On Thursday 17 September 2026 I gave a speech to Parliament on two bills introduced by the LNP Government and debated "in cognate" (together) - the Criminal Code (Dangerous Driving) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill & the Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026.
You can read my full speech, and my remarks during the clause-by-clause debate, below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard).
I rise to give my contribution to this cognate debate of the Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Bill and Criminal Code (Dangerous Driving) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. We have obviously come a very long way from the days when drink driving was almost normal and accepted in our communities. There seems to be furious agreement that no-one should be driving while impaired or under the influence of any substances. I absolutely agree with that as a fundamental premise.
Road fatalities are absolutely devastating, as injuries from road crashes can also be. I was only 19 years old when I had a microsleep on the Warrego Highway and wrote my car off. I probably should not have been able to walk away from that crash. I was certainly very lucky to, with so few injuries. This week, in two separate incidents, one of my family members and a close friend of mine were in serious crashes. Again, they could very easily have been fatalities or had much more serious injuries than they did. This is a very serious subject, and I do not want anyone to suggest that I am not taking it seriously.
It is absolutely critical that governments act on evidence-based policy to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities on our roads. These laws, for the most part, do not do that. I am going to focus on, frankly, the hypocritical and lazy stigmatisation of lawful users of medicinal cannabis.
These bills entrench outdated offences for driving with the mere presence of THC in the bloodstream. In particular, the Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Bill increases the maximum penalty for the offence of driving while a relevant drug is present in a person’s blood or saliva and increases the minimum disqualification period from one to two months. The Criminal Code (Dangerous Driving) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill introduces circumstances of aggravation for dangerous-driving offences where the presence of a relevant drug is detected. If that circumstance of aggravation applies, then the person is also exposed to higher penalties in the future or is subjected to longer periods of disqualification.
The critical point here—and plenty of others have made the point—is that we have to accept as a fundamental fact that the presence of THC does not equal impairment. In fact, THC can remain detectible in a person’s saliva for hours or even days after the effects have worn off and the person is no longer experiencing any impairment or shift in their perception at all. The fact that it is easier to measure the presence of THC in someone’s system than it is to measure impairment should not be guiding policymaking and legislation in this place. Clearly, it is this government’s policy to do what is easy in a circumstance like this, not what is right, regardless of the very real consequences and impacts that it will have on people’s lives.
The existing, and now strengthened, laws have very real consequences for people. As THC remains in saliva and blood for so long after use, medicinal cannabis users have very limited choices: they can risk being criminalised for using their legally prescribed medicine in accordance with the instructions of their healthcare provider; they can avoid driving altogether, making it harder to find and retain work, care for their families or engage with their communities; or they can avoid using the medically recommended treatment.
Let’s not forget: this is very real medicine. This very parliament was at the front line of legislating to make medicinal cannabis available to patients for all sorts of conditions such as: nausea and vomiting brought on by chemotherapy; symptoms experienced throughout palliative care; chronic pain like neuropathic nerve pain, arthritis and lower back pain; and sleep and anxiety disorders. These are very real conditions that people are being medicated for.
Again, let’s not forget about the people who live in regional communities. They are especially disadvantaged by these laws and the criminalisation of these medicines. I will quote Debbie Ranson, as other have. She is a registered nurse who provided insightful submissions to the committee. She said—
Throughout my clinical practice I have witnessed the unintended consequences of the current legislation. Some patients decline clinically appropriate treatment because they fear losing their driver’s licence. Others reduce or delay treatment despite ongoing pain, poor sleep or debilitating anxiety. Some remain on higher-risk medicines, including opioids and benzodiazepines, because those medicines are managed under an impairment model rather than a zero-tolerance presence model.
When Debbie Ranson talks about those alternative medications and describes them as higher risk, that is real. They are not risky medicines in terms of the possible impacts on people; they are risky because they are highly addictive medications. Instead of people being able to use non-addictive cannabis medications, they are being pushed towards very addictive opioid or benzodiazepine medications.
This is where we see the wild hypocrisy. You cannot miss it. The government says that impairment cannot be measured, but there are other medications with the capacity to cause impairment that are already dealt with under an impairment-based defence. The minister certainly knows that roadside testing does not test for the presence of opioids, benzos, antipsychotics or sedating antidepressants. They are medications that can cause impairment. A person will not be tested for their presence, but they can be charged with dangerous driving if they are impaired. It is already done. It already happens.
Tasmania have an entirely workable medical defence for lawfully prescribed patients without any demonstrated increase in road trauma. They are doing it. It is already happening for medicinal cannabis patients in Tasmania. This is precisely the defence that I introduced by way of amendments in 2022, but it was voted down by both of the major parties when the ALP was in government.
I have been listening to the contributions from opposition members and I might have missed something here. I did not realise there had been such a significant shift in Labor Party policy that they are now in support of defences or allowing for medicinal cannabis users to drive even if it is present in their system. I know that plenty of Queenslanders and medicinal cannabis patients would love to hear an explicit statement of policy position that Labor is going to take to the next election, because it was only a short four years ago that the opposition voted against the most straightforward and tried and tested defence in this context.
The bill does plenty of other things, too. It introduces minimum court imposed fines for drink- or drug-driving offences where a court imposes a fine without any other penalty. This removes judicial discretion and it imposes potentially very significant hardship on people who are experiencing poverty.
The bills broaden the application of mandatory minimum prison sentences—once again, removing judicial discretion. There is plenty in these bills that is just plain bad law, in my view. It should not be legislated. I absolutely oppose those provisions, but again we are seeing two massive omnibus bills going through. It is not all bad, but we are not going to have any consideration in detail time to deal with specific clauses, so I will have to settle for my 10 minutes.
The government’s position on medicinal cannabis and driving is pathetic. It is hypocritical, it is lazy and it is not the way good governments should be legislating. We know what works, but increasing penalties does not increase deterrence. Increased detection and enforcement perhaps may go some way there. I do support the idea of mandatory education programs as a requirement for regaining a licence after disqualification, but I would have to echo the point that ATSILS made in their submission—that fees should be reasonable and a waiver should be available.
I will make a couple of brief comments about the Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. It exempts the Wave stage 3 from usual procurement and service delivery processes. We need to reflect on the then opposition leader in the lead-up to the election being absolutely crystal clear that heavy rail would make it all the way to Maroochydore by 2032—no ifs, no buts, no shortcuts. It is another example of the Premier talking out of both sides of his face. Let’s wait for `Airtrain mark 2’.
Clause 69— This is the first of the provisions that deals with the drug-driving offences that, as we have discussed in the second reading debate, do not deal with any questions of impairment around THC, which leaves medicinal cannabis patients in a real bind. This is lazy legislation. We use an impairment test for other medicines— (time expired)
I was the only MP to vote against this clause.