L.U.I.

You’re probably all aware of the danger facing your driving licence, lurking in the shadows of a paddy wagon equipped with a “yanshoof”, the breathalyser used by the Israeli police to enforce drink-driving laws. Some sources advise you to stop drinking after one glass of wine, though most drivers will add one more for the road. The Knesset has decided to get tough on drink driving, setting a draconic minimum sentence, and if you’ve crossed over to the wrong side of the legal definition of drunkenness that extra glass can turn out to be very costly, even if the alcohol level in your body is still low.
But in Australia reality has raised another question, what about lawmakers legislating under the influence?
Were you aware that Australia’s various federal and state parliament houses contain not only legislative chambers and libraries but also restaurants, bars and liquor stores — which serve alcohol, at subsidised prices, late into the night during parliamentary sessions?
No doubt you’re thinking, “Sure beats tinned humus and Turkish coffee on miluim. Way to go hey? ” But lately some of the inebriated antics of some Australian MPs have been showing up on parliamentary closed circuit videos and what’s coming out in public is not exactly politically correct.
There’s one case of a Member of Parliament slurring his words during a debate, and the odd case of verbal and physical abuse on the part of the honourable members, after this or that Christmas party sometime during the year.
Norms have changed and the cameras are running. What parliamentarians got away with in the 19th century is these days open to censure and there are consequences to pay for. Probably the former NSW police minister takes the cake, being forced to resign after claims circulated that he had horsed around in his underwear and straddled the chest of a female MP during a parliamentary office party.
In light of all this hullabaloo, the leader of the opposition in NSW said he would gladly submit to an alcohol test before entering parliament.
Support for the idea has also come from the Rail, Bus and Tram Union. "All rail workers are subjected to random drug and alcohol tests, an infringement on their personal lives that they are told is necessary due to the safety-critical nature of their work," said secretary Nick Lewocki. "But driving the state is every bit as safety-critical, and decisions our politicians make on issues as diverse as health, education and transport policy do affect public lives."
New South Wales Greens MP John Kaye told a local newspaper, "Honestly, if you are going to have breathalysers for people driving cranes you should have breathalysers for people writing laws."
Interestingly the typical excuse of the MPs who’ve got into hot water is that they did drink a bit but they weren’t actually drunk. Funny but that’s what most drink drivers say too.
It begs the question, how much under the influence should a parliamentarian be then before he or she is disqualified from participating in legislation? We will have to clarify which faculties, necessary in lawmaking, are affected by alcohol. Which leads us to the not so semantic question how many forms of impotence can alcohol cause? And then again at what concentrations?
Fixing an appropriate alcohol level for disqualification is one contentious issue but what happens if an MP refuses to be tested? Most likely he or she will be presumed drunk, but how many MPs will suddenly disclose to the public that they have secretly suffered from asthma since childhood, preventing them from taking the breathalyser? Will the honourable members be entitled to insist on being checked by blood test?
On the other hand what will happen if the MP’s breathalyser reading is borderline? Imagine the scenario by which some bill is passed or rejected by one solitary vote due to the absence of some MP, who by definition was just over the legal definition of drunkenness? Would the opposition or government take the bill to court and challenge the breathalyser reading? Would they demand proof that the breathalyser was calibrated properly, or that the officer complied with each and every clause in the breathalyser user manual?
I can imagine some learned QC pleading for leniency before the court, arguing that although the honourable member for the important constituency may have been technically inebriated, he wasn’t really drunk, the proof of the matter being in that he didn’t horse around in his underwear and straddle the chest of a female MP. The prosecuting party would claim, no doubt, that the courts should interpret the statutory reprimand for drunkenness constitutionally and proportionately. Might not the learned QC argue that the slightly sauced MP could have been prevented from participating in the standing committee amending the legislation but should have been permitted to participate in the first reading of the bill and if he sobered up enough in the final reading too?
Another moot question is, will the same level apply in all states and territories? In the USA the permitted drink driving level can change from state to state. Might an MP in WA be permitted to vote with a 0.07 alcohol level whilst be considered ineligible in Canberra? Another possibility is that the legal alcohol level will change over time, as was the case with drink driving? When I was a lad you could drive with a 0.07 alcohol level. Not these days. Nowadays the permitted alcohol level is down to 0.05 and there’s a lot more enforcement on the roads too. Luckily I’m protected by the statute of limitations. But what if some controversial bill narrowly passed into legislation whist in the following year the permitted parliamentary alcohol level was lowered, which in retrospect, would have disqualified the MP whose vote won the day for the sitting government?
My advice in the meantime is, if you’re an MP keep out the range of closed circuit cameras and if you’re a driver just take a taxi, its much cheaper in the long run.