The so-called “political correctness gone mad” change to Queensland’s drivers licences have been in place since October 2016 and brings the state in line with all other Australian jurisdictions.
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According to the state government the primary drivers for the changes removing sex and height from the licence were amendments to the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act in 2013 and improvement to biometric imaging and facial recognition technologies that made much of the information previously collected redundant for identification purposes.
A spokesperson for the Minister for Transport and Main Roads said TMR continued to collect and record information on gender when a person applies for a licence and was available to police through technological advances.
“Police have 24-7 access to this information, including the digital photograph as it appears on the licence, through QLite tablet devices,” the spokesperson said.
“TMR has advised that other jurisdictions are making similar changes, which first came into effect in Queensland in October 2016. There was no cost to taxpayers.”
Many other states including New South Wales do not have this information on their licences and South Australia has removed the hard copy licence altogether going completely digital.
Despite that fact, opposition leader Deb Frecklington weighed in to claim it was “offensive to taxpayers that their hard earned money has been wasted on this rubbish”.
“It is madness to remove basic identification features from driver’s licences, most people’s primary identification record,” Ms Frecklington said.
“What’s next, removing date of birth and blood type because this may be discriminatory?”
State member for Traeger and Queensland Leader of the KAP Robbie Katter also weighed in on the controversy saying he would introduce a motion into parliament to reverse the move.
“First it was the nonsense about Commonwealth Games volunteers being told to use gender neutral language and now this,’’ Mr Katter said.
“These moves are completely out of touch with the expectations of everyday people and we need to draw a line in the sand.
“I’ll be introducing a motion into parliament to reverse this change to licences at the first opportunity. The public must know which politicians are willing to stand up against this politically correct foolishness.’’
The current controversy was stoked up by Courier-Mail which claimed to have seen an internal document which said “gender and height are being removed because of complaints that collecting the information may be viewed as discriminatory.”
The Courier-Mail offered no proof of the document or showed why this was the reason the changes were being made but was happy to call the changes “politically correct”.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
