Thursday, 15 August 2019

 Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (12:05): My question is for the Minister for Road Safety and the TAC. On Channel 7 on 15 July the supervising magistrate of the Melbourne Drug Court said on the issue of drug-driving tests:

We know with alcohol .05, you’re impaired. We don’t know just because you prove positive for something like cannabis or amphetamines that you are, because our testing isn’t sophisticated enough.

Also appearing on 3AW recently, Magistrate Parsons stated:

I just think before we deprive people of their liberty … we need to be reasonably sure that in fact their driving was impaired.

My question for the minister is: is Magistrate Parsons correct?

 Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Roads, Minister for Road Safety and the TAC, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (12:05): I thank the member for his question and his interest in road safety. As all members know, 2019 has been a very, very difficult year with a doubling of the number of lives lost on Victoria’s roads when compared to last year. The causes of this are many and varied, and they will be familiar to all Victorian road users. Drugs and alcohol are very commonly features in fatality and serious injury crashes, but so too are driver distraction, fatigue and speed. Then there are a number of other factors, but they are certainly the very consistently occurring major contributors.

In the last five years 41 per cent of drivers and motorcyclists who were killed on our roads and were tested had drugs in their system, with cannabis and stimulants the most common substances detected. The member is absolutely right when he says that there are limits to the technology available for testing. We saw a dramatic reduction in the number of lives lost on Victoria’s roads when we developed the ability to test on the spot for speeding and when we developed the ability to test on the spot for alcohol consumption and alcohol impairment.

What we have at the moment is the best available testing regime, and that is what we apply. We are continuing to monitor globally developments in testing as well as of course taking every endeavour we can to make sure we have got the best possible systems that we can. But what we know is that people who have drugs in their system are turning up as a very, very high proportion of our fatality and serious injury victims on our roads. So our message to drivers is very clear: do not mix these activities.

 Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (12:08): I thank the minister for her answer. You touched on this slightly in your answer. The July national road safety strategy progress report highlighted significant failures on the baseline measures for reducing fatalities, injuries and the rates of accidents and fatalities that involved someone with illicit drugs in their system. We know that a priority for police around the country is to have better technology that can confirm a positive test result on the roadside and remove the delay while samples are sent to a laboratory for confirmation. With police and magistrates such as Tony Parsons wanting better technology and research around drug driving, my question for the minister is: what research is being done to improve the evidence informing both the policy and technology around drug-driving enforcement?

 Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Roads, Minister for Road Safety and the TAC, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (12:09): I thank Mr Limbrick for his supplementary question. Given that enforcement of drug driving and testing does sit predominantly with the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, I might take part of that question on notice so that I can provide you with the best, latest information about the testing regime. But what I can certainly assure you is that we use the best that is available and that we are taking every endeavour to be at the forefront of new testing regimes, but right now what we have is that roadside test that gives an indicative reading and then a follow-up test. It would be wonderful to be able to have something like the blow-into-the-pipe, blow-into-the-bag approach that we have for alcohol testing, because there is an enormous correlation between compliance effort and, frankly, the fear of getting caught doing the wrong thing and the consequences of road trauma on Victorian roads.