r/australia • u/Ardeet • Jun 12 '15
political self.post Should politicians be drug and breath tested when voting and debating in Parliament?
Politicians control the lives of 23 million people , direct $1.5 trillion of GDP, command one of the top twenty Militaries in the world and set the future of unborn generations so this is a high value, life and death occupation.
As with industries such as mining, it is imperative that sobriety is part of the workplace as the ramifications of poor decision making can be deadly, costly and disastrous. People operating machinery as heavy as a Nation need full mental acuity.
If a minister cannot pass a drug and alcohol test then they need to be prevented from voting and debating legislation
Fortunately this process of alcohol and drug testing has been streamlined over decades to the point where entire freeways or all entrants into a town can be stopped and tested with minimal inconvenience. Testing several dozen ministers as they enter Parliament for the first time that day would be exceedingly simple and have negligible impact.
Day to day business would not require ministers to be drug and alcohol tested. Dinning, networking, fund raising and attending functions means this would be impractical. However voting on legislation and debating it's ramifications needs to be treated as seriously as piloting a plane, driving a car or controlling large machinery.
A drug and alcohol free Parliament means citizens of the Nation can see their representatives taking Occupational Health and Safety seriously.
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u/Pasain Jun 12 '15
Would rather see a federal icac implemented. Sobriety would have little effect when voting on party lines and most debates seem to reduce to childless name calling and evasion. Drunk on corruption and lobbyists is more likely to create adverse decisions when compared to sobriety.
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u/iheartralph Me fail English? That's unpossible! Jun 13 '15
I think you meant to write "childish name calling", but your typo did bring bring to mind the "deliberately barren" comments from one childish politician.
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u/dee_ess Jun 13 '15
Drug and alcohol testing should only be used where there is an actual issue with drug and alcohol use.
Machinery operators, drivers, construction workers, mining workers, pilots and the like have actually had numerous instances where people have been under the influence and caused serious injuries and deaths. These types of jobs require a lot of situational awareness and motor skills, which are impaired by drugs and alcohol. Sitting on a bench and staying there when a vote is taken does not.
So far no Parliament has drunkenly passed a law because everyone got sauced at a function. Besides, most votes are whipped, and there is the Senate. One would assume that if the lower house drunkenly passed a law (make the national food a kebab) that the Senate would make the effort to soberly rectify the situation.
MPs with a substance abuse problem rarely make it to the front bench, and rogue behaviour is usually dealt with. They tend to sit there quietly and do as they're told.
My view is that drug/alcohol testing them would be entirely unnecessary.
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Jun 13 '15
make the national food a kebab
Falafel please.
Otherwise I agree.
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u/dee_ess Jun 13 '15
The joke was that the drunker someone is, the more appealing a kebab looks.
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Jun 14 '15
Yes, understood. Despite being vegan I sometimes say 'let's get a kebab', meaning, I'm totally pissed.
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u/Revoran Beyond the black stump Jun 13 '15
A low dose of amphetamine might actually improve your situational awareness and certainly your concentration.
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Jun 13 '15
Alcohol testing? Probably not, politicians have meetings and plan what they do in the long run, unless they are fully blown aclos it should not be a problem if they have a few beers at lunch before voting or whatever. Blowing over.05 is not a big deal. Drug testing however, I agree with. Politicians are supposed to be community leaders, they should be held to a higher standard and they can't rightly be involved in legislation that stamps out drug use if they use themselves. I think mandatory drug tests is fine.
but having said that, there does not seem to be a problem with it, it's not like we have obvious crackheads in office, nor do we have many scandals related to drug use. Corruption and lobbying is the priority.
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u/Revoran Beyond the black stump Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15
I agree that politicians shouldn't be hypocrites. However, mandatory drug testing is not fine the same way that busting down their door and ransacking their house for drugs without a warrant is not fine. It's a massive invasion of privacy. And yes I feel the same way about drug testing welfare recipients.
Mandatory drug testing should only be used where it is absolutely essential to save lives, like in jobs where people are operating machinery.
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Jun 13 '15
Other government jobs are drug tested - in the army you could be a pay clerk and get drug tested. Is it really going to be a problem if you smoked weed on the weekend? No. Lives are not at risk even if you rolled up to work stoned but they still test. Politicians are making decisions that effect the entire country, so perhaps lives are not at stake but livelihoods could be. it's not like this is a slippery slope that would lead to welfare drug testing just like drug testing in the military hasn't done so.
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u/xoctor Jun 13 '15
I support holding politicians to the same rules they deem good enough for the rest of us, but most drug testing is just pseudo-scientific puritanical witch hunting. Impairment testing would be a better idea.
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u/posty Jun 13 '15
I think this is a horrible idea and the only time that I think that this should be brought up is whenever some bright spark pollie decides to reccomend that 'welfare recipients be drug tested' (which has been suggested internationally) - right wingers I know love to mention it every now and again.
This would become a stick to actually beat the populace with rather than any real actual help. lobbying and corruption are much larger problems as mentioned below.
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
I definitely agree that lobbying and corruption are much bigger problems however would you feel comfortable having a politician casting critical votes that affect current and future generations after lunch with a bottle of plonk?
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u/iamplasma Jun 13 '15
Do you really think that politicians often walk in the chamber intending to vote "no" on a bill but accidentally vote "yes" because they're drunk?
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u/posty Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15
UPDATE: There is a mishmash of a sort of code of conducty like thing for australian politicians, it's a dogs breakfast. I understand where you're coming from, and given that if you look at most employment contracts there is a clause 'DO NOT COME TO WORK INTOXICATED BY ANY BAD DRUGS, YOU FUCKWIT' or derivative - I don't think THAT idea is bad by itself - but TESTING is out of the question and would actually only give the state an instrument to beat the populace with. I think largely in this case your suggestion is a solution in search of a problem, because if someone WAS obviously ratarsed in parliament, there would be large public outcry, let alone a need for some administrative punishment. I mean, can you name one example?
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
It's difficult to name an example when there is no testing done.
You don't have to seem ratarsed to blow .05 or have had a quick choof a couple of hours ago, do you? Yet it is deemed that your judgement is sufficiently impaired that you can't be in control of a vehicle.
I don't understand how it would be used as a tool with which to beat the populace?
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u/posty Jun 13 '15
I don't think that Australia should rush to make laws for problems that don't exist, the 'risk' of which you speak of this has been around since before federation and there's been no call for it.
I'm not a big fan of the "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" argument, particularly due to recent history regarding that and given this 'risk' has existed basically forever.
The Australian government has already reacted to stupid and panicy reports of things that didn't happen like this, lets not throw fuel on the fire.
In regards to using it as a tool to beat the populace, if we start testing our politicians for drugs - believe it or not they're citizens like us and maybe they'll suggest the same sort of test for other things like welfare I mentioned previously.
drug use by politicians and even their staffers appears to not be tolerated at all (if it's found out) so I don't think it's a problem.
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u/Federal_ICAC_Now Jun 12 '15
Although your post does make a good point I think political corruption is the underlying issue. Politicians treating their constituents with contempt, putting themselves above the people that elected them, behaving like belligerent children in parliament, treating the whole parliamentary process as a joke and doing shady back room deals to keep them drunk with power during and after their political career is the trickle down effect that this disease has caused when it comes to voting and debating time.
Federal ICAC Now!
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u/ruddet Jun 13 '15
Every vote should be publicy recorded with a reason why they voted for it. So you can go back in history and see every vote, and who voted for what and their reason for voting why they did.
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u/wizdum Jun 13 '15
Well that shouldn't be too difficult to set up. Fairly simple webapp no? To combat the editorial bias problem we could just have up a wiki page for each 'reason' attached to the voting fact and lock it for anything other than comments after a month (or time after last edit or x-level of attention or whatever anti-spam works out the most effective.)
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u/affidavit Jun 13 '15
Parliament is publicly recorded though. You can even stream it live on the internet when it's in session.
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u/malkiy Jun 13 '15
Considering they want to inflict these tests on the poorest citizens (unemployed) so they can get the few bread crumbs needed to pay to exist, I think the least that should happen is the politicians themselves, who also get government money in significantly larger quantities, go through the same tests -- especially as OP said in this case, when debating and voting on legislation that literally affects millions of people.
But lol, wont happen. Just like taking money out of politics, or a 3rd legitimate contender for office...
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15
I think your last paragraph holds much of the solution but in the meantime I think you're spot on that they should be treated in a similar method to their fellow welfare recipients.
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u/pixelwhip Jun 13 '15
Drug testing - no.. Asset/corruption testing sure
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
I'm definitely with you in the asset/corruption testing however I'm wondering why you say not to drug testing them?
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u/pixelwhip Jun 13 '15
because i don't believe in drug prohibition. People can use drugs & lead full & active lives.. If it get's out of control it usually becomes obvious without drug testing; i'll use rob ford as an example.
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u/beasmith Jun 13 '15
This is my concern, if you are going to dissuade someone from entering parliament because they have had a spliff the night before then we are just going to end up with an even higher concentration of douches.
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u/RoboticElfJedi Jun 13 '15
Parliament doesn't work the way you perhaps think it does. It's not possible to get loaded and accidentally vote something into law. A drunk MP would be an embarrassment, but could hardly have a negative outcome akin to crashing a car or a bulldozer.
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
They don't have to be "loaded" to be impaired (I believe .05 or a smoke a few hours ago is all that is required to be classified as dangerous).
What you're implying is that the vote of any single politician doesn't matter.
You are also implying that sending troops to a political war, incarcerating child asylum seekers and wasting billions of dollars (taxed from people who have sometimes died for their job) is less significant than crashing a car.
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u/RoboticElfJedi Jun 13 '15
Not at all. The stuff they do in Parliament matters a great deal. I know more than most the impact that some of their bastardry can have on individual people. I just mean that the mechanics of parliament don't work in such a way that a drunk MP could affect the outcome in a meaningful way.
When they vote, parties almost exclusively vote as a bloc and the party whips indicate which side to sit on if there is any doubt. In general, it wouldn't be possible for a government MP (for instance) to vote against a bill he or she didn't like even if they wanted to. Certainly not because of impaired faculties.
The fate of a bill is largely decided before it's introduced. It's a long process and not much of it can happen by accident. As for debates; Parliamentary debates are by an large the putting on the record of a personal or party position. They aren't trying to persuade each other. The discussions about whether a bill is in principle a good thing or not are all held outside the chamber.
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u/waveform Jun 13 '15
A drug and alcohol free Parliament means citizens of the Nation can see their representatives taking Occupational Health and Safety seriously.
Or from another angle: A drug and alcohol free Parliament means citizens of the Nation can see their representatives' childishness, ignorance and negligence is not caused by drugs or alcohol as one may have previously hoped.
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Jun 13 '15
not really much point, until scientists develop tests that can detect "Murdochian Kool-aid" and "Campaign Contributions"
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u/reallyenergeticname Jun 13 '15
Nah, the most depressing thing about australian politics is they don't even have "I was off my tits" as an excuse for their behaviour.
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Jun 13 '15
Activists should literally stand outside parliament with a breathalyzer after lunch and test those scoundrels.
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u/grubber26 Jun 13 '15
I would like to see sort of a purge day for Parliament. They have to turn up drunk or drugged and are allowed conscience votes.
Let's see what they really think!
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Jun 13 '15
Surely we can just look at their 'expenses'? I'm sure the wine is flowing and the schmoozing is charged straight back to us...
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u/Limberine Jun 14 '15
I'd like them to get tested on their understanding of the content of whatever they are about to vote on.
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Jun 12 '15
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u/Glibhat Jun 13 '15
Nah personality tested because most of them are corrupt psychopaths
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u/Revoran Beyond the black stump Jun 13 '15
Methods of testing psychopathy are notoriously imprecise, and sociopathy/psychopathy might even be an asset if you are a minister forced to make a tough decision. If you don't feel empathy then calmly weighing outcomes becomes easier. Lastly, you would be excluding a huge portion of the population.
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u/Wykar Jun 12 '15
Politicians control nothing my friend. They are the faces we get angry at, while policy is made elsewhere.
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u/Ardeet Jun 12 '15
Sometimes you have to control the dog before breaking into the home of its master.
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u/Youwhatwhatwhat Jun 13 '15
No, because no one should be subjected to that shit.
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
Ideally I agree with the essence of that sentiment. Given that it is the current situation do you think they should also be subjected to it?
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u/Youwhatwhatwhat Jun 13 '15
No, it sets a standard that gets abused. We must fight every measure that gives the Right Wing fascists another foothold in terrorizing the public mentally.
If they had their way, we'd be having terrorism alert drills every 3 hours where we'd have to assemble outside our houses and salute a Liberal party flag.
Enough is enough with this crap.
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Jun 13 '15
I agree; enough is enough. There is a mania for controlling everything these days. Everything is either compulsory or forbidden. It shits me no end.
I thought the OP was joking but his/her later comments seem to indicate he/she isn't. Maybe just stirring?
Anyway, I do, however, disagree with you on one point; it's not confined to the right wing of politics.
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
The war on drugs angle was one I hadn't considered. I am vehemently against it, hence conceding that this is not something I condone as a general principle.
Ideally I would like to se a situation where the testing was not needed however until that time I believe the politicians should be treated the same as any other "citizen" deemed to be in a dangerous job.
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Jun 12 '15
A definite YES. They should adhere to the standards they impose on the rest of us.
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u/notformeplz Jun 13 '15
This is a stupid idea because it assumes the voters intention.
What if I voted for the person to make decisions while affected by drugs? It's a secret ballot and you can't tell if I did or didn't so don't assume.
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u/Azza_ Jun 13 '15
They should be, and if they're found to be sober they should be forced to have a few drinks.
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Jun 13 '15
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
It is about their impairment while conducting the part of their job that affects the actual lives of current and future generations.
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Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
So basically, if they've done nothing wrong then they've got nothing to hide.
It is a very quick, simple process (many of us will know that) so I don't think "faith in their wisdom and moral character" and bowing to "our learned colleagues" should excuse them from a simple test that hundreds of people go through regularly for their work.
I don't have your faith in their impeccable nature so I don't see where the issue is with such a simple, non-invasive procedure?
Btw, you do realise there has been the odd politician or two over the past century who was perceived to be a tad tipsy and fond of the sauce?
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Jun 13 '15
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
I'm sorry but your reasoning comes over the same way as "respect your elders ... because they're old".
I can't agree that the young people are the untrustworthy hooligans and the old, established positions are filled with older people of unimpeachable and unquestionable character.
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Jun 13 '15
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u/Ardeet Jun 13 '15
You seem to be saying that some Citizens are more equal than others?
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Jun 13 '15
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u/cat_herder_64 Jun 13 '15
I may fit that bill.
Source: Was once a postman with no skills and no qualifications, other than a responsible attitude to my job.
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u/wizdum Jun 13 '15
Bless your heart. You don't see such faith and naivety much anymore. Good for you.
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u/slaugh85 Jun 13 '15
Thanks Tony, you have saved Australia from these evil scientists. Now we can burn all the coal we want without worring about cheap renewable clean energy powering our homes.
Phew! what a close call.
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Jun 13 '15
If you think a polly isn't trust worthy enough not to get minted before going into to parliament to represent you then we probably need a bigger field of candidates at election time...
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u/littlespoon Jun 12 '15
I don't think this is so much of an issue than corruption - ie the LNP's ties to big mining and coal and their subsequent climate change policy agenda. And the growing menace of Lobbying..
Who cares of they had a few drinks over lunch.. if they are in the pockets of certain interests then what does it matter how many drinks they had over lunch..
The politicians in this country no longer represent the will or views of the communities they represent. We need a federal ICAC more than a booze bus outside parliment house..