The Senate is calling on the Turnbull Government to implement pill testing, more supervised injecting rooms and cease the use of sniffer dogs at festivals.

On International Overdose Awareness Day, which commemorates all those who have died or been seriously injured due to drug overdose, a Greens motion has passed the Senate without objection from Labor or Liberal Senators.

I move: That the Senate— (a) notes that:

(i)   today is the 15th annual International Overdose Awareness Day, commemorating all those who have died or been seriously injured due to drug overdose, and

(ii)   six people lose their lives to preventable overdose in Australia each day; and

(b) calls on the Government to address the rising rates of harm associated with drug use by implementing and appropriately resourcing evidence-based harm reduction policies, including:

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land that we are meeting on, the Ngunawal people, and I want to pay my respects to their elders past and present. I want to acknowledge that their land was stolen and never ceded, and I look forward to a respectful dialogue in the 45th Parliament to achieve a just settlement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this country.

Our Constitution says:

… the Senate shall have equal power with the House of Representatives in respect of all proposed laws.

Australian Greens Leader Dr Richard Di Natale has restated his party's intention to introduce laws to enable dying with dignity, in light of the police investigation into a Perth GP.

"Around Australia people overwhelmingly support the right of terminally ill people to end their lives on their own terms, and the law should reflect that," said Senator Di Natale, himself a former GP.

The Greens are calling on the Federal Government to support personal importation of an HIV 'wonder drug' that has just been denied listing on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, to protect those who are most at risk.

"We simply cannot leave Australians at unnecessary risk, when this drug gives us the chance to end HIV transmission in Australia," said Greens Leader Dr Richard Di Natale, a former public health specialist who has worked on HIV prevention in India.