovin the Moo is held at the University of Canberra, land owned by the ACT Government.

In an exclusive opinion piece written for The Music last month, Ted Noffs Foundation Campaigns & Policy Coordinator Shelley Smith took aim at government for refusing to look at the evidence from pill testing at conducted at Groovin The Moo this year. 

"How can our politicians continue to ignore both science and the electorate, when there have been far too many deaths?" Smith wrote.

"We’ve established that we can prevent harm at music festivals, so why do governments continue to bury their heads in the sand?"

Read the full piece here.

To look back at the past few years of the Australian pill testing conversation and to see how things have, or haven’t, progressed review our timeline of pill testing here.

The Music has reached out to Rattenbury's office for comment.