Tuesday, 18 March 2025

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Regulation of Personal Adult Use of Cannabis) Bill 2023

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (13:03): Pursuant to standing order 23.22, I table a report of the inquiry into the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Regulation of Personal Adult Use of Cannabis) Bill 2023, including appendices, extracts of proceedings, minority reports and transcripts of evidence, from the Legal and Social Issues Committee. I move:

That the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Trung LUU: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

This report of the Legal and Social Issues Committee examines a bill introduced in the Legislative Council by the Legalise Cannabis Party to regulate the personal use of cannabis in Victoria. This bill was sent to the committee in September 2024. The report is a comparatively short report by the usual standard of the committee, reflecting the very specific nature of the inquiry. In it the committee provides important background information that guides understanding of the bill. This includes comparison of the bill with the legislation of the Australian Capital Territory that the bill is based on as well as a summary of the latest research on the impact that the legislation has had in the ACT. The committee also explored jurisdictions globally that had either legalised or decriminalised cannabis for personal use and has included this analysis in the report.

Other relevant information that the committee provided includes a list of amendments to the bill suggested by stakeholders and a transcript of evidence from the public hearing the committee held on 14 February 2025. I take this opportunity to thank all stakeholders who made submissions and attended the hearing. The committee also appreciates the experts who took time to speak with the committee when they travelled to Canberra to investigate this issue. I would also like to thank my fellow committee members and the committee secretariat Sylvette Bassy, Caitlin Connally, Niamh McEvoy and Patrick O’Brien. I trust this report is useful in informing Parliament when deciding on the progress of this bill.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (13:05): The inquiry into Ms Payne’s private member’s bill on the regulation of personal use and cultivation of cannabis was an efficient yet thoughtful consideration of the complex issues around cannabis regulation in Victoria. The inquiry did not seek to reinvestigate all the issues covered by the committee’s broader 2022 inquiry into cannabis regulation but rather focused on the ACT’s laws that fully decriminalised personal possession and cultivation of cannabis in 2020. Ms Payne’s bill is modelled closely on those laws, with a few key changes. The committee visited the ACT and spoke with the government, ACT policing and health experts, and it is clear from that evidence that the ACT has had a generally positive experience of allowing people to grow a few plants in their backyards and possess small quantities of cannabis without penalty. There has been no increase in cannabis use and no increase in hospital admissions, but there has also been no decrease in organised crime or the illicit trade of cannabis in the ACT. In short, in the ACT not much has changed except perhaps removing people who use small amounts of cannabis from the criminal justice system, reductions in stigma and an increase in users seeking support. Those are clear benefits, and some argue that the same laws would have the same results here in Victoria.

But such a conclusion cannot be automatically drawn. Victoria today is not the ACT of 2020. We are a larger, more diverse jurisdiction with different challenges. The ACT has also had 25-plus years of using a simple cannabis offence notice, a $100 on-the-spot fine for possession of small quantities of cannabis, which is a fundamental difference between the ACT of 2020 and Victoria today. We cannot automatically expect the same results starting from a different position. The committee has recommended that the government take note of the successes in the ACT and carefully consider the implications here in Victoria. There are benefits to the approach in the bill; there would also be challenges, and we must think through both. The committee recommends that the bill also needs amendment. These are complex issues. Steps to reduce the criminal stigma from the possession of small amounts of cannabis would be beneficial, but they do need a thorough process through normal government policy development, not a private members bill.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:07): I rise to speak on this report on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. Cannabis in Victoria should be treated as a public health issue, with law reform guided by the principles of harm minimisation. This finding reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of submissions to the inquiry were in support of our bill. It also reflects the irrefutable evidence of the ACT’s successful decriminalisation of cannabis. Despite our best efforts this report stops short of recommending our bill be passed, although it does recommend the Victorian government consider adopting an approach in line with that proposed by our bill. It is a shame that the Victorian government chooses to continue to be the only jurisdiction in Australia with a blanket policy of not supporting private members bills. It is also a shame that our recommendation to establish an independent expert advisory panel was unsuccessful. This panel would investigate the further regulation of cannabis, including a commercial market for cannabis in Victoria, a modest evidence-led reform like our bill. These concerns are elaborated further in my minority report. In closing, I would like to thank the secretariat for their outstanding work. I would also like to thank all the stakeholders who made a submission and presented at the public hearing. Your expertise and experiences have been invaluable, particularly those who shared their lived experiences. The opportunity to conduct an inquiry into our bill has helped us understand the best practice model for regulating the personal adult use of cannabis in Victoria. I do look forward to seeing the government’s response to this report, because the time for change is now.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:09): I also rise to share a few words on the report which has just today been tabled by the Legal and Social Issues Committee. This has been a most sincerely fascinating inquiry to be part of, and I would like to at the outset thank all of the committee staff, including secretariat Patrick O’Brien, for their very hard work in what was a very compressed timeframe, with some other things on our agenda too – a relatively short space of time we had to dive into this subject.

It has been a very interesting opportunity for me as well. The inquiry primarily consisted of a day of hearings, a full transcript of which is enclosed in this report, but also the opportunity for us to visit the ACT, the subject of the model which Ms Payne’s bill aims to emulate in Victoria, and to meet with lawmakers, with health officials and with the ACT policing division of the Australian Federal Police. It was genuinely very fascinating, very interesting to get insights from all of the submissions and witnesses and those other people we had the opportunity to meet with as part of this inquiry.

These relatively short segments we have here to discuss reports will not allow me to go into the full range of discussion that I would like to, and I will save my fulsome remarks for a future statement on reports, but suffice to say, as Mr Batchelor has said, the recommendations and findings in this report present to government a very strong and reliable framework which an appropriate and very sensible decriminalisation model could follow. I commend the report to the house.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:11): I rise also to take note of the report of the inquiry into the bill been brought forward by Legalise Cannabis Victoria in relation to the decriminalisation of cannabis in this state. I would like to begin by thanking the secretariat and staff for their involvement in what was a really effective and, as has been noted, quite efficient inquiry process into this bill. The ACT trip, the significance of the evidence that we heard there and through the hearings – really this was a highly effective process for stimulating the conversation around cannabis regulation in this state, looking at what I would say is a comparable jurisdiction, the ACT, where Labor is in power, where Labor have in the past worked to progress reform in this area that has seen people diverted away from the criminal justice system for use of a plant.

There is so much that we can look to the ACT for in this space to learn from when we look at this report and we look at the findings and recommendations that are consequent to this process. There is a lot that we should be learning from the ACT experience. Diverting people away from the criminal justice system for cannabis use or possession or growing in your own backyard makes sense. A lot of Victorians have been calling for this sort of reform for a really long time, so I thank Legalise Cannabis Victoria and my colleagues for bringing this process forward.

I will just close by stating that the doorway has always been open, all of this parliamentary term, for this government to make reform in cannabis and in decriminalisation or even legalisation in this space – from day one. It really should not have taken this process to get all of this on record but, again, doing so has been a really effective process. I look forward to the government’s response to this inquiry process and what has been brought forward today and to a consequent government bill, given the government seems to have the hubris that only a government bill can become law in this place. I look forward to seeing the bill and seeing it pass the house.

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (13:13): I would also like to just make a brief comment. Firstly, I would like to thank the other members of the committee for the very collegiate and professional way in which they approached the mission that was before the committee. I would also like to express deep appreciation to the secretariat, who performed incredibly well and incredibly professionally in meeting the challenges that were put before them in a very tight timeframe.

Every year in Victoria 9000 to 10,000 people fall foul of the laws relating to personal use and possession – nothing commercial; purely personal use and possession – and it was in this context that Legalise Cannabis Victoria moved the bill, which seeks to address decriminalisation of personal use and to allow for home growing, sharing and a number of other key issues. We drew heavily on the ACT legislation in doing that. We have now seen five years of that very similar ACT legislation, and we have seen that reviewed by the health department in the ACT through a very comprehensive process. What that has shown us is that that reform has been overwhelmingly positive.

The committee heard from a deputy commissioner of police in the ACT, who said that they had many concerns when this bill came in and, as he said, none have eventuated.

Likewise, we met with the ACT health minister, and she was glowing in her praise for these changes. No adverse impacts have been seen in the ACT, but what has changed is that the number of people falling foul of the law has dropped by over 90 per cent.

The government is committed here in Victoria to strategically reforming the way in which the criminal code affects people, particularly young people, and this is a perfect example of how at no cost to the government – in fact at a saving to the government – real change can be made. We call on the government to implement these reforms, consistent with the committee’s recommendations. I endorse the report to the Council.

Motion agreed to.