Statutes Amendment (Drink and Drug Driving) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (17:46): Where I left off was talking about a meeting that I had down in Lyndoch at the St Jakobi Lutheran School that had been organised by the Southern Barossa Alliance in relation to ice and how we had had a gentleman come in who was an ice sufferer. He had lived in South-East Asia and had had an ice addiction over there, had cleaned himself up coming to Australia, had been clean, I think from memory, for nine years, and relapsed after the death of a friend, then continued to use ice strongly and frequently, and then decided he would try to take his own life.

That story really did stick with the audience, of which there were about 60 or 70 people on a pretty cold night. Such was the importance of this topic that there were so many people there. This is a pretty small community and the meeting had only been advertised in limited fashion. It struck home to me that ice is different from other drugs, that the way that it works, its nature, the effect that it has on people is different. I have said previously that ice is a problem that we have in South Australia. We have an ice problem in South Australia. It is borne out by the statistics in the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and it is borne out in the reasons for wanting to have this bill.

We also heard from a woman who, it turns out, lives just down the road from me, whose son is an ice addict and who gave a pretty difficult account of her coming to grips with her son's behaviour. As I understand it, he did drive on drugs and that was quite a dangerous situation. I do not want to go into any detail other than to say that it was an extremely difficult time for her, and I think she has dealt with it as well as she can and it was an awful scenario.

What we also gained that night was a greater understanding of what is known as the Matrix Program. Essentially, we are looking at how we deal with ice. It is different from other drugs. If we are talking about opioids, if we are talking about heroin use, there are methadone programs and there are ways that you deal with that. There is a different way that we deal with cannabis. Ice is different again and what really struck me is that we sit here and we talk about rehabilitation as the panacea—and I hope that the government sees fit to support at least a couple of the amendments that we have in relation to expanding access to rehabilitation—but in the ice space, rehabilitation and what that means is a movable feast.

In fact, there is discussion about whether inpatient services work because people go away from their normal daily life. Yes, they can get cleaned up in an inpatient facility, but once they go out into the broader community do they have the skills to be able to withstand the temptation? Essentially, the Matrix Program is an intensive outpatient addiction recovery program. The program provides a number of touch points on a weekly basis for these people to receive treatment and get help, but it does not take them out of their broader community environment so that they learn not to use the drug while still remaining, as much as they can, in their community. That is important because we need those skills to transfer.

If you look at some high-profile inpatient clinics, such as the Betty Ford clinic and others, you see the fact that what we are trying to achieve here are outcomes. That is why our understanding of rehabilitation needs to evolve. Having an early understanding about how the Matrix Program works in South Australia is positive, but I think there is still some way to go to ensure that.

The Matrix Program seeks to support detoxification, primarily in an outpatient setting, participation in an intensive program involving attendance on a regular basis throughout the week, support from psychologists and recovered consumers with lived experience, and ongoing random urine testing to provide objective verification of efforts to stay clean. In this balance between carrot and stick, these programs are probably a little bit of both in the sense that you are at least trying to provide the tools to provide the ongoing support and help to change people's lives. As I will come to a little bit later on, that is extremely important in this context.

The object of what we are seeking to do through these penalties is to say, 'Don't do it again.' We are ratcheting up the penalties for first, second and subsequent offences. We are ratcheting up the penalties across the board to send a stronger message that you should not do this again and, in fact, then basically stopping people from getting their licence back if they cannot demonstrate that they have changed their behaviour. What we are looking for is not a point in time, 'I have been clean enough to tick a few boxes.' What we are looking at is a permanent change of behaviour. That has to be the outcome here; otherwise, we are going to see continued offending, and that defeats the purpose of this bill in the first place.

We have to look at ways that will permanently change people's behaviour rather than being like a year 12 student cramming for an exam, making sure that we can pass the test the following day but disregarding all the knowledge that we learnt the night before as soon as the exam is over. This has to be a change to someone's lifestyle, a change to someone's habits. It potentially means a change to someone's friendship group if that friendship group is one of the factors that pulls them down.

We need to see a permanent change in behaviour, and that is why we need to extend and look more broadly at what works. We cannot be stuck around rhetoric. We cannot be stuck around trying to look tough and puff out our chest. We have to get more creative. Because of everything I have said before, we are not winning this war at the moment. This space is evolving. Our laws should evolve, but also our thinking needs to be remain flexible enough and our laws need to remain flexible enough so that we can actually get closer to those outcomes.

The major changes that we are seeking to make in this drink and drug driving bill include the creation of a three-month licence disqualification for a first-time drug presence offence that is expiated. That is something that is different from before and is essentially a cracking down on the fact that we do not test somebody's impairment to drive. We are testing for the presence of a drug and not making a determination about the other, but saying, 'If this thing is in your system, then you are going to lose your licence.'

I know that there are other provisions where police officers can differentiate between an impairment and presence, but that is not something we are seeking to change in this bill. Certainly, the law on that as it currently stands is what it is. If there is an ability in the future to have that evolve, when we can start to build a better body of evidence around impairment as opposed to merely presence, then that is something we can deal with at a future time.

With the body of evidence that exists around alcohol and the .05 limit, and how we have been able to determine impairment potentially because this drug is legal and regulated and operates in a fairly consistent manner, we can make that determination. However, I agree that to make that determination about illicit substances is a lot more difficult because we do not know the exact potency, we do not know how to regulate the dosage of the things that people take, so I accept that that is a lot more difficult.

We are increasing the minimum penalty of six months, where someone seeks to have their first drug-driving offence prosecuted. That is something we have done in a number of other places, where essentially we are saying, 'You take your three months on the chin or, if you choose to fight this and you lose, the penalty will be increased to six months.' At a time when our courts are backlogged in the extreme, I can see how a provision like this has merit. Certainly, at this time, we are happy to support it.

This bill also increases the penalties for second and subsequent offences. For a second offence, the minimum disqualification is one year, there is a two-year minimum for the third offence, and for subsequent offences the minimum is three years. This is at the heart of what this bill is seeking to tell the community; that is, when you drink-drive, when you take illicit substances and drive, and you get caught, we are going to make your life more difficult.

The reason that I think this part of the bill will be effective is that, especially in a state like South Australia and especially in a city like Adelaide, where we have low density and are spread out, having your licence is pretty important. Having a licence is fairly essential for many jobs, in regard to being able to get to work. People need to make that decision about whether they are willing to put their job on the line for the sake of drug driving or drink-driving, whether it is getting the kids to school, which is a separate offence that we will talk about separately, whether it is getting the kids to the footy on the weekend or whether it is catching up with friends.

As a representative of a rural electorate, I had students in the parliament dining room today. We had a discussion about public transport and the Barossa. Essentially, getting your Ps and the ability to drive independently was the key to freedom in a regional area. Again, what we are saying is that your freedom to get around is at risk if you choose to drink-drive to excess or take illicit drugs and drive. I think that this increased punishment will have an effect because it is so serious.

I have seen instances of people pleading about the fact that they know, as soon as they are caught drink-driving or drug driving, that that loss of licence will mean that they lose their job. There are some who will be able to get by on public transport. I know from my own family business experience that when you start work at 5am in the morning in a factory in the backblocks of Elizabeth, it is pretty difficult to get public transport out there. That is a decision the guys who work out there, for instance, would have to deal with. I think that this part of the bill is extremely important.

This bill also creates a new offence of drink and drug driving with a child under 16 years in the car. I talked about that earlier. What we are saying with this offence is that, whilst you may as an individual choose to drive and put your own life at risk, that is one thing, but by doing so you are also likely to impact upon all the other road users, pedestrians and people on our roads, and you also put them at risk.

What you also do in this instance is put children at risk—children who are supposed to be in your care, who are supposed to be your responsibility. That is why the creation of this new offence is something that we support. It is why we think this is an important message, not only because we want the parents or caregivers to take responsibility for the children in their care but also because we know that a lot of drinking behaviour and drug-taking behaviour is learned.

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30.

Mr KNOLL: For those playing at home, we were discussing the extra responsibility parents and caregivers need to take in relation to looking after their children in a vehicle. The offence we are hopefully going to create as part of this bill seeks to provide greater impetus for that responsibility. The bill also strengthens notification provisions to the Department for Child Protection for offenders convicted under this section. We did raise a series of questions in relation to how that would work.

Essentially, it is as benign a process as anyone else goes through to send notifications to Child Protection. It refers offenders to a drug dependency test for a first-time offence under this provision and for subsequent offences for other drink and drug-driving offences. It increases penalties for driving whilst disqualified for drug-driving offences to be in line with serious drink-driving penalties. We definitely support this because in a lot of the legislation we bring forward to this place we are making laws for those who abide by the law, but as soon as somebody does not abide by the law or operates outside the law, our ability to have an impact is diminished.

A number of people on our roads continue to drive without a licence. We see that in the statistics and the number of people who get caught driving without a licence. This is especially pertinent where people have lost their licence for drink-driving, especially if we consider third-party bodily insurance and the fact that these people are essentially putting everybody at risk of not getting access to compensation in the event that a motor accident occurs. That risk is further exacerbated by the fact that these people may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Again, we completely support that.

It makes changes necessary to update drug-testing methods and replaces a second on-site drug test with an oral fluid sample sent to Forensic Science SA. On that issue, we received a letter from the Hon. Peter Malinauskas when he was minister for police and road safety in other place. He has not yet transferred to this chamber but his portfolio has been transferred to the member for Kaurna. Essentially, the letter provides information on the process by which SAPOL and Forensic Science SA undertake this second-stage test and the efforts taken to ensure that samples are not contaminated:

Case receipt officers receiving oral fluid samples at Forensic Science SA are trained to follow specific protocols to ensure that every sample accepted for analysis meets stringent requirements. The officers ensure that samples and accompanying paperwork are correctly labelled with unique identifiers and donor's details, that samples are appropriately sealed and chain of custody is maintained. These protocols are outlined in controlled documentation readily accessible to staff.

Once samples are accepted they are directly transferred to a secure freezer where they are kept until analysed by a qualified analyst.

At any time from sample receipt to the time of sample dispatch or disposal, the identification, appropriate storage conditions, preservation of integrity and security are maintained.

The methodology (and reporting of results) used at Forensic Science SA is a validated procedure and is accredited against international standards. The technique unequivocally identifies the presence or absence of a prescribed drug. Mandatory peer reviews are performed throughout the analytical process.

It should give us some comfort that, while the process that is going to be used at Forensic Science SA will take a lot longer than the second-stage roadside drug test, the increased complexity about transferring those samples to Forensic Science SA will be managed in a way that is appropriate. In the letter, the minister also gave us a breakdown, by local service area, of where those detections were for 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2016. Essentially, it features quite broadly across all parts of Adelaide and country South Australia. I am not sure that there is really that much to be gleaned in those figures.

The bill goes on to remove the requirement for SAPOL authorisation to conduct drug tests so that all officers can undertake this, not those officers who are authorised, as in the current legislation. As we do with drink-driving testing, as long as SAPOL trains the officers in the appropriate manner, all officers can undertake this. I think that is extremely sensible and, if it is a small measure to help reduce the red tape and bureaucratic burden within SAPOL, all is the better for it. I hope that, through our front-line policing review we announced yesterday, we will be able to find many more examples like that to bring to this parliament.

I said at the start of my speech, and I say again now, that we like the bill as it is. We think that the bill, as it is presented to us from the Legislative Council, is the best bill to put forward. Some of the reasons why relate to the first and second amendments that are being put forward. I said before that the drug dependency test is a measure for testing whether people are or are not addicted to alcohol or addicted to drugs. Certainly, the government, in all the rhetoric they have put forward—and, in fact, in some of the intemperate remarks from the minister for police in the other place to the Hon. Kelly Vincent—tried to suggest otherwise. There is a belief and a trust in the drug dependency test that I do not think deserves to be there.

If we follow logic, it says that when you commit a first-time offence—fine. Take your licks, take the punishment and, after a period of time, you get back on the road. After you commit a second offence, we can see that there is potentially a pattern of behaviour, and it is at that point that the current legislation says, 'Hang on, we want to check whether you are addicted to drugs or alcohol. We are going to send you off for a drug dependency test.' That test is only undertaken by one clinic, Corporate Health Group at Mile End; currently, I think it is about a six-week wait to get in there. I would like to think that they are going to gear up and get ready for greater tests when this legislation passes. They undertake this test and they provide a yes or no answer. It is a black-and-white yes or no.

If the drug dependency test worked, we would not see subsequent offending. If the drug dependency test, which provides a yes or no answer, worked, we would not see people go out and commit further offences, but we do. Those figures have been provided to us and they are extremely substantial. Hundreds of people a year go on to commit further alcohol and drink-driving offences as well as drug driving offences—hundreds a year. Those figures show that the drug dependency test does not work in every single case. In fact, in relation to the drug dependency test specifically, it does not work in a whole heap of cases.

The problem with that is that we place our faith in a test that is not about changing behaviour as much as it is about creating a point-in-time understanding of someone's state of being. The example I used before is that it is like cramming for a year 12 economics exam: the night before, you make sure that you are right to go for the exam, you pass the exam on the day and you forget everything you learned the night before as soon as you finish the test. I understand that maybe the time line to pass a drug dependency test is a bit longer than that. Certainly, the clinical process you go through for this test is a bit more substantial than that, but if it worked we would see very few numbers of people going on to reoffend. The truth is, we do, and that is why we have to start to look at alternative methods. If the drug dependency test does not work in a whole heap of cases—in hundreds and hundreds of cases a year—then we need to look at other methods.

We think that increased access to rehabilitation programs and completing those rehabilitation programs should be considered as an alternative method as part of this bill. That is not about a point-in-time decision or a point-in-time snapshot of someone; this is about actually working with a person to try to change their behaviour. Surely that has to be the aim that we are getting to. We want people not to take drugs and drive, and so we need to be more involved in providing the carrot and the stick to get them to change their behaviour. We think increased access to rehabilitation does that.

Whilst members opposite may try to look tough on this issue, if people are going out and creating subsequent offences because this test does not work as often as it should, or is not as strong a predictor of future behaviour as it should be, then our roads are less safe. We have people on our roads who are taking drugs and driving and who are drinking and driving, and we need to get smarter and more creative about ways to change that behaviour. That is why we put these amendments in there in the first place.

It is not about ideology, and it is not about trying to thump our chest; it is about trying to find some new ways so that we can actually get towards zero together and actually reduce the number of drug-related driving deaths from 10 or 15 a year down to zero, and the same for alcohol. That is why they are in there. We implore the government to see sense on this issue. We implore the government, who do believe in rehabilitation in certain circumstances, to broaden it to this because this is important. We know that, to a certain degree, we cannot control people's future behaviour. People have to be accountable for their own actions, but if we can in any way, to the greatest possible extent, change their behaviour, then we are duty bound and morally bound to make those decisions.

With amendments Nos 3 and 4, we are also seeking to do the same thing and essentially provide that pathway for people to seek treatment. We know in these instances that, to a degree, people have to choose these things for themselves, but we can force them to choose these things for themselves in the sense that having a licence is a privilege and, as I have pointed out, is essential to modern Australian and South Australian life. We can provide that incentive—that carrot as well as the stick—if people fail.

I assume we will have a discussion a bit later around the amendment that the Hon. Kelly Vincent brought forward to the other place in relation to people who are using medical cannabis and their desire to still be able to drive. I understand that this is a difficult area because we are delving into territory that is quite new. Medical cannabis is only in its infancy in South Australia, but it has had a larger body of research around the world. What I would say to that is: if we are going to make medical cannabis a prescription drug, we need to treat it like a prescription drug.

We already have a process for how we deal with other serious opioids and drugs with pain-relieving properties. These people do get on the road and drive in certain circumstances. In my view, the only thing that makes this different is that we test for THC when we pull someone over and test them for drug driving, but we do not test them for the other things, in the same way that we do not test people for cocaine or heroin. What really makes this situation more difficult in relation to medical cannabis is the fact that it is something we test for, and the fact that we have the active component (THC) within the system.

We would like to provide a pathway where we can have a greater medical understanding and a medical pathway for how we deal with this issue. We would like to see doctors who have an understanding of the patient, an understanding of the drug and an understanding of the limitations of both, to be able to make the determination about whether or not someone should drive, in the same way we do for other prescription drugs that we do not test for.

If a doctor turns around and says, 'You are not okay to drive on medical cannabis,' then that should be the outcome. Again, there were some intemperate remarks made by minister Malinauskas in the other place in relation to this. What we are trying to do here is not what we see in the US where anybody can get access to medical marijuana, which is essentially a process by which they have achieved legalisation in the US. That is not what we are seeking to do here. We are talking about a prescription drug.

We are not talking about a carte blanche get out of gaol free card. Not only does someone need to go to a doctor beforehand, convince the doctor and the doctor go through a clinical process to determine whether or not someone can drive, but the person then has to go to court, after being charged with an offence, and it is a defence. Not only are we now allowing doctors to control the process but we are also giving judges the ability to make a decision in this process, and you have to prove to a judge that you are okay to drive. That is a very high burden for someone to pass.

To say that this is some sort of complete legalisation process is absolute codswallop and it is something that I find offensive. We know that medical cannabis can have positive effects on certain types of ailments. The government has already said that they are on board with a pathway to turning medical cannabis into a prescription drug. We have seen movements federally to ensure that this happens. In fact, we have seen the first importation of proper controlled medical cannabis into Australia.

I talked about the difference between alcohol and illicit drugs being the fact that alcohol is regulated, its strength is regulated and we have a fairly solid understanding of how it affects people. Illicit substances have varying degrees of strength that people do not know about when they are taking the drug. People also tend not to regulate the amount of the drug that they take to the greatest degree. However, here we are talking about a controlled amount of a prescription drug where we can start to make some solid predictions about how it will affect people.

We are talking about an extremely high threshold and an extremely high burden for someone to be able to use this provision. I think it is incumbent upon the government, if we are going to go down the path of allowing medical cannabis as a prescription drug, that we should get on the front foot legislatively and start to deal with these issues.

There was another amendment in the other place, which was thankfully defeated, in relation to search powers. This amendment was moved by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire and I think bears repeating here because of the extremity of it. We know that the government tried to get a modified version of the Hon. Robert Brokenshire's amendment into the bill, and that was defeated in the upper house, which I will get to in a moment. However, the original amendment put by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire stated:

(a) a person has submitted to a drug screening test conducted by a police officer under this Act; and

(b) the police officer reasonably believes, on the basis of the results of that test, that the person has committed a drug driving offence,

In other words, we have tested you and the first-stage test has tested positive, so we are not even waiting for the second-stage test. We are talking about something on the side of the road. The amendment goes on:

the police officer (or some other police officer or officers)—

(c) must search the vehicle involved in the commission of the offence—

'must search the vehicle'. Under this proposed amendment, we are talking about the police having to search thousands and thousands of cars a year—'must search the vehicle'. So when the government and the Hon. Mr Brokenshire put forward their watered-down amendment, this is what they really wanted to get into legislation: to make police go through every single car of somebody who returns a first-stage positive test. It is not good enough to convict you of drug driving but it is certainly good enough for police to have the following power:

…if reasonably necessary for the purpose of searching the vehicle, break into or open any part of the vehicle, or anything in or on the vehicle.

It is a carte blanche power to break things apart which, under the current system, makes sense because if the police have a reasonable belief or a reasonable suspicion that there are drugs in the car, or they have a reasonable belief that an offence is being commissioned, they can currently search the car.

In those circumstances, you give police leeway to be able to crack open the secret compartment that people have to try to hide the drugs that they have stashed, but this says that they must. If we are talking about the fact that this first-stage drug-driving test does on occasion—and this is something that was provided in a briefing by the minister's staff, that 5 per cent of the time there are false positives—give false positives, you are basically saying that these people are going to get searched when they have done nothing wrong. The Law Society was asked to provide—

Members interjecting:

Mr KNOLL: They make some solid points. I know those opposite are deriding the legal community. Heaven forbid that we actually sometimes listen to the people who have to deal with this every day. Heaven forbid that we actually look at those who look at this on an objective basis to try to find out what the truth of the matter is. Heaven forbid that we actually talk to an expert. The Law Society goes on to say this:

The Society notes the well-established common law position that police are only authorised to search a person or vehicle when there is a reasonable suspicion that they will find evidence of the commission of an offence. This is enshrined in section 68 of the Summary Offences Act.

This has been around for a long time. You would think that, in proposing this amendment, the government and the Hon. Robert Brokenshire would turn around and say, 'We need this.' We have dealt with pieces of legislation today where there is a clear need—a clear and demonstrated need—for a change to legislation. The Law Society goes on to say:

The Honourable Robert Brokenshire noted when moving the proposed amendments that he was doing so on the basis there is a weakness in the current powers available to South Australian Police (SAPOL), without clearly articulating the suggested 'weakness'. The Society considers that the current search powers under section 68 of the Summary Offences Act are comprehensive and in the absence of a clearly defined weakness, does not support the proposed amendments.

They go on to say:

It is significant that the record of Hansard relating to Honourable Robert Brokenshire of 6 July 2017 does not contain a single example of where the application of the current law, in a particular case, has revealed a weakness.

It seems to me very much that this is an amendment in search of a headline, instead of in search of fixing a problem—an amendment in search of a headline. Again, we need to take a common-sense approach to this. We need to take an evidence-based approach to this and we need to take a practical approach to this, and that is why we do not support that amendment.

There are a number of other people in this area who have suggested that the government's position on this is somehow a little bit misguided. I refer to Associate Professor David Caldicott, who on radio said about the previous minister:

Look, I think the most charitable thing to say is that he has been misinformed on the nature of the science. There is a big difference between having detectable THC in your bloodstream and being impaired…THC is perhaps the scariest element for many in cannabis…it's what recreational consumers frequently chase to get themselves high…

Essentially, what he is saying is that the science is different from what the government has been trying to suggest in relation to the Kelly Vincent amendment. To remove all doubt in relation to the drug dependency test, there were some comments in the other place by the Hon. Peter Malinauskas in relation to the drug dependency test. He said:

The risk with the McLachlan amendment—

which is something the government is seeking to reverse here—

is that someone who was suffering from an addiction might get access to treatment, but then they fail in that treatment to deliver the desired outcome in terms of concluding their addiction. So just getting treatment does not guarantee that your addiction no longer exists. One could go to a registrar and say, 'Look, I undertook all this great treatment over here,' but they still suffer an addiction. The drug dependency assessment is specifically orientated to ensure that that person no longer suffers from an addiction, and of course that should require the registrar to satisfy themselves that that addiction no longer exists, not just the fact that they undertook treatment.

The chamber should be very clear—and this is a point the government will continue to make publicly…that we would have created a risk here. We would have created a risk if the McLachlan amendment succeeds that someone gets access to treatment—

it makes it seem like it is such a bad thing—

which is to be applauded and congratulated and encouraged, but their treatment does not deliver the desired outcome…

The drug dependency test does not deliver the required outcome in hundreds of cases per year. The exact argument he is using here is the exact argument that one can use about the drug dependency test—the exact argument. It is why we need to keep our eyes open to this measure. It is why we will be seeking to insist upon our amendments in relation to access to rehabilitation, because we firmly believe that we need to get smarter about these things.

Another thing in our amendment that we put forward is that the government has complete control over what treatment looks like. As part of the amendment it states that it is up to the regulations to prescribe what treatment means. That means that the government gets to control the quality. We are not talking about someone going to a tick-and-flick backyarder and being able to get away with whatever they feel like.

The government has the ability to control, in fact the requirement to control the quality of the treatment. It is why we can have confidence in the amendment. It is why the government should have confidence in the amendment, because they have control over the process. But yet again, they prefer to beat their chest and look tough rather than actually look at some new approaches to this so that we can get a better result. With those brief words I would like to conclude my remarks. I look forward to the committee stage of the bill, where we can further tease this issue out, and to a negotiated resolution so we can get on and help to save lives in South Australia.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (19:56): I rise to make a relatively brief contribution to this debate in support of the bill. I have listened with great interest to the member for Schubert's contribution. His contributions are always good and sometimes entertaining. This one was in three acts. I particularly enjoyed the second act, where he talked a lot about drugs and talked a lot about ice and of the failure of the war on drugs.

I think we can all agree that in western societies generally we have failed quite spectacularly on the war on drugs. That is not the fault of any individual police force or any individual government. I think it is a question of policy. I do think that at some point we are going to need to really look at why it is continuing to fail and what we can do. I assume that my prescription and the member for Schubert's prescription would be quite different.

The bill is not about drugs. It is about road safety. I have been an advocate for safer roads in South Australia for a long time. There are many ways we can achieve this, of course. We can achieve this through urban design, through speed restrictions, through vehicle modifications, through education and, of course, through policing activities that impair motorists' abilities and reactions that put all other road users at risk.

When I first joined SAPOL—and I was in the job only briefly—I had not given traffic policing much thought at all. In my mind, the positions to aspire to in the organisation were serious detective work, major crime investigation and organised crime work. However, over a very short period time I came to the conclusion—and I have said this before and I am not just saying this because there are senior police officers in the room—that policing traffic was very near the top of the important roles that our police play.

As a result, I have nothing but respect for traffic police for the very difficult job that they do, sometimes in the face of public pushback. They do a very difficult job and it is sometimes a very thankless job. They try to keep the majority of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians safe and they do some very confronting work sometimes and see some things which none of us would like to see, picking up the pieces after serious road crashes and that sort of thing.

Sadly, alcohol and increasingly other drugs play a significant role in the risk we all face on the roads. I am sure that some of these statistics have already been alluded to by the member for Schubert and perhaps by the member for Fisher, who also made a good contribution, but an average of 107 people are detected by police for drug driving on any given week. This is just four fewer than those detected for drink-driving. Of course, both of these numbers are unacceptable.

Over the past decade, of course, we have had considerable success in reducing the incidence of drink-driving. This is largely due to policing. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said yet about drug driving. In terms of drink-driving, as the member for Fisher said, we have seen a change in culture. It is no longer acceptable to drink and drive. Friends and family will actively step in to stop those considering this highly dangerous behaviour from doing so.

We need to replicate the cultural change in respect to drug driving. We need to create a situation where we acknowledge that it is never okay to drive with any drugs in your system, including alcohol. While we continue to push education campaigns and visible enforcement, this bill contributes to the fight against drug driving by significantly bolstering the penalty regime. This is a crucial component of changing driver behaviour. The bill introduces a three-month licence disqualification for a first drug-driving offence that is expiated and increases the court-imposed disqualification period from three months to not less than six months.

The bill also increases the court-imposed licence disqualification periods for repeat drug-driving offences. The following licence suspensions would apply:

for a second offence, not less than 12 months (this is up from six);

for a third offence, not less than two years (up from one year); and

for each subsequent offence, not less than three years.

The bill also, of course, seeks to increase the penalty for driving unlicensed after losing the licence for drug driving to $5,000 or imprisonment for one year and disqualification from holding or obtaining a licence for not less than three years. A similar provision currently applies for those caught driving unlicensed after losing their licence for high-level drink driving. This provision simply seeks to provide consistency to our laws.

I must say that I am particularly pleased, as I think the member for Schubert expressed, that this bill introduces a new offence of drink or drug driving with a child under 16 years in the vehicle. Those caught under this offence will be required to undergo a drug or alcohol dependency assessment before they can regain their licence, even for first-time offenders. Obviously, driving kids around with alcohol or drugs present in the driver's system puts these very vulnerable passengers at a much greater risk of being involved in a crash and is absolutely unacceptable. The minister and the government should be commended for including this new offence.

The bill also proposes a couple of necessary changes to streamline and bring efficiency to the SAPOL testing regime. Under proposed changes, SAPOL will no longer conduct the second stage of the drug testing procedure at the scene, known as the oral fluid analysis. This will free up officers' time at the roadside. The first drug screening test will be administered to determine, at a preliminary level, the presence of a prescribed drug in a driver. If a prescribed drug is detected, SAPOL officers will collect an oral fluid sample for forwarding to Forensic Science SA for laboratory analysis and confirmation of the presence of drugs in the driver's oral fluid before an offence is confirmed, as per existing practice.

Under the current procedure, approximately 710 people per year are exonerated at the second stage analysis conducted by SAPOL at the scene. However, analysis has shown that over half these drivers (around 420 per year) would test positive under laboratory conditions. This is due to the lower level of illicit drug able to be detected in the laboratory compared to the current second stage screening test at the roadside. The bill dispenses with the requirement to authorise SAPOL officers to conduct drug screening tests. There are currently 687 SAPOL officers authorised to conduct drug screening tests and 362 authorised to conduct oral fluid analyses.

Dispensing with the requirement to authorise them will reduce red tape and allow for all sworn officers to be trained and available to conduct drug tests across the state. The bill requires all drug and alcohol testing apparatus to be approved by way of regulation. Seven types of alcohol and drug-testing apparatus are currently used by SAPOL. They are published in the Government Gazette, but they are sometimes challenged in legal proceedings. Under these amendments, they would be listed in regulations instead, thus avoiding difficulties encountered during prosecution.

I will let the minister rebut the arguments about medicinal cannabis, but I do have some concerns about the amendments successfully moved in the other place, particularly in relation to the presence of THC in certain people who may be using medicinal cannabis. As I said, I will leave it to the minister to rebut those specific points. I make no comment here about medicinal cannabis or, indeed, recreational cannabis for that matter, but I do have grave fears that amendments of this sort will considerably weaken the road safety impact of this bill, and I hope the members in this place will show more wisdom in this regard.

This bill was not about preventing people from using medicinal cannabis, nor is it in a broader sense about punishing illicit drug use. It is about road safety, pure and simple. I believe that these strengthened penalties will send a clear message about the severity of drug driving and I look forward to their swift passage through this parliament.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (20:04): I rise to address the Statutes Amendment (Drink and Drug Driving) Amendment Bill 2017. Just before I make more in depth comments around the bill, it is interesting how far we have come in society with our debate around medicinal cannabis and even industrial hemp. Twenty-five years ago or so I can remember a local lady from Coomandook pushing the idea of a sustainable extra cropping alternative for dryland farmers in industrial hemp. Because of society's views at the time it did not make the grade, yet here we are, 25-odd years later, talking about not just industrial hemp but about medicinal cannabis.

In a lot of the states in the United States and other places, there has been a liberalisation of the use of marijuana, which I do not agree with, by the way. Certainly, things have come a long way in that time, and we have to make sure we get the right legislation and the right regulation in place around everything that happens in society, including the whole discussion around medicinal cannabis and other drugs.

The bill was introduced on 11 May, and it seeks to create a three-month licence disqualification for a first-time drug presence offence that is expiated. Another measure of the bill is an increased maximum penalty of six months, where someone seeks to have the first drug-driving offence prosecuted. The bill increases the penalties for second and subsequent offences: for a second offence, a minimum disqualification of one year; a two-year minimum for a third offence; and, for subsequent offences, a minimum of three years.

The bill creates a new offence of drink and drug driving with a child under 16 years. I have been shocked, as I am sure many members have been, to hear reports of parents or carers dropping children off at school and being picked up for either drink or drug driving. It is outrageous to think that someone is affected by drugs or drink at that hour of the day, 8.30 in the morning, and driving their young children to school then is outrageous.

The bill also strengthens notification provisions to the Department for Child Protection for offenders convicted under the section and refers offenders to a drug dependency test for a first-time offence under this provision and for subsequent offences for other drink and drug-driving offences. There are also increased penalties for driving whilst disqualified for drug-driving offences, and that is to be in line with serious drink-driving penalties. The bill is making changes necessary to update drug-testing methods, replacing a second on-site drug test with an oral fluid sample, which is sent to Forensic Science SA.

The bill also seeks to remove the requirement for South Australian police authorisation to conduct drug tests so that all officers can undertake the test, and training will obviously still be provided to all officers who want to undertake this process. The bill seeks to increase the range of penalties associated with drink and drug driving, and the increased penalties are there to act as an increased deterrent against drink and drug driving, especially, as I mentioned earlier, in relation to having children in the car.

I am informed that deaths due to drink-driving have fallen from 30 per cent in 2006 to around 10 per cent in 2016. Deaths due to drug driving have hovered steady between 10 and 15 per cent over the same period. One of the concerns we have on this side of the house is that the bill does not encourage people to seek treatment in relation to drug taking. Certainly, part of the issue around both alcohol and drugs is that drug treatments need to be available. There is very little extra incentive for people to voluntarily seek drug treatment as it stands.

Allowing offenders to use going through a drug treatment program could be an alternative to the dependency test, which will encourage people to help themselves. First-time drug-driving offences, which are proven through the undertaking of arbitrary drug presence tests, have no discretion applied. Reverting the first-time drug offence to being in line with the first-time drink-driving offence again provides incentive in the system for people to seek treatment.

Currently, there is only one assessment clinic that can undertake drug dependency tests, and we understand there is already a 12-month backlog in getting an appointment. Opening up the opportunity for people to seek alternative testing clinics will help people to comply with these requirements more quickly. As indicated in some of the previous contributions, the bill does contain increased enforcement measures and some increased prevention measures. Supposedly, it is about getting that balance of not just being tough but also being smart.

One change to the bill is the creation of a three-month licence disqualification for first-time drug presence, and that offence is expiated. As I said, we are looking at some amendments as well. The bill is seeking to increase that minimum penalty of six months when somebody seeks to have their first drug-driving offence prosecuted. It creates an element of risk for someone who elects to go to court in relation to a drug-driving offence. So the person has to decide whether they take the penalty, which is three months as it stands, or go to prosecution and look at doubling their licence disqualification.

The bill also seeks to increase the penalties for second and subsequent offences. The second offence has a minimum disqualification of one year. There is a two-year minimum for a third offence, and subsequent offences carry a minimum of three years. We support those measures, but we certainly need to get tougher on repeat offenders. I think that is about not just getting tougher but also getting smarter. It is about education so that people can see the real risks in both drink and drug driving.

If we cannot get the message through, perhaps we need to take these people off the road because we cannot have them there. If they cannot get the message that they do not need drugs or alcohol in their system, they should not be on the road. If it gets to that stage, those who are taken off the road need to be given assistance to get the help they need to get off drugs and have a more fulfilling life or to deal with their alcohol addiction so they can become good citizens with jobs and contribute to society.

I spoke before about the new offence of drink and drug driving with a child under 16 years in the vehicle. We have seen this in the past in regard to smoking in vehicles when children are present. We support this measure. It talks about the fact that, obviously when you have a child in the car, you need to take full parental responsibility and make sure that you are not doing anything to increase the harm to the child.

It will be interesting to see where the debate goes and what amendments we can get through to strengthen the legislation. Certainly, I am sure that everyone in this place is keen to make sure that people who are out on the road are safe and that people who are caught up with drink or drug driving are dealt with appropriately. On top of that, as I have been saying, there need to be programs so that these people can also be rehabilitated to become fully functioning citizens in the community.

I will be interested in hearing further remarks on the bill. We just want the best outcomes because one thing we really cannot stand for is this scourge of drugs and alcohol that has caused so many problems in society where people just should not be on the road when they are under the influence. As I said, it absolutely concerns me that people can be caught at 8 o'clock or 8.30 in the morning for a drink or drug-driving offence. I will be interested in the continuation of the debate.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (20:16): I rise to make a contribution to the Statutes Amendment (Drink and Drug Driving) Bill. There are a couple of aspects I would like to address. Obviously, the provisions of the current Road Traffic Act and other acts provide for drug-driving penalties. That is something to be dealt with. Essentially, this legislation recognises the fact that on average over 100 people a week are detected by police for drug driving. Of course, that is fewer than drink-drivers. Nevertheless, it is a danger and it needs to be dealt with, as it is an unacceptable risk not only to the drivers themselves but of course to their own passengers and other road users.

However, introducing a three-month licence disqualification as though this is going to be a strong deterrent from drug driving is, I think, a fantasy. Obviously we are prepared to support this bill but if the government takes the view that this is going to be some panacea for the management of what is clearly a social problem, they can think again. It will not be. It may attend to some of the people but the reality is that those who are addicted and who are in this category, those who have been detected, charged, convicted and whose licence disqualification has come into play, continue to do exactly as they have done before. They continue to drive and put at risk themselves and others.

One of the aspects of embarrassment to the government was the fact that, in the management and monitoring of people who do this, it became acutely and publicly disclosed that some of the worst offenders were people who were dropping off their own children or their friends' or neighbours' children at schools when they were detected. This sends a shiver down the spine of most responsible and decent people who consider it abhorrent for someone not only to put those children at such risk but also to move into an area where other children are entering or alighting from vehicles and of course place them at risk. Of course the public reaction is strong. The government's answer is this bill. I say for the record that I do not think it is a panacea of resolution, and I suspect that exactly what will happen is these people will continue to drive under disqualification and it will not resolve the problem.

Another matter I would like to raise is that, in the provision of information during the briefings on this matter, the statistics that were provided to me were that the proportion of drivers testing positive for drugs from roadside tests has steadily increased from 2 per cent in 2008 to 11 per cent in 2016. Of the material provided in the last financial year as distinct from the calendar year, in 2016, 49,078 drug screening tests were conducted. Of those, presumably, the detections for drug driving in 2016 were 5,351. Alcohol screening tests conducted in 2016 were 529,365, and detections for drink-driving in that same year were 5,237. The drivers detected driving disqualified or suspended in 2016 were 4,422.

If that is not a very clear message to the government that people—in this case, 4,422 of those who were detected—are quite prepared to drive whilst disqualified or suspended, then I do not know what is. It is a clear indication that those who are in this space, who are either addicted or intending to continue to use drugs and testing positive for drugs, are going to do exactly that. The other alarming aspect of this statistic is that, even though over half a million people are alcohol screened and only 50,000-odd are drug tested, there are actually more people detected for drug driving proportionate to the number tested than for drink-driving.

The government needs to have a very clear understanding that, at best, this is a superficial shield to a major social problem. It is not going to arrest that issue unless they are prepared to accept that people who particularly have an addiction are prepared to submit to a program of rehabilitation, whether that is voluntarily or on a mandatory basis, which from our side of the house should occur and be available for children upon application and successfully obtaining a court order. That is a demonstrable program and policy that will have a much more effective outcome than this type of approach in the legislation.

Shortly, we will debate other legislation relating to other people in a workplace environment who will be subject to an expanded drug testing procedure in the course of their employment. There is no doubt, however, that we have a real and present danger on our roads and, indeed, in our homes. There are people who take an excessive amount of alcohol, prescription drugs and illicit drugs who are in a role of supervision of children, mature-age people and vulnerable aged people. They are undertaking employment in potentially dangerous situations, for example using heavy vehicles and the like. For the rest of us ordinary people, the use of motor vehicles whilst under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs of course easily and quickly turns into a lethal weapon.

We are of course prepared to support this legislation, but these sorts of statistics ought to alarm the government into recognising that we have a serious social problem, and they are going to have to do a lot more. If they are not at least prepared to support what the opposition are proposing, then they ought to get their thinking caps on and open up their wallets in the budget in order to ensure that proper attention is given to this social ill.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (20:25): This is a bill about the safety of South Australians on the road; that is what it boils down to. This bill says that we want to make sure that South Australians are not driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs that could impair or impact their driving and could put other South Australians at risk.

Over a long period of time, we know the impact that alcohol has had in terms of the road toll and the danger it poses to our roads. There has been a massive public effort over the past 40 years to turn that around, reduce the road toll and reduce the effects of alcohol. That has had a very significant effect, and we have seen fatalities due to the influence of alcohol drop dramatically over that period of time. The education and enforcement have gone up and our laws have been strengthened.

We are now seeing the impact of drugs on our roads. We have seen an increase in the number of people driving under the influence of drugs. We have seen an increase in the number of people involved in accidents and fatalities who were under the influence of drugs. While the fatality rate involving alcohol has been coming down, the drug rate has been steady, if not increasing. Over the past five years (from 2012-16), 48 drivers and riders killed on our roads tested positive for THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana. Twenty of those tested positive to THC alone.

We know that drugs are having an effect on our roads. This is something that the police are developing and increasingly putting resources into, but we need to strengthen our laws. In this bill, the government has set about to strengthen our laws in terms of deterring, preventing and punishing where necessary the use of drugs in motor vehicles in order to protect the safety of our families across South Australia, and to protect innocent people from what is an inherently dangerous thing in driving a motor vehicle.

I thank all the members for their contributions tonight: on this side, the members for Fisher and Little Para, and on the other side, the members for Hammond and Bragg, and the very lengthy contribution from the member for Schubert in five parts. There was a lot of interesting discussion, as there was in the upper house. I think there is general agreement around a number of the components that the government has brought to the table, in terms of strengthening the penalties where people have been found to be under the influence of drugs.

In particular, this bill introduces a three-month licence disqualification for a first drug-driving offence. It increases the court-imposed disqualification period for a first offence from a minimum of three months to six months, which is not able to be reduced or mitigated in any way. A higher court penalty is appropriate to deter those who would take their chances in court if the penalties were the same. The bill increases the minimum court-imposed licence disqualification periods for repeat drug-driving offences from six months to 12 months for a second offence, from one year to two years for a third offence, and from two years to three years for any subsequent offence after that.

The bill also creates a new offence of high-level drink or drug driving with a child under the age of 16 in the vehicle. For obvious reasons, we believe there should be a more significant penalty for an offence that involves putting a child's life at risk. This new offence will require the driver to undergo a drug or alcohol dependency assessment and the offender will not regain their licence until they have been assessed as non-dependent by a clinician.

Finally, the bill increases the penalty for driving unlicensed at the end of the disqualification period. For those who choose not to undergo a required dependency assessment or drive after being found dependent, they will face an increased maximum penalty of $5,000 or imprisonment for one year and disqualification from holding or obtaining a licence for not less than three years. I think all those things are generally agreed between the parties and between the houses.

Where there are disagreements, they have come about from a number of amendments that were moved in the other place: two amendments that were moved that the government opposes and one amendment that was moved by the Australian Conservatives in the upper house that the government supports but the opposition does not. Essentially, those amendments boil down to three things, the first of which is a drug dependency test. This is something where the opposition and some members of the upper house want to effectively water down the need for a drug dependency test.

After listening to the member for Schubert's contribution, obviously he raises concerns about the nature of a drug dependency test. Of course, we do not disagree that a drug dependency test is not perfect, and having a drug dependency test does not, by its very nature, guarantee that a person at any time in the future is never going to ever use any drugs and get back on the road again. However, the fix to that is not to weaken that requirement. The fix to that is not to make it worse and to reduce the ability of that requirement to have a good effect.

In our view, it is a completely nonsensical position that you should be worried about the efficiency or the efficacy of a drug dependency test and therefore should say, 'Let's back away from it completely and let's say that people can undertake some drug rehab programs instead. They don't have to prove anything in particular. They don't have to prove that they have changed their ways; they just have to go through this program.' It could be any number of programs across the state. The motor registration department does not have a list or a register of programs. You just have to sit through these programs, basically. You do not have to pass any type of assessment.

Mr Knoll: You get to decide.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Well, we are deciding. We would like to decide that you have to go through this drug dependency assessment. That is what the government would like people who are in this situation to have to do: to demonstrate to an accredited independent body that they are no longer dependent upon their drugs. Of course, that does not mean that there might not be people who go back to their previous ways, but that is a much stronger proposition than just making people sit through some classes of any number of drug rehab programs around the state.

The second issue came about from an amendment moved in the upper house, I believe, by the Hon. Dennis Hood from the Australian Conservatives. It raised for us a very interesting point and something the government was very happy to take up. Where there is a positive drug test involving a motor vehicle, there is currently a prohibition upon our police officers in those circumstances from being able to undertake a search of the vehicle. Our police in this state have quite broad general search powers; however, this requirement that they are not able to search, based on the results of a positive drug test, in our view is nonsensical.

In our view, this is something that needs to be changed. We are happy to have taken up the suggestion from the Hon. Dennis Hood. We think that it is a sensible suggestion. We have altered the amendment in the way that we are reintroducing this amendment in this house, in that we are tying it to a power the police already have under the Controlled Substances Act. We are removing the prohibition upon the restriction of a search involving a positive drug test on the roadside and connecting it to the Controlled Substances Act, which essentially will activate the powers the police have under that act to conduct further searches.

I am sure that members of the parliament as well as people broadly in South Australia could understand, for very good reasons, why it would be a sensible thing for police to do, to search a vehicle where there has been evidence presented to the police through a roadside drug test that drugs have been used in that circumstance. In fact, I think it would be nonsensical situation where the police were prohibited from looking into a vehicle where they might find any number of drugs being there. I know that this is something that the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, who joins us, is very supportive of—making sure that we have the ability for our police to search vehicles where there is a positive roadside drug test. I would implore the opposition to come to their senses on this issue and allow our police the power to search those vehicles.

The member for Schubert was talking about all sorts of issues with the original amendment that was proposed. We believe that this amendment does not have any of those issues he was talking about. This allows the police to use their existing powers under the Controlled Substances Act, and we believe that should be supported. The third issue is clearly the most controversial and has been getting the most public comment under this bill. In our view, we have an amendment to remedy the situation of the problems that were put in there in the upper house. This involves the use of medical cannabis.

Let me say from the outset that this bill and this debate are not about whether medical cannabis is a good thing or a bad thing. It is not about whether medical cannabis should be legal or illegal. I personally have a view that we should allow medical cannabis to be used where appropriately prescribed and where it has gone through proper processes, just like any other drug. I do not think that there is any issue with that. However, that is not what this bill is about.

Obviously, the government has been doing a lot of work, led by the Hon. Kyam Maher, in opening up our laws. We believe that we have one of the more progressive legislative arrangements of any jurisdiction in terms of allowing medical cannabis to be prescribed. Kyam Maher is doing a lot of work in terms of allowing a medical cannabis industry in South Australia and progressing that. However, this bill is about what people's capability is to drive.

We have to be very clear that, when you get behind a wheel, you should be in a position where your driving, your abilities, your recognition and your ability to perceive and see the risks before you are not impaired. We have to be very clear that the reasons why you might be impaired do not matter. What matters is that you are out on the road and that you are putting other people at risk if your driving is impaired.

Essentially, what has been put forward is the idea that we should allow a particular exemption to take place for the reasoning behind it, not for the effect. If the reasoning is good, that someone is using medical cannabis because they have a particular pain or they have a particular ailment, then we should allow the effect on the road, and we should allow the good nature behind why they are being prescribed this to fix their ailments to impact upon innocent people who are putting their lives at risk on the road by having those drivers who are impaired.

I think there are a number of myths that have been started in this whole debate. The first myth is that medical cannabis does not contain THC, the active ingredient. I think this is something that has been thrown around and I want to spend a minute talking about this. There are some types of medical cannabis, as I understand and have been advised, that might contain very, very low amounts of THC that might not have any psychoactive abilities. They are not necessarily the ones that are available for legal sale, but they might become available over time.

If that is the case and it does not contain THC, then you are not going to test positive. You are not going to be under any psychoactive impairments in your driving and this bill will not impact you in any way. However, there are medical cannabis products that do contain THC. I was recently at the agriculture ministers' conference in Melbourne, representing the Minister for Agriculture, and one of the things we did was visit AgriBio, the institute in Melbourne at La Trobe University where they are growing the Victorian government crop of cannabis for use for medicinal purposes.

It was a very interesting operation and really opened my eyes to the variety and different types of medical cannabis that are being produced and are used for different reasons. There a number of them that contain moderate to high levels of THC, as they were describing to us there. If you are using those products, then your ability to drive is going to be impaired. Just because you are using it for a good reason does not mean that we should allow people whose driving is going to be impaired to get behind the wheel of a car.

The second myth that has been generated through this debate is that there are good and bad types of THC. We have heard lots of people say things like, 'If you cold press your cannabis then it produces a good type of oil—

Ms Cook: Like olive oil.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —yes, like olive oil, the member for Fisher suggests—'or a herbal juice or something, and you are going to result in a THC that does not have the psychoactive properties'. Our advice from SA Health is that that is not the case. Our advice from SA Health is that if you have THC in your system, then you have a psychoactive property in your system. It does not matter in terms of how it was pressed; if it is in your system then it is going to have an effect. That is something that is very important in this debate. I think the idea that somehow we could generate some high THC products but just make them in a different way and suddenly they are going to be fine and people can get behind the wheel is a complete misnomer, based on the advice we have from SA Health.

The third myth is that when somebody has been prescribed medical cannabis that has active psychoactive properties involved in it that would show up in a roadside test, that somehow the doctor is going to be in a position where they can say to the police or to the court, 'Well, actually this person is fine to drive. Even though they have THC in their system, as a doctor I have judged, based on the prescriptions and their intake of that, that they are fine to drive a motor vehicle.' We know that this is not the case because doctors have told us this is not the case. Doctors have very strongly said to the government, through the Australian Medical Association, that they are not in a position to be able to advise a court as to whether or not a person who has taken a substance with THC in it is able to drive a car. It is not a professional opinion that a doctor is able to say.

You only have to look at what Dr Rod Pearce, former president of the AMA, said when he was on FIVEaa recently:

We can't guarantee that it's safe to drive which I think was originally your point and from a medical point of view we can say yeah we prescribe it for medicinal reasons but for us to be able to guarantee there's no psycho active medication or there's no effect on somebody's ability to drive, is fraught with risks and because we can't do I think I don't think any doctor's going to feel comfortable saying we can guarantee it's safe for you to drive because we prescribed this medication.

We have clear advice to the parliament from the leading doctors' association that doctors are not in a position to be able to advise on this.

I have no doubt that there will be some doctors out there, some very strong advocates of cannabis, who might put up their hand and say, 'Sure, I will do this. I will be the one who can tell the court that THC is all good and well.' But the mainstream medical opinion, from the Australian Medical Association, is that this is something that the opposition in the upper house is asking doctors to do that they are in no position whatsoever to do. It would put them in a very awful situation and ultimately it would be completely unsuccessful. So in creating this ridiculous defence with no reason, potentially, some doctors might put up their hand to use it, but the mainstream doctors are going to say, as Dr Pearce has said, that this is not something that they can advise a court on, as to whether or not this should be used.

Therefore, looking at all of those arguments, one by one they start to fall away. We do not win any plaudits for this position on the Twitterverse, I can assure you. Since we have come to this clear position, I have had a number of very strong cannabis activists tweeting me night and day, advocating all sorts of things about the benefits of cannabis. I repeat once again that this is not an issue about whether medicinal cannabis is a good thing or a bad thing, it is an issue about what the state of a person is when they get behind the wheel of a car and they are interacting on the road with my family and your family and everybody else across South Australia.

For those reasons, we are very concerned about the amendments. We are going to insist that these amendments are brought before this house to address the amendments that happened in the upper house. We are absolutely going to insist upon that. We want to make sure this bill gets through so these stronger penalties are in place, but we are not going to allow, from a government perspective, a bill to pass that allows for these quite dangerous provisions to be put in our laws affecting the safety of people on the road. I think that is a very sensible position.

Frankly, I am shocked, to be honest, that this is not something that the Liberal Party can see the benefit of. I am shocked that this is something on which they are happy to side with the Greens and some of the fringe advocates in terms of cannabis. The fact that we had the member for Schubert come into this house quoting Dr Caldicott, the famous pill-testing doctor, brings us a bit back to the days of the member for Heysen as leader of the opposition. It is a very strange arrangement that we have here, where we have the Australian Conservatives and the Labor party government arguing against some very left wing propositions from the Liberal Party and the Greens and Kelly Vincent.

I hope the Liberal Party comes to their senses on this. I hope they can see the reason that we need this bill in place and that they can see the science that has clearly been demonstrated from all our peak bodies, from the Australian Medical Association, from the Police Association, from all the reputable bodies. Who has the member for Schubert been relying upon for advice on this bill? When he was asked on FIVEaa, 'Aren't you talking to people like Rod Pearce?' he said:

The discussions we have had with those people who produce medical cannabis and have familiarity with it have told us it is non-psychoactive.

So quite clearly the advice that the member for Schubert is getting is from the producers of medical cannabis. That is the advice they are getting. They are not listening to the AMA, they are not listening to the Police Association, they are not listening to the SA Health, the scientists, the experts: they are going to the people who are selling this stuff and saying, 'What do you think? Should we allow people to use your products and drive on the road?' Shock horror: they think you should use their products and drive on the road.

Frankly, that is a ridiculous public policy position. I think it is something they should be a bit embarrassed about and it is something that is not befitting what you would think is a conservative party in this parliament. I hope we see some sense come to these amendments. I am confident that they are going to pass this house and I hope that the Liberal Party come to their senses in the other place.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 4 passed.

Clause 5.

Mr KNOLL: In a briefing provided by SAPOL and your advisers, minister, it was said that the reason for the change to the second stage of the drug test was that the machines that are used currently in the back of the vehicle are not being made anymore and that the machines that we have are essentially going to become obsolete because people do not manufacture, maintain or certify them, so we have to move to the stage two test, which is more lengthy. We will get to that in second. My first question is: when do the current machines expire?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I am advised that the machines stopped being manufactured in 2012, and the consumables stopped being manufactured in 2016.

Mr KNOLL: When can we no longer use these machines?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Again, I am advised by the police that we are using a different product at the moment, and the machines being referenced by the member will not be used following December this year.

Mr KNOLL: When you say that they will not be used following December this year, is that because you are hoping that this new system is in place—as in, that is what is going to replace it?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We are verging on the technical, but I am advised by the police that, as was mentioned, there is another machine. We will still be able to use that other machine following this period of time.

Mr KNOLL: Essentially, there is no break in the ability to have drug tests?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: No, correct.

Mr KNOLL: Under the current system and under the new system of drug testing, what is the rate of false positives?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I am advised that this is a bit involved, and we will maybe get some more information for the member for Schubert between the houses. Essentially, there are obviously two stages: the roadside test and then the lab test. A very high percentage of the people go through the lab test and are positive, but I would want to be sure in terms of the details and the numbers, so we will get the numbers before we get to the other place.

Mr KNOLL: I assume that you will take this on notice as well, unless the guys know: for the three drugs that we are testing for, what is the minimum threshold limit for being able to detect the drug and the number of microns or whatever in the sample?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I am advised that for THC it is 50 nanograms, and for the other two 75 nanograms is the minimum reading.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: With the Towards Zero Together road safety figures that you were referencing before in relation to drug deaths, and I have referenced them as well, do you have a breakdown of which drugs were in people's systems when they died? Is it more one drug than others?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The figures I used in my summing up were specifically on the THC numbers, but we will make sure we get the figures of the breakdown across the three drugs for you.

Mr KNOLL: When you do that testing, are there other drugs in people's systems also that we are not testing for? Do you even test for those things when you do this sort of post-mortem analysis, or is it only for those three drugs?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Yes, that is correct. When there is a road fatality, as a matter of course a post-mortem is undertaken, and as part of that there is testing for a whole range of different drugs. We will chase up the figures as best we can to provide them to the member for Schubert.

Mr KNOLL: That is all the questions I have, so we can move to the amendments.

The CHAIR: Good, because it was a lot of questions for one clause.

Clause passed.

Clauses 6 to 9 passed.

Clause 10.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Police–1]—

Page 8, lines 10 to 17 [Clause 10(1), inserted subsection (1)]—

Delete 'attend an assessment clinic for the purpose of submitting to an examination to determine whether or not the applicant is dependent on alcohol unless the applicant satisfies the Registrar, on the basis of the report of an approved assessment provider or such other evidence as the Registrar may require, that the applicant has successfully completed a prescribed alcohol dependency treatment program not more than 60 days before the date of application for the licence' and substitute:

submit to an examination by an approved assessment provider to determine whether or not the applicant is dependent on alcohol

Amendment No 2 [Police–1]—

Page 9, lines 2 to 9 [Clause 10(1), inserted subsection (2)]—

Delete 'attend an assessment clinic for the purpose of submitting to an examination to determine whether or not the applicant is dependent on drugs unless the applicant satisfies the Registrar, on the basis of the report of an approved assessment provider or such other evidence as the Registrar may require, that the applicant has successfully completed a prescribed drug dependency treatment program not more than 60 days before the date of application for the licence' and substitute:

submit to an examination by an approved assessment provider to determine whether or not the applicant is dependent on drugs

Amendment No 3 [Police–1]—

Page 9, lines 18 to 21 [Clause 10(3), inserted subsection (4)]—Delete 'that—

(a) that the applicant has undertaken a sufficient amount of appropriate treatment for dependency on alcohol; and

(b) the applicant is no longer dependent on alcohol.' and substitute:

that the applicant is no longer dependent on alcohol.

Amendment No 4 [Police–1]—

Page 9, lines 27 to 30 [Clause 10(3), inserted subsection (5)]—Delete 'that—

(a) that the applicant has undertaken a sufficient amount of appropriate treatment for dependency on drugs; and

(b) the applicant is no longer dependent on drugs.' and substitute:

that the applicant is no longer dependent on drugs.

Amendment No 5 [Police–1]—

Page 10, lines 32 to 34 [Clause 10, inserted subsection (9)]—Delete subsection (9)

The CHAIR: Are there questions on these amendments?

Mr KNOLL: No, only a few comments.

The CHAIR: I am not sure they are allowed, are they? At this point, we are talking questions.

Mr KNOLL: I will have an upward inflection in my voice.

The CHAIR: Well, it better be a very quick upward inflection.

Mr KNOLL: Amendments Nos 1 to 5 relate to the fundamental difference between the government and the opposition in relation to the primacy of the drug dependency test over other treatment programs. With these amendments, the government has complete control to regulate what programs and what stage of those programs people need to complete before it is okay. The government has complete control. Someone cannot go to some backyarder who ticks a piece of paper and everything is okay.

In the same way that the drug dependency test is extremely highly regulated as to who can conduct it, so highly regulated that only one person can, drug treatment can occur so that we can have quality control. It is why I feel confident that it is not some backyard half measure, that it is a viable alternative, because we can ensure that it is the best drug treatment program, the most vigorous and the most tested; in fact, a component of a drug dependency test can be part of the treatment program, if the government so regulates.

There is an ability for the government to have complete control over these amendments. That is why we assume they will be defeated here, but we will continue to fight for these because they are important. This is about changing the way we look at this issue and providing more of a balance in the way that we look at this issue.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: In some way, I understand where the member for Schubert is coming from on this issue, in that we do of course want to see more treatment. We do of course want to make sure that people who are in a situation where they have been caught using drugs or have alcohol in their system for this one are undergoing treatment and are changing their ways. I absolutely agree with the member for Schubert that the drug dependency assessment is not foolproof. There is no way we can absolutely guarantee that somebody who goes through that assessment, as rigorous as it may be, will not go back to their old ways and use drugs at a future point in time.

However, I would call on the member for Schubert to think through his proposed amendments, which I do not think, based on what he has said, actually deliver what he is looking for. In our view, this weakens our provisions in terms of the assessment and treatment that people will have to undergo if they are found using drugs or alcohol on our roads. I will read through little bit of detail on this.

The amendments we are moving restore the bill to reflect the current policy when it comes to the registrar's ability to make a decision about a person's dependence upon alcohol or drugs. The government does not support the amendments carried in the other place. Advice from clinicians is clear that participation in a treatment program does not ensure a person is not dependent upon alcohol or drugs. Just because you go through the treatment program does not mean that you come out of the end of the treatment program not dependent on alcohol or drugs.

Repeat drink and drug drivers must be assessed. We believe they must be assessed as non-dependent before they are able to obtain a driver's licence. Under the restore provisions, that would happen as part of the application to regain a driver's licence. If that assessment finds that a person is dependent, they must either wait until a favourable assessment is achieved—the minimum time is three months—or satisfy the registrar via other evidence that they are no longer dependent. Requiring the assessment of treatment undergone by the driver as well as an assessment of whether they are dependent on drugs or not does not add any value to the registrar and would be an unnecessary requirement.

Clinicians advise that the amount of treatment required by a client varies immensely, some requiring little to no treatment and some not responding to very intense treatment. The problem is: how do you prospectively define a sufficient amount of appropriate treatment for all circumstances when it is going to completely change depending upon the person? Treatment is only sufficient if the person is subsequently found to be non-dependent, so the key is an assessment of the outcome of the treatment.

The assessments investigate the physical and psychological symptoms of alcohol or drug dependency. Blood samples and a urine drug analysis are undertaken for a drug dependency assessment. The mental health symptoms of dependents are assessed using a criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition. This is a widely accepted guideline for the diagnosis of mental health disorders. It is produced by the American Psychiatric Association and used widely in Australia for diagnostic criteria for mental health disorders.

The member for Schubert, in his contribution earlier in the debate, talked about the nature of this as being like cramming for a year 12 exam. I put the alternative that what he is proposing is like if you had to go through year 12 and not worry about your results at all, just merely turning up to class for a certain amount of time and we tick you and say, 'You have passed year 12.' You did not actually have to show that you have learned anything at the end of it. That is essentially the proposition being put by the opposition in this point. We think that you should actually have to demonstrate that you have learned something. You should have to demonstrate that you are no longer dependent and that you have changed your ways, and that assessment is the key. There needs to be that assessment.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 11 to 19 passed.

Clause 20.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I move:

Amendment No 6 [Police–1]—

Page 14—This clause will be opposed.

The CHAIR: Is there any discussion before I put it?

Mr KNOLL: We have said everything we need to say.

Clause negatived.

Clauses 21 to 33 passed.

Clause 34.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: I move:

Amendment No 7 [Police–1]—

Page 20, after line 40—Insert:

(5) Schedule 1, clause 8(1)—delete 'subclause (2)(a)(ii)' and substitute:

subclause (2)(b)

(6) Schedule 1, clause 8(2)—delete subclause (2) and substitute:

(2) The results of a drug screening test, oral fluid analysis or blood test under Part 3 Division 5, an admission or statement made by a person relating to such a drug screening test, oral fluid analysis or blood test, or any evidence taken in proceedings relating to such a drug screening test, oral fluid analysis or blood test (or transcript of such evidence) will not be admissible in evidence against the person who submitted to the drug screening test, oral fluid analysis or blood test in any proceedings other than—

(a) proceedings for—

(i) an offence against this Act; or

(ii) an offence against the Motor Vehicles Act 1959; or

(iii) a driving-related offence; or

(iv) an offence against the Controlled Substances Act 1984; or

(b) if the test or analysis occurred in connection with the person's involvement in an accident—civil proceedings in connection with death or bodily injury caused by or arising out of the use of a motor vehicle involved in the accident (including proceedings under section 116 or 124A of the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 for the recovery from the person of money paid or costs incurred by the nominal defendant or an insurer).

The CHAIR: Is there any discussion on the amendment?

Mr KNOLL: Just briefly to say that we have had a brief look at it and we are going to have a bit more of a look at it between the houses. If this is a rose by any other name, it will still be called a rose, but we are happy to take a fresh look at it in the spirit of actually trying to get a resolution on this bill.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (21:04): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.