Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Chair. Clause 7 starts to address licensing. This is a part that we’ve done an awful lot of work on and were, and continue to be, happy to share with Government some of those things that we found and discussions that we’ve had.

Over the course of the next few calls I want to talk about licensing, I want to talk about licence holders, I want to talk about employees and the manufacturing process. This lends itself against the background, of course, of a void of any discussion of this. That is our issue. We’ve asked for even a sort of skeleton framework around what the full medicinal cannabis scheme might look like, and we’ve seen a few more words in the Minister’s new Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the past 48 hours actually using the word manufacturing and cultivation, so that’s sort of encouraging. But that’s just a word; it doesn’t give any detail or any description thereof, and we’re prepared to do that.

So in our SOP 178, we actually address these matters. First of all, we make it very clear, and the Minister—if he adopts parts of our SOP or if it should turn out to be in his own hands—needs to make it very clear that, for a medicinal cannabis scheme, it’s being viewed as for commercial production and not for personal use or personal production, unless he views otherwise. Unless the medicinal cannabis scheme is going to allow personal production, then just come out and say it. Put it on the table so the House can debate it, look at it, scrutinise it. Oh wait, unnamed officials are going to decide that. It will never come back to the House. Great!

We want to put out what has been up to scrutiny for a number of months now and that talks to, initially, commercial production and not personal production. Again, let’s be clear, we support commercial production and I’ll talk further to that in licensing; we do not support production for personal purposes. We specifically say that in SOP 178. We actually carry it through in several clauses, but certainly in clause 4(1)(f) and (g) of new schedule 6, when we’re talking about licensing, we say the licence is for commercial, not personal, production.

What’s also interesting—because I think what a licensing regime should say is whether there’s a need. What if there’s an oversupply of manufacture? I want the director-general or someone in control to say, “You know, we’ve actually got enough medicinal cannabis in either the cultivation form, in the processing form, or in the manufacturing stage. We’re actually doing OK, so, no, I’m not going to issue you a licence until some period of time.” We think that’s very reasonable and very sensible. Can you imagine having warehouses full of loose-leaf cannabis and then it continuing to be cultivated? The risk to that could be substantial. Risks of diversion, primarily, are what we’re talking about here.

In clause 4(1)(f) of new schedule 6 we specifically say, “the licence [must be] … for commercial, not personal, production;”, and we certainly stand by that. Then we give the director-general the ability to say, “To get a licence, there needs to be ‘a need for commercial supply and demand for cannabis for medical purposes’.” That seems to make a lot of sense. In all the discussions we’ve had with industry—and I want to thank industry for so willingly coming to the table, discussing their issues and their concerns with the SOP: the detail we were able to put in front of them that the Minister hasn’t been able to. What we have done—we’ve been informed by industry. It’s better with their input. It’s a more refined and it’s a more sophisticated SOP because of industry input. This is what we expected of the Minister and his team to at least bring to select committee. But, oh wait, it was a 100-day promise and we only had 100 days to do it. Again, to reiterate, the licence in our hands is for commercial, not personal, purposes and there needs to be a need for medicinal cannabis. And we’re giving the director-general the authority to say, “No, you’re not having a licence for that.”

We then want to talk about the licence holders. This is very, very important because we think a licence holder needs to be a fit and proper person. It’s quite complex to figure out what a fit and proper person might be. We’re thinking there’s some description around the licence holder—and I’ll come to that, that there’s a higher standard for the licence holder, and there’s another standard, maybe, for employees. Again, with discussions with industry, our initial thinking has been improved and has been refined. I want to discuss how that’s changed and what the advice from industry is.

Let’s talk, first of all, around what we’re thinking a fit and proper licence holder might look like. Well, what we’re saying is, we don’t think it’s wise if you’ve had a drug-related offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act. If you’re going to be a cannabis producer and you’ve had a serious drug offence, you probably are not suitable to be a licence holder. No one in industry disagreed with that. They said, “Yes, we absolutely agree.” [Bell rung]

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I will call Dr Shane Reti again but, apologies, I omitted to say when I called for this debate that it also includes debate on new clauses 8AA and 9A, new schedule 6, set out on Dr Shane Reti’s SOP 178.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was discussing the fit and proper person criteria that, together with industry, we’ve determined is a pretty good start: no offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act, no serious drug offences under the Crimes Act, no crimes involving dishonesty, and no offences outside of New Zealand. We also think it’s reasonable for a licence holder not to have been addicted or habituated to the use of a controlled drug or prescription drug—a medical practitioner can certify that—has not at any time been declared bankrupt, and has not had a licence revoked.

Now, if we look at what the Australians do in this space, they are much more firm around what a fit and proper person should be to hold a licence. They are actually much more didactic around some quite deep relationships that a licence holder may not have. We’ve watered down some of those and brought in international best practice to give us a clearer idea as what a good definition of what a licence holder as a fit and proper person might have. We also expect them to have the expertise and resources, of course, and there are some specific locations, which I’ll talk to later, that are appropriate. So “fit and proper person” for a licence holder: quite a high bar, but every single industry person we met with said, “Yep, we agree. We can do that, no problem. The industry needs to be clean.”

I want to, then, turn to the eligibility of, or the requirements for, an employee. The case was made to us that, clearly, the requirements for an employee would not be the same bar as for a licence holder. A number of industry players in my initial iteration said, “Shane, that’s too tough. We would really struggle with that.”—not everyone, but a number said that’s too much. So, with their feedback and informed by them, we were able to reach a compromise position on an employee of the licence holder for what they might look like as a fit and proper person.

What we came to was this: also, if they’ve had a serious drug-related offence—probably not suitable. Why put them at risk? A crime involving dishonesty, an offence punishable for two or more years—of course, that’s “clean slate”; a clean history, a clean criminal record, and a clean slate of seven years unless you’ve been in prison for two years or more. An offence outside New Zealand—if an employee is currently habituated to the use of a controlled drug or prescription medicine, it’s probably going to be a challenge to be an employee in a cannabis processing facility. And what we’ve also said here is “not a member of a gang”, and we’ve defined what that might be.

These would seem to be very reasonable—very reasonable—fit and proper person qualifications that a licence holder would need to meet. Again, we’ve tested this with industry and modified it. We peeled it back from, maybe, what was a harder position to what was still acceptable with the National Party caucus, is still a firm standard, and that looks backwards and says “If you have anything in your history that’s really serious—probably not suitable.” It also talks to the contemporary time frame that says, “Currently, here and now, if you’re habituated or if you have a gang affiliation, you’re probably not suitable as an employee.” And we think this is a very reasonable framework for fit and proper persons for licence holders and their employees, and we’d encourage the Minister to have a look at this to see if there’s something useful in this and, if so, to absorb it or, certainly, to absorb parts of the SOP.

I want to speak to locations, as well, but that’s another call, I think—another piece of work. What I want to talk to around that, under this clause of licensing, is how we got to the qualifications we have for a suitable place to cultivate, to process, and to manufacture—what we mean by that. And, again, that’s been well informed by industry, who have helped us and guided us from our initial position. Again, this SOP is more sophisticated with their input. So I think I’ll leave that for another call.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not going to attempt to replicate what Dr Reti has just laid out—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): That would be useful.

—except to say that the clause 7 that I described in earlier calls around the famous 59 words has actually been replaced in the Government Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), and this is the area of the bill that gives us such concern. The Minister, in his SOP, has elaborated somewhat on what the regulation might look like and given some kind of nod to quality standards, but it’s what it doesn’t say that gives us the greatest cause for concern.

It’s absolutely vital, just to reiterate, that the purpose of Dr Reti’s SOP is not to do officials’ work; it is not to write the regulation. There is still a great deal of work that’s required over the next few months in order to have that regulatory framework, that licensing regime, established. It is by no means—comprehensive though it is and given a tremendous amount of kudos by people in the medicinal cannabis industry, or those who will seek to go into it, and other commentators as to the quality of the proposed member’s bill that has formed the basis of SOP 178 and the new schedules—the end of the story. There’s still a great deal more work to do, but I do think it would be appropriate for this House to give the New Zealand public confidence that when those officials do go away and write those regulations, these are more than belts and braces requirements. These are quite important things to them, like will a factory producing cannabis, which could end up in a medicine or could end up in a pipe, be away from a school? That’s a reasonable question to ask.

It’s entirely possible—likely, in fact—that Medsafe or the ministry or some medicinal cannabis advisory group will actually have that, but we have a responsibility to stand in front of the New Zealand public and say “We thought about that on your behalf and we made sure it was in there.”—about who, actually, is entitled to gain a licence. Should they, by their experience in the cannabis industry, be ruled in or out? And what is the nature of that experience? Will they be fit and proper people if they have had run-ins with the law for the manufacture, distribution, and supply of illegal substances? Well, we say “No.” And the Minister and the Government and their officials may also agree with us, but let’s have that laid out so that we can give the public confidence that we know what we’re doing.

Now, Medsafe and Dr Stewart Jessamine and his team came into the Health Committee to talk about and to answer questions from National Party members about what this regime would look like. I have had some dealings with Dr Jessamine over a long period of time. I think he’s a fine fellow and I think he’s a loss to the Ministry of Health, given that he’s recently departed that role. But he wasn’t able to say—he wasn’t able to say—whether a factory would go near a school. Would a person with serious drug convictions be able to gain a licence? Should it be manufactured inside or outside? What will be the sorts of protections that the regulation regime would have? And the answer was, in his very articulate and plausible way: “Trust us; we’ve done this before.”

Well, actually, for two very good reasons, New Zealand hasn’t done this before. We are, indeed, breaking new ground. Our drug trials and drug development regime is not as mature as other countries’ around the world. We have a couple of pharmaceutical companies that manufacture generic products that may include opioids and may include the use of substances that in other forms could be considered illegal. We already have a regime around that. In fact, one of the things that Dr Jessamine said was that technically—technically—this bill isn’t even necessary for the development of future medicinal cannabis pharmaceutical products. But, indeed, we have it. So we are breaking new ground. We don’t have the experience in actually developing the regimes of this nature.

So I think it behoves the Government to provide some kind of assurance, even in the Hansard, by the Minister to say “OK. We’re not going to prescribe”—there’s a double entendre—“what the regulation is going to have.” But, at least, the Minister would be able to give some kind of assurance about those sorts of things which we know are concerning some New Zealanders. And, indeed, there’s been a wide range of views, from very conservative to very liberal, on the subject, given not only to colleagues but by colleagues. It’s a very broad range of views, and it is a difficult one, but I think we’d all agree that a regime should have minimum exposure of this product to children, who could be confused about the legitimacy of something in one form. In fact, I think naming matters. The use of the term “cannabis” should probably not be used in these products. We don’t call morphine “heroin”. We give codeine a fancy name, but in its illicit form it’s probably called something else on the street. Language matters, and I think those are the sorts of examples that we should be able to give the New Zealand public a confidence and a reassurance that the regime, whatever the regulation comes up with, does at least have those sorts of conditions attached to it.

The last one, of course, which isn’t spoken about—in fact could be if it’s introduced by way of an amendment to this bill—is advertising. It’s another thing that we’ve had conversation about: the advertising of over-the-counter products and prescription medicines. I know the Minister is taking advice from officials about that very point. Are we going to allow these sorts of products to be advertised? You know, “Ask your doctor if medicinal cannabis is right for you.” I can just imagine what that’s going to look like on the TV.

So I think these are really important preconditions to the regulation-making framework that should be being built in. These are really sensible amendments that Dr Reti has come up with, and I implore the Minister of Health to at least give some kind of confidence to the New Zealand public, even if he can’t support the SOP.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve been listening to this debate with interest, and I guess it’s not a topic that I’m all that familiar with, but, none the less, I heard Stuart Smith earlier on say he had a bit of sympathy for this case and for this type of legislation and for the products involved in it, and I certainly do too, because if they work, they work.

I want to raise an issue under clause 7, under the licensing clause of this bill, which I think is a little interesting and which I don’t think would be considered. I really want to ask the Minister of Health whether it has been and whether it might be. I also want to add the point that there’s always, in the course of legislation in this House, tension between the regulation process and the content of the legislation itself, and I think that, in this case, it does look to me as though it’s in the grey area we’re dealing with. But what I wanted to talk about was how you measure a minimum-quality standard in a product that, in fact, is a natural product. If, in fact, you’re going to allow loose-leaf cannabis to become part of this bill, if the regulations do allow that, then how do you manage the content of that product?

I think it’s very interesting, because—I mean, I don’t know a lot about growing cannabis; although, I do note that one of our premier plant breeders, Dr Warren Parker, has been appointed to the Landcorp board, and maybe Landcorp’s going to move into cannabis pretty quickly. They’ve done all those sorts of things in recent times and have adapted their ways of operating. But what I wanted to ask the Minister was how, in fact, they’re ever going to measure the cannabinoid content of loose-leaf cannabis.

If you think about it from a plant-breeding perspective, it would be very easy. And I don’t know what research is being done into growing cannabis, and I don’t know how much science has been applied to the growing of it in New Zealand, but when you think about the yield of a wheat plant or a maize plant or anything like that, we’ve probably doubled the yields of those in recent times. You can also double the sugar levels of them. You can change dramatically the content of a plant. What really intrigues me about loose-leaf cannabis is how you manage or ever set a standard in a product that’s grown naturally, or even a product that’s grown under licensed conditions. Plants are really interesting things because you can very easily change the standard of them or change the quality of them, and so if we are in fact going to end up with loose-leaf cannabis becoming part of this legislation, then it is going to be very difficult, in my view, to set a regulation that actually measures the content of that plant. So that’s one of the points I want to raise.

I think the licensing of the stuff is an interesting issue, I think the licensing of people to deal with this stuff is an interesting issue, and I also think that the location of those plants or factories or whatever is used to produce them—

💬 Stuart Smith: Could be in the grounds of a prison?

Ha, ha! Well, it’d be secure, Stuart! It’d be secure! But I do think that the location and all that sort of thing is an interesting issue. Of course, if you go back in history, the original basis of cannabis, really, was the hemp plant. And the hemp plant, of course, if it were used legitimately, would be one of the most useful plants we could ever acquire. So I think that there’s an interesting debate about that as well, but what does interest me is how you would ever measure the minimum content or the standard that you might supply loose-leaf cannabis at and how you would then control the way that was distributed and grown.

I think that, when you start to legislate for the provision of a product that we’ve had historically available to us, whether legally or not, and when that becomes a medicine, it does add a whole new set of questions, I think, to the way we supply medicine and the way, in fact, our pharmaceutical products are supplied in New Zealand. I know that’s been part of a significant discussion earlier in this debate, but my real question is: how do you manage the content of these plants and how might we then get the legislation or regulation around that managed in a form that gives us some control of its future? So that’s my contribution to the debate, and I look forward to the rest of the debate in the committee.

Before I call Matt Doocey, I’d just like to say to the member that that was a very useful clause 6 debate. We are actually, in fact, on clause 7.

Thank you for the instruction, Madam Chair. I look forward to debating clause 7. I think, for me, clause 7, when we look at licensing, actually defines what an absolute shambles this bill is. It is absolutely silent on licensing and actually raises more questions than answers.

I’ve got to feel for the Minister of Health. I mean, he’s a new Minister and he’s up against the likes of Dr Shane Reti and the Hon Michael Woodhouse, two members with exemplary careers in health before coming into politics. It sort of reminds me of an up-and-coming number 8 who probably would have thought they’d make the All Blacks, and then they realise they’re in the era of Richie McCaw; I really feel for the Minister, who’s going to be overshadowed by these two. This bill demonstrates it. How embarrassing to actually be silent on some key areas like licensing.

As my colleague Dr Shane Reti outlined, why would the public not want to know the licensing regime that will define the character that we want of people holding these licences? I mean, in the Health Committee we even discovered that we weren’t going to even use the word “commercial” for cultivation. How we have a party like New Zealand First advocating for a bill that won’t even define cultivation as commercial and that will allow, for the first time, loose-leaf cannabis being smoked in this country is beyond belief.

Now, working in the select committee, what I wrote down is, it’s always going to be the tension between greater access to high-quality medicinal cannabis products to ease suffering and having the right regulatory and legislative controls in place. And where would that play out—that’s, in fact, in clause 7—around licensing? Why are we so silent on this? The Hon Michael Woodhouse posed the question: why are we not giving the public confidence that we know what we are doing? Well, in fact, I think that was a rhetorical question. In fact we don’t know what we’re doing, and that’s because the Minister won’t allow this schedule or the licensing to be known to this House and to be debated by the House.

Let’s take one example: are we going to allow production, cultivation, and manufacture close to a school? We’ve all probably got rose-tinted glasses on that under this licence there’ll be fields of benign cannabis plants growing in the New Zealand rural areas. In fact, a lot of this production, I would guess, is probably a lot of hot-boxing in warehouses and factories that are probably in light industrial spaces.

Are we going to have to come back in time to come to change the Education Act to put exclusion zones around schools because parents and teachers and pupils are up in arms because these are nearby? Why are we not allowed to put words like “commercial” next to “cultivation”? Why are we not allowed to discuss the licensing regime? I think all the questions that Dr Shane Reti has posed are answered in his Supplementary Order Papers, so it would be interesting to hear from the Minister why he doesn’t think they are good ideas.

What’s the problem with cross-party working? We do it in climate change. We do it in child poverty. Unfortunately for this Minister, we’re not going to do it in mental health. We’re not going to do it around medicinal cannabis. What’s the point of turning up to a select committee and hearing thousands of submissions, if we’re not going to work across the table?

I think the people on this side of the House who have a health background know that what we do in health is we get the stakeholders round the table and we work through it. And what we have left is more questions than answers for clause 7. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to address a number of the points made in the debate so far on the issue of the regulatory regime.

Firstly, Matt Doocey raised the question about details and wanting to know what the regulation would look like, and he put the case that Dr Shane Reti’s attempts at this ought to be sufficient for us to pass this through and codify it in law. There was a debate about this in various other stages and clauses of the debate, so I am going to repeat myself a little because this was covered, particularly in clause 5A around—

💬 Matt Doocey: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. We come to this Chamber wanting the ability to debate clauses—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Yes, and your point is?

💬 Matt Doocey: I’ve been in this debate today and last night, and I do get frustrated that every time I make a call and a submission, like my colleagues do, the repeated narrative is that the Minister’s deciding—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): That is not a point of order. [Interruption] That is not a point of order. [Interruption] Sit down, Mr Doocey. That is not a point of order.

The point that I will cover again is the conversation around whether this regulation put forward by Dr Reti is the best way to progress things—whether we should codify that in law. I would characterise Dr Reti’s work as—I’ll say Dr Reti has approached this task with enthusiasm. He has consulted some experts himself and industry, and I congratulate him on that work. But I would also say that the advice that I’ve had is that there are flaws in Dr Reti’s work and that wider consultation is incredibly important in order to have the best possible regulations that we could have. The time frame that Dr Reti has put forward for having this in practice is too short to even consult on the Supplementary Order Paper that he is putting forward, and I think it would be the height of arrogance to think that the politicians in this Parliament are better across the issues around medicinal cannabis than the whole of industry and the whole of those who have a stake in this, the health professionals and so on, who would contribute to a full regulatory process. That is the substance of this debate, and I accept that.

I do note also that the Hon Michael Woodhouse raised the issue of whether a factory would be near a school. He was concerned that there wasn’t detail about this—around advertising and so on. These are precisely the things that should be consulted on widely and thoroughly with those who are experts—not politicians in this House laying it down, putting it in law, and having to come and revisit it six months later when it’s shown to be inadequate. So I don’t accept the argument that it’s better to have the stamp of politicians on a regime that is about a range of products that are moving and changing. The safety issues around them are developing over time. New expertise and studies are coming out on a weekly basis. I think this needs to be a regime that is fit for purpose and that is designed by, and consulted on with, experts and the industry. So I reject their idea that we should codify it in terms of a bill prepared by a happy, enthusiastic but amateur person in this space.

I don’t mean to demean Dr Reti, because I think he has absolutely genuinely approached this task, but I think it is wise for us as politicians to consult with the whole industry, with all of those experts in this field, with the various professions engaged. I think we should have nurse practitioners involved. I have a range of views that will be a little different to Dr Reti’s, and I think we are wise to consult with experts rather than have politicians making this case.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for his recent contribution. It’s not clear to me, where he talks about needing experts and wide consultation and taking time, that any of that happened with the terminal exception. He seems to be quite capable of writing regulations and even describing diseases in the terminal exception but has nothing, no detail at all, around a wider medicinal cannabis scheme. So I think one is saying one thing with one side of the face and maybe something different with another.

I think there are two key parts of licensing that I’d like to speak to in these next two calls that I have. The first is around location, which has been touched on by my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse, and the last call, somewhere in this debate, I’d like to take would be around production standards—very, very important items within the overall scheme of a medicinal cannabis scheme that are, again, completely blank for Government.

From a location perspective—to provide some guidance that we hope is useful to this debate, we took some guidance, actually, from the Psychoactive Substances Act, that has descriptions like no production within five kilometres of a residential zone and within a kilometre of a special area such as a wāhi tapu; there are a lot of really good things that were already existing in legislation. So we looked to use what was already there and then see how it could be modified by best practice. And I’m sure those international experts that we’ve spoken with and consulted with will take no umbrage at what the Minister said. I don’t believe he’s demeaning them at all, just maybe that he doesn’t recognise what they’ve contributed.

What we then came to with discussions with pretty much most of the industry players was that that initial description of no production—and I’ll come to that in detail in the next call: “production” meaning cultivation, processing, and manufacturing; “manufacturing” being the labelling and the boxing, if you like, that whole process—five kilometres from a residential zone was quite tough, quite a challenge. Many of the industry players said “Wow, find us a production area outside of five kilometres from a residential area.” So we took that on board, looked overseas, took advice, and modified what you see here in Supplementary Order Paper 178.

Fundamentally, what that says is that in an industrial zone we allow production on the basis that it is not visible to the public—that is, that it’s opaque glasshouses. Secondly—this is indoor production as well, clearly—what we also say is no production within one kilometre of a residential zone unless it is indoor production; again, not visible to the public—opaque glasshouses. Now, most of industry said “Gosh, we’re not only going to have opaque glasshouses, we’re going to have great big fences around it.”—so your concerns of normalising the process or of encouraging crime by having production in a neighbourhood and all those things, you can set aside. “Not only are we going to have what you’re suggesting but we’re going to do better than that.” So that was very reassuring. What that then left was the outdoor growers, and they were happy to remain at five kilometres from a residential zone and not around a sensitive area, again, like a wāhi tapu.

And so this would seem eminently sensible. I think these are the sorts of things—well, I don’t think; I know—that industry are saying: “Give us a guideline, give us some sense, rather than a blank page, over the next two to three years, whatever it’s going to be, because we are needing to organise investors. We’re wanting to get on to this right away. You want to have medicinal cannabis products that are affordable and accessible as quickly as possible into the New Zealand market; we’re ready to go. We’ve got investors, we’ve got the knowledge of how to do this, but we need to know what you might allow.”

So we put out there a structure and a framework that gave them some sense of, yes, you can actually be maybe looking at factories in this area. You can make a start. They were very worried: “Well, we don’t know what the Minister’s going to do. What if this part of your bill’s not taken up.” That is a risk. I accept that’s a risk and I believe in its blank state that’s a risk that will delay the roll-out and deployment of a medicinal cannabis scheme. But I would hope the Government doesn’t stray too far, if they’re not going to absorb in entirety the suggestions we put here, from what we’ve suggested are good best-practice standards, which industry are already saying “We can work with that.”, and give them some guidance so that they can keep moving, so that when we’re ready to deploy, which now will be in a year as per the legislation, we get that seed to sale as quickly as possible.

The overseas experience is six to twelve months. Some industries say they can do it in six months. It will be two and three years if there’s no guidance given to the industry around where they’ll be able to base their production centres. You don’t get that expertise quickly. You can’t build facilities that quickly. I’d like to come back for another call to talk about production further on.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. I want to respond to a few points raised by Dr Shane Reti and also actually acknowledge him—I’m not sure if I’ve done that so far in this debate, but I have throughout a number of other debates—for the work that he has undertaken in coming to the table and informing and educating his caucus as well and in moving the conversation across Aotearoa New Zealand, actually, and joining me and other members of Parliament in doing so.

I think that his work is invaluable, but I also want to acknowledge the point that he made around best practice and state that both myself and Shane—I believe it was earlier this week, or it might have been last week—received a booklet from Medicinal Cannabis Awareness New Zealand on the point of best practice in different jurisdictions across the world. There are a number of different approaches to how we could go about rolling out a medicinal cannabis regime. I do believe that what Dr Shane Reti is proposing in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178 is what he believes is best practice, but it isn’t necessarily what has been found to be best practice in jurisdictions across the rest of the world.

So, to that point, I also wanted to touch on what he’s raised with regard to consulting with industry. It was earlier this morning, actually, that I touched base with Manu Caddie, who is the lead of Hikurangi Enterprises, which was actually the first New Zealand company—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: From the mighty East Coast.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —from the mighty East Coast, I might add, for the sake of my colleague Kiritapu Allan. Manu Caddie is the head of Hikurangi Enterprises, based in Ruatoria, in the mighty East Coast, and they were the first New Zealand company to receive a licence for medicinal cannabis in this country. It’s actually largely an iwi-led organisation as well, but it serves to reinvest in its community and has worked with the local Eastern Institute of Technology polytech to start creating a hemp course to train people and give them a second shot, particularly those, actually, who have ended up being convicted under the Misuse of Drugs Act. I was down a few months ago—or, rather, up, given that we’re currently in Wellington—in the East Coast, talking to a number of the people who are engaged in this education about the second chance that this is offering them to turn their lives around, which is why I think it’s important to focus on the proposals within Shane Reti’s SOP, particularly those with regard to eligibility for licences.

I want to focus particularly on the point made in section 5(1)(b) in new schedule 6 around how people will not be granted licences if they have been convicted of “an offence against this Act or of any other drug-related offence;”. I just really want to pose the question: surely it is the case that these people who have been convicted of those drug offences have served their time? I mean, what we’ve seen in jurisdictions across the world, particularly in those that have taken a more conservative approach to developing medicinal cannabis frameworks, is that the people who have been disproportionately targeted and penalised under the war on drugs and under the prohibition of cannabis are an entirely different demographic from those who are profiting from the developing market in medicinal cannabis. So I really just want to raise the question of equity and, actually, the question of Te Tiriti o Waitangi within this clause.

So, too, I want to refer to the points around the director-general’s ability to consider a person’s—and I quote—“connections and associations that the person has with other persons who may have the ability to influence the conduct of the person:”, and ask how broad that discretion goes. It seems somewhat disconcerting to me that that opens the door to prejudice or discrimination. That, I think, is a very worthwhile concern to be raising, and I would love to hear Dr Shane Reti’s response to that, understanding that he would have his own perspective on why he’s brought that to the table. Also, the point around how a person’s reputation may be considered is something which is rather disconcerting, because reputation is, obviously, something which is somewhat subjective and, I would argue, goes further along the way of opening that door to discrimination.

I also just briefly want to touch on the points raised, particularly by Matt Doocey, with regard to location, where he’s called it a “hothouse”, where cannabis would be produced. I think that he may be referring to something else when he’s speaking about hothouses, but what we’re talking about here is the location where cannabis is produced, not consumed, and those will be nailed down in the licensing scheme as delegated to the Ministry of Health.

I just want to pick up on the points raised by the member Chlöe Swarbrick in her contribution about the width of the director-general’s ability to have discretion, and concerns about Treaty issues and natural justice.

It is true that there are a number of restrictions put forward in Dr Reti’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178 around who might be involved in the cultivation of medicinal cannabis. I just want to put on record that concerns have been raised by the industry, including those who are already producing, for research purposes, products, who employ those who previously have minor criminal convictions and see it as a legitimate way to get them back into work and into meaningful, paid, proper employment.

I think this highlights for me the very point that I’ve made earlier in the same debate around the clause, that we think that regulation needs to have a wider public process of scrutiny. By codifying it in the law now, we risk making mistakes that could be avoided by having a wider consultation process. That’s why I recognise the work that’s gone into Dr Reti’s SOP but also the risks that come with rigidly codifying this through the Parliament, requiring additional work, time, and delayed effort, eventually, of the Parliament. If concerns arise, the Parliament is less nimble and able to respond to the evidence of how a law is implemented and the effect of how a law is implemented. It’s an argument for making sure things are codified in regulation and with constant access to experts and expert oversight.

So I just think the member Chlöe Swarbrick has raised some really important points around the width, also, of the director-general’s discretion about who might be fit and proper persons, including judgments around reputation. This is the kind of error that could be made in codifying this in the law without a wide consultation as to the broader effects of this in New Zealand’s society.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. I just want to make a few comments in relation to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178 in the name of my colleague Dr Shane Reti. I just want to acknowledge the work that he’s done and, actually, the detail that this Supplementary Order Paper goes into on this important topic. I just want to also focus on these eligibility and suitability criteria for an individual to hold a licence, and just make a few points in relation to why these are so important and why these should be put in place in the primary legislation.

I think, firstly, we as Parliament are the ones who create the law. We are the ones who have the responsibility to ensure that we get this legislation right. We as Parliament are the ones who should be dictating to any regulated medicinal cannabis market as to who should and who shouldn’t be eligible to hold a licence to produce, to sell, and to be able to distribute medicinal cannabis products. I think it’s important that we take stock of the fact that we are dealing with substances here which are currently in the Misuse of Drugs Act. These are drugs which need to be regulated in a way which we as Parliament should be making sure is done in a fit and proper way. So putting these in the primary legislation is actually a critical way in terms of making sure that Parliament’s intent is actually held.

I’d like to point out that the bill which is actually on the Table, without the Supplementary Order Papers, essentially lacks all the detail in regard to who should be eligible and who should be suitable, and leaves that not only to be delayed but completely unknown to us as parliamentarians and as members of Parliament who are responsible for setting in place the legislation.

So the eligibility criteria, I think, in clause 5 of new schedule 6, are very sound. The individual must be 18 years or older—that’s in line with a range of other legislation around age—and they have not been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty, an offence punishable by imprisonment for two or more years, or an offence outside New Zealand. I think I heard the member Chlöe Swarbrick talking earlier about how this, potentially, will get in the way of some people who may have been convicted of certain drug offences in the past. But the point being made here is that we want people who have a good record who are in the business of creating these medicinal products.

We want people who have a clean record, and we want them to have been law-abiding citizens. That is something which is expected of so many other people in so many other functions under a range of other pieces of legislation. Law-abiding citizens are required by law to be in place and licensed in a range of functions under legislation. So the question we as Parliament have to ask is: why is this any different? Why should we here be going for a lower standard of people who have eligibility to deal, to create, to manufacture, and distribute medicinal cannabis products than for any other medicine or drug products in our legislation? I’d like the Minister to address that question as to why we would potentially be opening ourselves up to a lower standard of person who has eligibility.

I think the intent that this SOP is trying to put forward is that we are creating a medicinal cannabis regime. It’s about medicines. It’s about people who will be in the business of creating medicines, manufacturing medicines, researching medicines, selling medicines. This is not a sort of quasi - legalised cannabis or marijuana smoking pot scheme. The intent is to create medicines for New Zealanders to assist them and help them. So why should we as Parliament be accepting people who may have a chequered record, who may have committed drug-related offences, who may have been involved with dishonesty? Why should we as Parliament accept those people to be given the ability to also engage in this scheme, when New Zealanders who go to their doctors and seek a prescription for medicine should know that the whole process—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I make my contribution, I would just like to acknowledge Matt Doocey’s wonderful description of Dr Reti and I, and put on record that it’s probably me that will be the shortest-ever comparison with Richie McCaw in this country’s history, flattering though that is.

I was very disappointed, actually, to hear the Minister of Health talk about Dr Reti’s very sensible amendments as “rigidly codifying”, as if this is the proposed end of the story. In fact, this is simply the start line. It’s absolutely understood that there are many, many other parts to the regulatory framework that are necessary to give effect to this licensing regime. What Dr Reti has done is put down some very, very important baseline considerations, and it’s very disappointing not only that the Government isn’t going to take them up but that they mis-describe what that Supplementary Order Paper 178 is in such a way.

Now, I’m going to change tack, because there is a very important issue around this that I’m gravely concerned about, particularly with the revelation that the Minister is not only not ruling out loose leaf but, in fact, tacitly saying that it’s going to be part of the regime. Now, for two years I was the Associate Minister of Transport, with responsibility for road and rail safety, and for three years I was the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and passaged the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 through this House. While I was Associate Minister of Transport, there was a terrible accident near Foxton where a truck ran into the back of a line of traffic, concertinaed a car—it exploded—and two people were killed. I had to go on a TV show one Sunday night to explain why that driver, who had THC in their bloodstream, had not been convicted of drug-driving causing death.

The reason is that the impairment framework for drug-driving is very different from alcohol. Alcohol takes a blood alcohol content and it’s highly correlated with impairment. Therefore, we know that if the impairment level is at a certain point, somebody is impaired. Drug-driving is different. It requires, firstly, a per se evidence of impairment before there is a blood test, and it’s a very expensive blood test. Now, my concern is that if we create a medicinal cannabis regime that includes the ingestion of loose-leaf cannabis—and even if it doesn’t; if it’s an oil or a pill or something, it could still very much have a hallucinogenic property—we are going to have a significant challenge with people who are drug-driving on our roads.

Now, most people who are found to have been drug-driving, usually after they’ve been killed in an accident, or even if they’re arrested, have a combination of alcohol and drug in their system. Now, I know, as a former Minister of Police—because police told me this, that they take a relatively least resistant path. If somebody is believed to have had drugs and alcohol in their system but they can prove that there’s alcohol and they’re over the limit, they’ll take that prosecution. It makes sense, because they get the offence recorded in any event. So there is a great deal of under-reporting of the amount of drug-driving causing death, or injury, in this country, if the driver is not killed. If the driver is killed, a blood test will be taken and there’ll be the confirmation of THC. The problem with this is that THC, the presence of THC, has a half-life of days or weeks. This is why we needed the impairment test.

Now, the problem I’ve got with endorsing smoking loose leaf under the licensing regime that we’re covering is that we may create a massive risk on our roads that cannot be managed with the current land transport rules and the Land Transport Act. What disappoints me about this is that there apparently has been not one bit of consultation with the New Zealand Police, with the New Zealand Transport Agency, or with anybody else—with the AA, who on their website point out that there is a defence to a drug-driving conviction if one can say they followed the instructions of their GP or the prescribing doctor.

Now, that is a nuanced position because, of course, there are many medicines that will have instructions on them that may say “Don’t drive if you’re taking this medicine.” But it’s actually a defence if the prescribing medical practitioner doesn’t physically point that out and cannot prove that it has been pointed out to the patient, and the patient ignores that instruction—that hasn’t actually carried out the delivery of that instruction; just having the warning on the box of the medicine isn’t enough. In fact, the Health Committee, in its consideration of Denise Astill’s petition, has heard a lot about the variations in the sorts of conditions where one should take a medicine. In that case, it’s epileptics.

What I’m raising here—and the Minister should, I think, reassure the House that at least some consideration of this issue will be made, even if it hasn’t already been made, because I have some confidence that we’re going to need to come back to this House and change the Land Transport Act to tighten up the drug-driving regime, because there will be a lot of people who could cause harm. Even if they’re terminally ill, they could well be capable of driving under the influence of THC only—because it’s their prescription medicine, however ingested—and causing harm on our roads, and not having a significant amount of preventive education or prosecutorial process being put in place either side of this regime.

It’s just another example of where this licensing regime is half-baked, ill-thought-through, as part of the 100-day plan. We started with 59 words. We need more words, because this isn’t just about the advisory committee or the officials that are going to be sent away to do this regime. This is a much, much broader issue that could raise questions of criminal liability in other parts of legislation, and there is absolutely, as far as I can tell, not a single nod in this bill to give us confidence that it’s even been thought through. So I’m going to be very interested in the Minister’s and the officials’ comments about that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe this may be the last call that I have, and I wish to cover a particular area under the licensing production standards. But, before I do, I just want to respond to some of my colleagues. I thank member Swarbrick for her kind words.

Yes, I have met with industry—certainly Manu Caddie from Hikurangi—and, indeed, as we discussed our changes to employee eligibility, the vast majority if not all of industry players that we met with were happy with the modifications we made in consultation with them. By the way, I would also contend that I’ve met with more industry players than the Minister and his team have, on the basis that a number choose to remain undisclosed for commercial reasons, and a number are somewhat concerned that the ministry has such influence at the moment around research approvals for medicinal cannabis etc. that they don’t want to fall off side. So I would contend that I’ve met with more industry players than the Minister and his team, and so I can speak somewhat on what’s been relayed to me.

It was also discussed that there was some concern about the eligibility of fit and proper persons who might be licensed. Certainly, for the licensee, the eligibility criteria also relate to significant relationships that may influence the business—absolutely no apologies for that. The Australians write this into their legislation—oh, that’s right, not regulations; they write it into their legislation so that everyone can see it and everyone can talk about it.

Secondly, around employees, I have as an eligibility criteria no current gang affiliations—no apologies for that whatsoever. This is the manufacturing of cannabis. If you have an active gang affiliation, I’m afraid you are not suitable to be manufacturing or in the manufacturing business for cannabis. We make provisions for that under the clean slate Act equivalent, which says, “Look, if you have no further criminal record and currently you’re not an active gang affiliate and have not been in prison for two years or more, you can be an employee again.” But if you are, I’m afraid that under our scheme—and we will stand beside that—you are not suitable as an employee.

Now, I want to come to the last quantity, if you like, of work on the licensing that I want to address, and that’s production standards. Fundamentally, we believe medicinal cannabis should be a medicine like any other medicine and go through a similar process, albeit fast-tracked and abridged in places. That will give us access and affordability, but, fundamentally, it’s just another medicine. It needs the same quality standards that Medsafe applies to other medicines, and we were prepared to advance the Medsafe process through section 23 of the Medicines Act—provisional consenting—that advanced that whole lot along. But, fundamentally, it’s just another medicine. What that means is it needs to be produced under pharmaceutical standards, and that pharmaceutical standard is GMP: good manufacturing practice.

All of the industry players whom I spoke with agreed: GMP—don’t shift off that. Some people initially said, “Look, why don’t you go to the GPP standard that Canada has?” It’s a hell of a lot easier—10 percent tolerance. So if the level is 10, you could be sort of zero or 20 and it’s still OK—“near pharmaceutical”. But, eventually, every industry player that I spoke with said, “Stick with GMP, Shane.” for several reasons. First of all, if we want to export, you can only be GMP certified. Secondly, in our hands, we require clinical trials to follow up the eventual retail distribution, and you may well be able to bring phase zero, one, and two trials from offshore and demonstrate that these products are safe—all well and good; we describe all of that in parts of the work we’re putting forward, but, fundamentally, to do clinical trials, you’ve also got to be GMP standard.

So we stand beside, and we describe in our bill, that production standards for cultivating, processing, and manufacturing need to be GMP standard—that is, pharmaceutical standard. However, we didn’t want to lock that terminology in. What if, in five years’ time, Medsafe decides, “Look, there’s a better standard.”—call it X, Y, Z, who cares? Will we have to come back to the House and discuss that? Maybe not. So what we’ve actually said is that it needs to be compliant with existing Medsafe policies and practice, and how we’ve woven that in is by saying it has to be a medicine, because, under the Medicines Act, if it’s a medicine, it has to be compliant with Medsafe policies and practice. So we’ve thought this through really carefully—all the details, right through from cultivation to processing to manufacture.

Just finally, to touch on the fact that we’re extra, extra cautious around commercial production, not personal production. I’ve already mentioned we state this in the bill. We also did something rather nice to make sure it is commercial production, by saying that if you’re a cultivator, you must have a contract with a processor; if you’re a processor, you must have a contract with a manufacturer—just making absolutely sure that our intentions and what we want to achieve is commercial production of accessible and affordable medicinal cannabis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to carry on from where Dr Shane Reti spoke about suitable persons, because when we look into our prisons, we see 51 percent of our prisons are made up of Māori. When we start to dive down into those statistics, we find 40 percent of those prisoners that are in jail have had some relationship to or some criminal background in marijuana and the misuse of drugs.

So I stand quite shocked, really, at how wide and how loose this bill is. We need to have really strong standards around this bill. Why? It’s because it is too open for it to be taken and misused amongst our population. I’ve listened to the location of where the growing of medicinal cannabis will take place, the distribution, the manufacture. I believe that strong licensing does need to actually occur. In many of the industries that I have partaken in, there is a lot of licensing regime around the way that an organisation operates, and this should not be any exception.

When I look at some of the comments that were made by the Minister David Clark towards Dr Shane Reti, I felt that he insulted the integrity and the qualifications of Dr Reti and the work that he has done in this Supplementary Order Paper 178 to do with the eligibility and suitability of responsible persons. I feel that it was uncalled for. I think that for our caucus, Dr Reti gave us a very good oversight into this bill and where we should be going with it, and this Government should actually take note of some of the things that he has actually said.

I think that it’s one of those bills where this Government, once again, is saying “Trust us. We’re from the Government; we know what we’re doing.” Well, I’m afraid they don’t know what they’re doing. This is highly dangerous. I listened to the contribution from the Hon Michael Woodhouse around drug-driving and the way that—you know, it’s like everything; you push one button and then there is one of those concertina effects that goes right throughout the industry. Drug-driving, along with drunk-driving, is one of the worst things that happens on our roads, and people that are caught drug—well, as the Hon Michael Woodhouse says, if the person dies, then it is found THC is in their blood.

So all of these things, once this bill gets across the line—which I believe it will, because we don’t have the numbers to actually bat it back. We don’t have the numbers to bat it back, but I know that the people of this country are looking at this side of the House to actually make sure there are strict regimes around the suitability and eligibility of a responsible person. I look at the very areas that I come from and the results that marijuana has had on my family within the community that I come from—the results of that. This, to me, is going to open a gap for those that think that they can get in there to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. I believe that we need to actually put some very strict criteria around that.

All the criteria around who should not be involved in this industry are clearly stated in clause 5. However, there are some areas within this bill that do not speak about the duration of the licence. How long should a person or an organisation hold a licence for? What are the criteria around the modification of those licences as time goes by? These are some of the questions that I’d like the Minister to answer. How does one apply? How long is the licence for? What is the regime for modification of those licences, and who will do that? We’re all talking about the Director-General of—I assume—Health that will take on this role, but at the end of the day, we need a broader group of people that are going to be part and parcel of this licensing regime.

When I look at the areas around storage undertaking activities in a specific location, which I covered slightly, and the cancellation of a licence—what are the rules around the cancellation of a licence? I don’t think that the Minister has actually traversed this area well. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And it’s certainly my pleasure to stand and take a call on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. I’ve been in my office listening to this debate for several hours, and even standing here this morning listening to the contributions from this side of the Chamber, it seems to me that clause 7 that we are talking about has opened up a huge amount of discussion. And what has appeared to me is that there are so many questions that are unanswered in this legislation. I heard the Hon Dr David Clark earlier this morning talking about how he does not want to commit too many details to this bill because he doesn’t want to make any mistakes, and so there is going to be more consultation. Well, that says to me that this bill is not ready to pass through this House, and I actually believe that we should be pulling this bill from the discussion.

I felt that the comments made about the expertise of Dr Shane Reti were entirely—although Dr Clark said they were not meant to be critical, they absolutely were. We’re talking about a man who has been on the coalface of community health for many years. He has seen the impacts of the use of drugs in the communities that he’s served, overseas and here in New Zealand. He’s researched this bill very thoroughly and, as he’s said himself, talked to more experts in relation to this. To have a licensing regime that is rigid and attached to this bill before it passes through this House is completely appropriate. Now, a doctor of theology may pray to God that he’s got it right, but, actually, in legislation we need it to be written down on paper so that the community, the growers, and anyone that is associated with the production of medicinal cannabis has it clear in their mind what they are getting involved in. This is the thin edge of a wedge, and we need to get it right.

And, as the Hon Michael Woodhouse pointed out earlier, there are flow-on effects in other pieces of legislation if we do not get it right. Once we’ve opened this door, that horse has bolted and we need to make sure that if we are going to open this door to medicinal cannabis, and especially loose-leaf, that we have got some very tight, rigid licensing regimes in place.

For me, when I look at the licensing in the proposed bill, we are looking at 55 words that apply to it. Then when I look at Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178, we’ve got 18 pages of detail. Now, it’s not a war of words and it’s certainly not a competition about how many words are contained in the SOP, but the detail that is in it is what the public would expect from good legislation. And there is nothing that I have found in SOP 178 about licensing that would caution me not to adopt this as part of the legislation. It not only applies to the licence holder but it also applies the same standards to employees of anyone that is involved in the manufacture, the production, and even the disposal of the product. That is completely appropriate from the community’s point of view. I would challenge the Government to come up with a very solid argument about why we cannot have licensing detail in this legislation as it is laid out here in SOP 178.

Now, the eligibility for a corporate to be a licence holder is also broken down so that the licence holder—if it’s a body corporate or a corporate body—must also nominate a specified person. So that specified person must also have the attributes that are laid out in SOP 178. They must have no other drug-related offences, they may not be associated with gangs, they must not have been involved in the crime of dishonesty as defined in the Crimes Act, and they must not have been convicted of an offence that has an imprisonment penalty of two years or more. That is completely appropriate. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a second call on this clause. I’d like to speak again to Dr Shane Reti’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178 and to clause 8, which relates to “Location specified in application must be safe”. I think this is, again, an important—it’s clause 8 of the Supplementary Order Paper, dealing with the licensing regime, Madam Chair. This, again, is an important contribution by Dr Shane Reti to this debate and to this legislation because, again, in clause 7 of the bill, essentially, it just sets up that there should be regulations. What this clause here, which Dr Reti is trying to get the Government to agree to, suggests is that there should be locations which should be kept safe from the production of medicinal cannabis products. It says that it should be “1 kilometre away from an area specified by regulations as unsuitable to undertake the activities that are authorised by the licence”.

So what we have here is that we’re, essentially, saying that this is giving the ability for regulations to be put in place, but Parliament is clearly defining what those regulations should be doing. So it’s not just a blank cheque; it’s actually saying, “This is the direction that we want the regulations to go in.” We want to actually keep our residential areas five kilometres away from the production and any licensing regimes around the production of medicinal cannabis products, the growing of cannabis, and all of those things. We want to ensure, if the activities are conducted inside a building, that it must be one kilometre away from any area zoned as residential. What it is saying is, “Let’s set some clear direction around what these regulations should be and what they shouldn’t be.”

At the moment, what we have is a blank cheque being given to officials to go away and work on some regulations which could discuss issues like this—they may; they may not. There is actually no requirement on those officials to actually put in place any area-specific locations where these licensed premises can be placed. There is no direction as to where that could be, and so I am urging the Government to look seriously at this clause in the Supplementary Order Paper, because I know the conversation and the debate which will take place if this bill goes through Parliament with no direction from the Government or from Parliament as to where these licences should be or shouldn’t be.

I know there will be a huge community debate. There’ll be a huge number of people in New Zealand who will not want these licensed regimes near their house, near their children’s school, near their early childhood education (ECE) centre, near a community service, near drug and alcohol addiction areas. But what this SOP—and this particular clause in the SOP—says is, “Let’s instruct officials to work on what is a location which must be considered safe.” What is an area which we consider as not suitable for the production, manufacture, or otherwise of medicinal cannabis products? That’s what it is saying: let’s work out what these areas are. Let’s have a debate as to what those areas are, and then this clause says very clearly what the consequence of having those areas listed as unsuitable will be.

So there may be a whole wide range of areas which could be debated and discussed as being unsuitable. It could be drug and alcohol addiction services, it could be mental health services, it could be places of worship, it could be schools, it could be ECEs, it could be Work and Income offices, it could be a whole range of Government departments, it could be a range of different places which we, as a community, decide are areas we want to consider as being unsafe, or it could be very few of those. But what this clause does is say, “Let’s have a conversation around what those places should be or shouldn’t be.” Then very clearly the follow-on from that is that, if the activities conducted in that licensed premises are conducted outside a building, it will have to be five kilometres away from a zoned residential area, and if it’s conducted inside a building, at least one kilometre away. So that ensures it will be—[Time expired]

I move, That the question be now put.