Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Motion by Ms Payne
13 May 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
Our motion does nothing more today than ask the government to formalise in legislation what has been an established police procedure – but one that is not being applied evenly and one that very few people outside of a few Victoria Police officers even seem to know about.
The cannabis cautioning program has been around since 1998, and since 2024 – as Ms Payne explained – the Victoria Police operations manual has recommended the use of unlimited cautions for personal cannabis possession over and above and in lieu of arrests. This is very good news. After seeing a disappointing lack of reform in the cannabis space, this represents real progress.
We have spoken many times about the wasted police and court resources that go into prosecuting cannabis possession charges and just as many times about the disastrous, life-changing consequences imposed on people who have been busted for a small amount of weed, so this change of procedure is very welcome.
Unfortunately, as my colleague Ms Payne noted, the new policy has not translated into more cautions being issued or fewer arrests being made, so we are still averaging around 4000 people a year being arrested simply for having a small amount of cannabis on their person.
At a time when Victoria Police is facing chronic staff shortages and there are currently, I think, somewhere around 1500 vacant positions for sworn officers that need to be filled and we are seeing a rise in violent crime, do we really want our police wasted on taking down kids smoking joints? The police certainly do not want to.
They know it is a waste of time, and they are more aware than anyone in this chamber of how a single brush with the criminal justice system can cascade disastrously and destroy lives.
The legislative change we are seeking is modest, necessary and already part of the police procedure, so why don’t we just do it? If anyone is unconvinced that this would be welcomed by police, they should look at the ACT. In Canberra, of course, decriminalisation of possession of small amounts of cannabis occurred in 2020, and six years later it is still working just fine. This is a big step forward from simply cautioning.
The chief commissioner of the federal police in the ACT told the parliamentary inquiry into personal use when we visited there that while police initially had many concerns about the drug changes, none of them had come to fruition – other than that police arrests are down by 94 per cent. It is worth noting in that context that a health department review of the legislation after its first five years of operation found that usage among young people had actually decreased and there had been no increase in hospital admissions or any social or health indicators that could be identified.
I would like to address some of the contributions my colleagues have made in this debate. But before I do, I just want to talk about the recent 420 event. We held that in Sunshine, and I would like to compare that to previous events in Flagstaff Gardens. It is a tale of two 420s if you will.
420 is an annual protest and a celebration of cannabis. It is a protest against prohibition, and so people turn up, have a bit of a picnic, light up a spliff at 4:20 and then go home. It is all very pleasant and very chilled – or at least it was. The 420 events held in Flagstaff Gardens in the last couple of years were marked by an intimidating and excessive police presence.
Last year we had 60 armed police officers – who were being paid, I think, double time and a half or triple time because it was on Easter Sunday – with sniffer dogs, basically searching, handcuffing and detaining anyone they thought might have cannabis on their person. It was such an unconscionable waste of resources and did nothing more than harass and traumatise otherwise law-abiding people and foster resentment and mistrust of the police, and that was not lost on the police concerned.
Compare that with the event held at a park in Sunshine four weeks ago. There were half a dozen police officers, but they kept their distance and were both exceptionally professional and unfailingly polite. There were people consuming cannabis responsibly, listening to music, drinking tea and eating cakes, and that was because it was called, after all, the 420 High Tea. It was extremely pleasant and everyone had a lovely time. Why can’t that be the norm?
I want to return to the motion, but before I do that I would just like to pick up the comments from Dr Heath, because we have both been through the personal use bill inquiry and the workplace drug testing inquiry, so we have heard a lot of witnesses’ evidence. I want to say, first and foremost, that I mean absolutely no disrespect, nor do I belittle your life experiences with friends and such who have been affected, as you said, by drugs – I think probably in a more generic sense.
There are thousands and thousands of peer-reviewed studies, and it is very easy to tick a selective group of those and say, ‘It’s terrible.’ It is basically the DFA, or the Drug Free Australia, approach to research. Mainly they footnote themselves or these ancient studies. It is also known as the Reader’s Digest devil’s lettuce approach to medical research.
We have been through these inquiries. We have heard so much evidence, and it is quite clear that cannabis consumption has not fundamentally changed in consumption quantities over decades. It is quite clear that there are no major medical indicators coming from places where it has been fully commercialised, and that is the reality.
But I think, most importantly, this discussion was very well clarified by Mr Batchelor in his contribution. We are not debating: is cannabis good for you or bad for you? We could equally debate: is Coca Cola good or bad for you? And I suspect it is worse. It would certainly be much worse if we were debating alcohol or tobacco. It is a fraction of the harms.
But putting that aside, this debate is: should we be keeping young people in particular and people from marginalised communities, who we know are overwhelmingly the victims of the justice system for minor offences, out of the criminal justice system? That is the debate. That is the question we are seeking to clarify, not: is weed good for you or bad for you?
Serving police officers want clarity and they want certainty, and as Ms Payne noted, the police we spoke to want to know what they should be doing. They do not like grey areas. The formalisation of the cautioning scheme in legislation will fundamentally help police. They know that their time is being wasted. I think Ms Payne quoted Greg Denham, an experienced officer, and those were his exact words: ‘Nobody wants to do weed paperwork for a minor offence.’
Community, justice and health stakeholders all agree on the damage that even one encounter with the criminal justice system can inflict on people. They are in lockstep on the need to stop arresting people and funnelling them through the criminal justice system for a small amount of weed. And 80 per cent of Victorians agree that it should not be a criminal offence.
I do not know how many times we have debated issues where there is that level of community consensus about legislation that should be changed. But we are not debating that, we are just trying to say ‘Keep people out of the criminal justice system in the short term’. Cautioning should be legislated.
It is the best way to reduce those systemic biases towards First Nations Victorians, young working-class people and other marginalised communities and ensure that there is consistent and equitable application of the cautioning scheme. I commend the motion to the chamber.
[Motion passed without dissent]
