Page 445 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 8 March 2006
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at the moment we cannot guarantee what concentration of illegal or legal drugs will impair driving.
We have heard anecdotally the opinion that any presence of heroin will in fact impair driving. But we need to have a look at, in a sense, the half-life of drugs which are residual in the bloodstream. All drugs take different times to work their way through the system. I would like to see some work done in determining what those levels are and build those into the legislation. I have no problems with this as an issue but at the moment we do not have that information. We do not have that coming out of the states either. Tasmania is testing something like 13 different drugs.
Mr Mulcahy: It has been out there for years, John. It has been there for decades.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, Mr Mulcahy says across the chamber that it has been there for decades. Well, I am sorry, it has not and, furthermore, it is not in the piece of legislation that Mr Pratt has put down. His bill does not say that X milligrams of a particular drug found the bloodstream will impair driving. It does not say that at all. What, in fact, other pieces of legislation say is that it is illegal to snort cocaine or to inject heroin. Well, we know that. If this legislation is about randomly testing the population to see who is a drug user, then let us not be dishonest about that. Let us be open about that and put this legislation forward for what it is.
Mr Pratt: This is a road safety issue.
MR HARGREAVES: If this a road safety issue—and I take that on face value—then what we need to do is make sure that these testing regimes are valid and efficacious. I do not see that in this legislation. We need to make sure that we have the correct powers to detain people for testing. I do not think this is particularly well articulated in this legislation. We need to talk about the treatment of positive test results during any trial period.
We already have difficulties with blood sampling after accidents. We have difficulty in framing the law around that. I do not think we differ over having to do this. Where we differ at the moment is over whether we are in a position to make good law in this respect, and I do not think we are at this point.
We need to make sure that we look at the restrictions on the use of evidence from roadside tests for anything other than a driving-related offence. This has to be covered but I do not see it in the legislation. We also need to address treatment program options for offenders. We do not have that. Also, we have not considered the resource implications for the Australian Federal Police and the ACT Government Analytical Laboratory. Essentially, we do not have that information at the moment. If the different jurisdictions are doing things in a different way then they will have a different call on those resources, particularly in respect of the laboratories. Do we have the equipment available for testing? How much will it cost? If we have legislation in place and we do not have the equipment to test, is it going to be an efficacious piece of legislation? I would argue that it would not be.
Mr Speaker, these issues will be explored this year as part of a wider review of the Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Act. I had already asked the department to convene a
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