One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has slammed calls for an overhaul of Australian drink-driving laws after a drunk driver ran down four children as they walked to get ice cream.
Experts have called for the blood-alcohol limit to be reduced to zero after the horrific incident, but Hanson said on the Today show that she didn’t support the calls.
“Society is now 0.05 alcohol limit and I think that is fair,” she told Today host Karl Stefanovic.
“People will still drink more. We have to get tough on the sentencing that we have now to try and stop it.”
“For a person to go out and have one or two beers after work, they’re not a menace on the road. So to reduce it to zero, I don’t think that’s fair,” she continued.
“I think for those people who just want to have one or two beers, I think they should be entitled to have that.”
“For those people who just want to have one or two beers, I think they should be entitled to have that.” @PaulineHansonOz does NOT agree with calls for the blood alcohol limit to be reduced to zero in the wake of four children being killed by a suspected drunk driver. #9Today pic.twitter.com/vvpJ8GBjbq
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) February 2, 2020
The legal blood-alcohol concentration limit for driving in Australia is currently 0.05 per cent.
Calls for the overhaul of drink-driving laws have come from Dr John Crozier of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons as he spoke to The Daily Telegraph.
“I think it’s right as you look at this tragedy that any further way of reducing the risk of alcohol affecting the behaviour of the driver — and it does — should be explored,” he said.
“We have it as a requirement for all commercial drivers and poignant deaths like this, it’s reasonable to further explore whether we should have a zero blood-alcohol requirement for all drivers.”
Stefanovic said that he was horrified when he heard about the incident.
‘If they were my children who had been knocked over by someone who was driving allegedly at 0.15, three times over the legal limit, I would not care if that person never saw the light of day again,” Stefanovic said.
“Pauline is 100 per cent right. There needs to be tougher sentencing. How else are we going to stop this from happening?”
The driver, Samuel Davidson, is facing 25 years in prison but Senator Hanson said that he should face even tougher sentencing.
“Throw away the key for the rest of his life,” she said.
