Page 4256 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
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this place or at the bidding of members of another government who are almost as conservative as those who stand opposite here.
I urge that this Assembly continue to lead the way in Australia with innovative policy approaches to drug law reform which aim to minimise harm in our community. I oppose the motion.
MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (4.46): I want to be very clear about what the ACT Legislative Assembly voted for when we voted on personal cannabis use. We voted for a sensible and modern approach to managing drug use in our community. We voted to say that the war on drugs is ineffective and that drug use is not a moral failure but a health problem that is better dealt with in the health system.
To do that, we voted to change our laws, and we voted to change our laws in a very specific and well-considered manner. The ACT Legislative Assembly voted to exempt adults from personal possession offences. We voted to allow the possession of two plants, to a household limit of four. We voted to create new offences regarding smoking around children, smoking in public and growing and using cannabis in public places. We did not vote to legalise drug driving, to legalise sale or to legalise trafficking. Drug driving, dealing and trafficking are, and will remain, illegal. Those that suggest otherwise should simply read the bill and become better acquainted with the law.
Before conservative commonwealth politicians entered this debate, the law was obvious. The defence to a commonwealth possession charge is that the use is excused or justified under territory law. What is at stake in this debate is no longer just the legalisation of cannabis for personal use but the existence of prosecutorial independence in this country. Our public prosecutors should not be directed to prosecute particular cases by their political overseers.
This is important to ensure that our legal system is not clogged up with ineffective prosecutions with little prospect of success, and it is important to ensure that prosecutions are not used as part of the political process. Also, importantly, prosecutorial independence ensures that political actors do not use the courts to pursue political battles.
That is why the first letter from the commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is so important. This is what the director and her staff believed before the conservative commonwealth government intervened, using the basis of a dubious precedent based in taxation law. This law is not about taxation. This entire process has been politicised. They have been searching for an answer. This legal charade does a disservice to our justice system.
To get to the crux of Mr Hanson’s motion, even with this overt politicisation we are on sound legal ground as we legalise cannabis in the ACT. On the first point of this motion, which I am not sure Mr Hanson has actually read, the bill is not invalid. “Valid” and “invalid” have a specific legal meaning, and this was not raised by the commonwealth Attorney-General. The act passed by this Assembly has legal force. It is fundamentally incorrect to say that it is invalid. I would urge the aspiring
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