Tuesday August 27th, 2024
Victorian Legislative Council
RACHEL PAYNE (Member for South-Eastern Metropolitan): I rise to make a contribution to the tabling of the workplace drug testing report. I want to thank my colleagues, first and foremost, who were part of the committee, including chair Trung Luu, and of course the secretariat for their unwavering commitment to hard work on the hearings and on this report.
The tabled report is a reasoned and well-balanced set of research findings and recommendations that paints a picture of the current processes, practices and impacts of workplace drug testing. It was this week a year ago that Legalise Cannabis Victoria’s motion to set up an inquiry into workplace drug testing practices in Victoria was passed in the Legislative Council, and here we are a year on tabling a report that tells us exactly what we knew and what we were hearing from a lot of our people: workplace drug testing practices in Victoria are discriminatory, disorganised and outdated and lack proper safeguards for employees. Victoria can do better, so I urge the government to action all of these recommendations in the report.
This report makes several important recommendations, but I would like to focus on one in particular. Recommendation 3 in chapter 4 recommends that the government move to amend the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 to ensure people living with a disability who are taking a prescribed medication are protected from discrimination. This is an important reform, particularly for patients experiencing ongoing stigma in the workplace for simply taking their medicinal cannabis as prescribed. During my time as a member of this Parliament I have heard countless stories of people who have lost their jobs simply for trying to do the right thing and disclosing that they are medicinal cannabis patients. The findings of this report are well overdue, and I welcome them.
