Victoria’s upper house will soon clock up 24 hours in the chamber.They started sitting at 11.30am on Tuesday.More than 17 hours of that has been spent debating amendments to the government’s contentious pandemic management Bill.How effective can the decision-making of sleep-deprived and increasingly frustrated MPs be?According to the TAC, going without sleep for 17 hours in a 24-hour period has a similar impairing effect on driving performance as a BAC of .05.Stay awake for 24 hours and the effect doubles to .1, or two times the legal limit.Some MPs have been sneaking out for a quick nap, others have been sitting through.Some have momentarily nodded off in the chamber — they’d likely call it a long blink — while others have begun to jumble their words as fatigue kicks in.Such working conditions would be banned anywhere else.Indeed, protections against such practices are enshrined in law.Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, employers are bound to take steps to prevent and respond to work-related fatigue.Victorian MPs routinely sit late into the night, but not since 2017 have they been forced to pull such a marathon all-nighter.The debate of 141 clauses of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill lasted 25 hours before being suspended when an MP became unwell.The state opposition had called for a review of the sitting, citing welfare concerns of MPs.Parliamentary process is vital to good democracy.But there must be a better way than forcing MPs to pull all-nighters.It only encourages the passage of hurried legislation by fed-up MPs.And then all Victorians suffer.
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