The federal government has set aside $1m for a new hotline that urges members of the public to dob in a drug dealer as part of its measures to tackle the impacts of ice.

The money would go to Crime Stoppers so “dobbing in dealers can be promoted and encouraged”, Tony Abbott said.

A similar hotline operates in Victoria and has resulted in a 100% to 400% increase in information coming in from the community about drug dealers, the prime minister told reporters on Sunday.

He warned of the dangers of crystal methamphetamine, or ice, which he labelled a “deadly scourge”.

“The first time you use these drugs they damage you, and if you become enslaved to drugs, your life will be destroyed,” he said.

Abbott announced the formation of a national ice taskforce in April, headed by the former Victorian police commissioner Ken Lay. The taskforce released an interim report on the drug in July.

Legislation that would allow the seizing the assets of organised criminals was also being considered, the prime minister said.

“Rehabilitation is important, but punishment is important too,” Abbott said. “Taking people off the streets who are drug dealers is important, too.

“Attacking the ‘Mr Bigs’ of drugs, that’s important and that’s why I’m hoping to have more to say in coming weeks about unexplained wealth legislation.”

Abbott also urged Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, to stick with tough anti-bikie laws, as the state considers winding them back.

“I don’t normally offer gratuitous advice to my state colleagues, but as a general principle we have got to be tough on crime and on the causes of crime,” he said. “It’s well known that something like 70% of the ice dealing in this country is associated with organised crime gangs, particularly bikie gangs.”



He added that the motorcycle gangs “are at the very heart of crime” and that “it’s important that we crack down on them”.



The anti-association laws were brought in by the former premier Campbell Newman and are now being reviewed by a taskforce commissioned to reassess their success.

The independent senator Nick Xenophon supports the seizure of all assets of drug dealers and wants the money to be put towards detox programs. “There is a lack of rehabilitation programs that are affordable in this country,” he told reporters in Adelaide, arguing that detox programs should be mandatory “as a last resort”.

The comments come after his fellow independent senator Jacqui Lambie called for parents to be given the power to force their children into rehab when she revealed that her son suffers an addiction to ice.

Lambie’s revelation is a reminder that ice touches “all strata of the community”, said the justice minister, Michael Keenan.

“The contribution for Senator Lambie is a reminder that nobody is immune from this, and that’s why we’re determined to do something about it,” Keenan told the conservative commentator Andrew Bolt on Sunday.

This month Keenan announced that the government would provide an extra $18m for overseas criminal intelligence gathering. Abbott said the move would mean Australian authorities could “detect more of these drugs at their source”.

The prime minister has asked Keenan to liaise with his state and territory counterparts to look at imposing tougher penalties for people affected by ice who assault frontline health workers.

“If people do the wrong thing there have got to be consequences and people need to know that being on a ice bender is very much doing the wrong thing,” he said. “If you do damage to people while you’re on an ice bender there should be very serious consequences indeed.”



A survey by the University of New South Wales released late last week shows that many Australians drastically overestimate the use of ice in the community, while a report by police released earlier in the year found that 400,000 people had tried methamphetamine in the past 12 months.