Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the third reading of this bill, the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. It is now 15 months since this bill was drawn from the ballot, and in the time since, I’ve been continuously reminded about the importance and urgency of this issue. Whether meeting with families affected by these drugs, toxicologists working in our hospitals, or community advocates, everyone has expressed the need for urgency in addressing this very real issue of synthetic drugs which we are facing in our communities. Over the past year, we have seen the issue of psychoactive substances become a national focus as dozens of individuals across the country have continued to die and more and more lives have been destroyed by these terrible drugs. Just this week, the coroner on Monday released updated statistics which show that in the 18 months since mid-2017, we have lost 80 lives to synthetic drugs. It is my sincere hope that 2019 will not see the same number of deaths and devastated lives as 2018 witnessed.

I’m pleased to see that the Government’s position has changed dramatically on this issue since I first brought this bill to the House last year. However, tonight I also urge them to vote my bill into law. What I and those who have joined me across the House have been doing is sending a strong message to those who would seek to profit off the misery of others that these substances are not welcome on our streets, that the preying of the malevolent on the vulnerable will not be tolerated, and that if you need help, we’re here to give the assistance that you need.

From the very beginning, I’ve consistently acknowledged that this issue will not be comprehensively addressed by this piece of legislation alone but that it is an important part of how we tackle drug harm in New Zealand. We must indeed treat the usage of these substances as a health issue and ensure that we’re providing the very best support and care that we can for those who struggle with using these drugs and the help they need to come clean. That is why I petitioned Parliament to have an inquiry into the support provided to those suffering from addiction to synthetic drugs. Unfortunately, that petition was dismissed by this Government—probably the only inquiry they’ve ever said no to.

However, whilst we talk about the support needed for those suffering from synthetic drug harm, we cannot in any way compromise our unequivocal condemnation of the manufacturing and distribution of these drugs. It is patently clear that the penalties we place behind crimes show how seriously we take the issue. Allow me to be clear: I take the issue of psychoactive substances very seriously, and this is shown by my actions. When I looked at the penalties which apply to those found guilty of supplying synthetic drugs, I was shocked to learn that the penalty was only a maximum of two years’ imprisonment, compared to a maximum of eight years for supplying marijuana. The dearth of penalties sufficiently strict to deter the supply and manufacturing of dangerous synthetic drugs is what has brought us to this point, and while I commend the Government for finally coming to the point where they also acknowledge the need for increased penalties, they have yet to pass their changes into law. Tonight, as they will seek to vote against my bill, they will have done nothing further than introduce a bill to first reading when it comes to this insidious issue.

Yes, they’ve promised to make AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB class A drugs. Those are the two worst and most deadly synthetic drugs out there. However, under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Minister of Health has the power to schedule these drugs as class A drugs today. However, instead they are dragging their feet by legislating these measures while at the same time attempting to decriminalise all drugs by stealth. Let me be clear: the Minister of Health was first advised to schedule these drugs as class A last April and has yet to do this very thing one whole year on from receiving this advice. Just why the Minister has failed to do this is incredibly unclear and raises the question about whether the Government is actually committed to scheduling these drugs as class A. I challenge the Minister of Health tonight to take a call and explain why he has not used his powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act and acted urgently in scheduling these two substances which we know are causing so much pain and suffering in society. Is it because he knows the Green Party doesn’t actually agree with this decision, or is it because the Government is not fully committed to making this change?

I also urge the Government to vote for my bill, which is a necessary component of addressing the harm caused by synthetic drugs. While the Government is progressing legislation that amends the Misuse of Drugs Act and reclassifies these two potent forms of the drug, I’m afraid the feet-dragging that we’ve seen means these measures are too little, too late. The Government’s legislation is too little. While they may be scheduling two of the worst synthetic drug strands as class A drugs, it is very easy for synthetic drug manufacturers to simply change their recipes to avoid longer sentences. What we will see is manufacturers looking to create chemically different compounds which attract a lower penalty so that they can continue to sell their misery with a lower risk of imprisonment or punishment. My bill, however, by amending the Psychoactive Substances Act, ensures that a consistent maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment is applied to those who supply any and all chemical compounds which make up psychoactive substances. If the Government only opts for classifying substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act, they will always be playing catch-up with drug dealers and gangs. Yes, they will have a new class C1, but how long will it take the Government to schedule new substances under this regime? It has taken them more than a year and they still have not scheduled AMB-FUBINACA or 5F-ADB after 80 deaths. How can the Government give New Zealanders confidence that they can tackle potential future drugs entering New Zealand?

I’ve shared the story of Calum Jones a number of times in this House, a story I feel illustrates the dangers of the current law so well. It is Calum and a tragic number of others just like him who should still be with us that motivated me to put forward this legislation. During the weeks before Calum’s death, he had gone clean and given up drugs, but he was hounded by the dealer who supplied him. Over the last 72 hours of Calum’s life, he received more than a hundred text messages from the dealer, preying on his past and on his vulnerability. Did the dealer know that this batch would kill Calum? No, probably not. Was he ignorant of the harm that his drugs would undoubtedly cause? Definitely not. Was he aware of the risks? Indisputably. Those who deal these substances knowingly poison their clients, and such heartlessness must be vigorously condemned by this House by ensuring that the penalties match the crime and the harm caused.

The harm caused by psychoactive substances stems from as many causes as there are cases of use, and drug harm in general must be pursued through a multifaceted approach. Much work remains to be done in this country as we continue to look at drug reform, but the issue of psychoactive substances must remain a focal point of this discussion. While my critics may try to distort my position, I believe we must take a health-based approach to those who use drugs and support those who suffer from addictions. However, no progress will be made in this cause unless we can acknowledge the difference between using drugs and importing, manufacturing, and supplying drugs. A laissez-faire approach to drug law is not leadership; an education programme is not a plan. My heart goes out to those who suffer from the horrors of drug addiction, yet if we do not try and take action to protect these individuals in a swift and meaningful way, then we will not resolve these issues.

In conclusion, I’d like to again acknowledge the Justice Committee for their work in considering and addressing this bill; listening to the many, many submitters who submitted and reporting it back to the House. I’d also like to thank everyone who has made a submission and has been involved in the process of this bill. I’d also like to acknowledge the support of New Zealand First for bringing this bill to this point.

I commend this bill to the House, and I urge members to vote for this important measure to put in place credible deterrence for those who would otherwise see no reason not to peddle these appalling drugs. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

I stand to speak against this bill, as I have throughout its passage, but acknowledging the, I think, genuine intent of the member who brought it to the House, Simeon Brown, who has a passion for seeing something done about this issue.

We on this side of the House believe that this is not actually the best way of addressing the issue, because we do want to make sure that people caught in the web of addiction are given support to break the addiction, and we believe that what is important about dealing with the suppliers of the drugs is that the police have the search and seizure powers necessary to actually stop the supply of drugs.

I note that the New Zealand Police Association argued that substance use and crime are often linked to the high cost of a drug habit fed by a criminal market place. These are the people who deal with the hardest end of crime, but they argued in the Justice Committee that this bill is not supported by evidence that increased penalties will deter people that use or supply these drugs; these are desperate people.

We make no apology, on this side of the House, for going after the peddlers of these drugs. That is part of a health-based approach to addressing the scourge of these synthetic drugs. But we also believe that the important thing is that there is a health-based approach to support those caught in the web of addiction, and we believe that only that way will people be able to be supported to get out of that addiction to live the best lives that they can lead.

In recent days, I have received advice from district health boards that the presentations of harm have lowered significantly in the last year for drugs attributable in this way—for synthetic drugs. That is good news. It is, however, too soon to celebrate that. We need to keep a watchful eye because we know that there are still drugs of this nature on our streets, albeit that customs are finding fewer of them coming through the border, in the evidence that we’ve seen so far.

The best solution, of course—and it needs to be put on record—is for people not to take these drugs, and I think everyone in the House would agree that to be the case. The evidence around synthetic drugs is that, of all of the prohibited substances, these are amongst the most dangerous, and that is why in the bill that I have before the House they are classified as class A to ensure these drugs are put in the most severe category, giving police the powers they need to prosecute the suppliers and also the powers they need for search and seizure.

I do want to pick up on the point the member Simeon Brown has raised around the new class C1. He argued that he wasn’t sure how long it would take to classify substances coming into the country. This is precisely the point of that new class C1: it will mean that within a matter of days of receiving advice that drugs are harmful, I as Minister of Health will be able to classify drugs in a way that will enable the police to have the search and seizure powers they require to crack down on suppliers. So that is good news, and I expect the member will welcome that.

What I would challenge the member on here is that he can’t have it both ways. He can’t in the same breath, as he did, challenge this Government on dragging its feet and say that we are decriminalising by stealth. Those two things are mutually contradictory, and yet the member would have us believe in this House that we’re doing both of them at the same time; that this process of putting the bill through the House is far too slow, that we’re dragging our feet in terms of the bill that we’re putting through to reduce harm and crack down on suppliers but that we’re doing it by stealth by doing it all too quickly, under the radar. Those two things cannot both be true.

We are moving with appropriate speed. We know that these drugs are harmful to the citizens that we represent, to the people of New Zealand, but we also know that we need a thorough process. There have been hearings today, that have been reported on, that ensure that there are no unintended consequences of this law; that we don’t punish those who are in the web of addiction by making them considered as suppliers by getting the amount wrong, that we don’t write in the law something that a trained lawyer can spot as having caused trouble in past legislation. This is how a select committee process goes. As the member and other members in this House understand, a select committee process, when it’s thorough, can iron out some of the creases in the first drafting of a bill and make sure there aren’t unintended consequences, to make sure that we actually put through the best legislation that is possible to address this scourge of synthetic drugs on our society.

It is disappointing, in my view, that this bill has progressed so far through the House, when there is evidence and information available that would show that it isn’t the best way to address the issue; that simply increasing sentences for those caught peddling the drugs, just on its own, won’t have a deterrent effect. That’s what the evidence tells us. Actually giving the police the powers to search for and seize these drugs is a better approach, is what is needed. We have a different approach, whereby we are supporting, through codifying what the police already in practice do most of the time, their preference for a health-based approach when they catch people caught in the web of addiction with an amount of drugs on them that corresponds with being a user of the drugs.

Locking up more drug users is not the answer. All that that does is see a corresponding increase in the number of people using synthetic drugs in prisons. Many synthetic drugs don’t show up in routine tests. The chemicals that make them up are changing all the time, new substances are arriving in the country, so prison managers rely instead on detector dogs, and we know that that is a challenging method, when the drugs are changing all the time. Prisoners do report for random drug testing but we know that that’s not really a deterrent for these drugs, when they’re difficult to detect. In a recent survey, nearly a quarter of all prisoners said it was very easy to get illegal drugs into prison. That’s a longstanding issue.

And we also know that incarceration doesn’t stop drug dependence. It actually in many cases removes people from the support and the chance for recovery that might exist when they’re surrounded by their family, when they have income, prospects, hope, and a home. Those things are more likely to help people wrestle with their addiction and the underlying causes of that addiction than putting them in prison. We know that the international evidence points us toward an approach that is based on treating use as a health issue in the first instance—unless, of course, there are other reasons why somebody should be locked up. The police have a discretion, and that discretion will be in our legislation because we think it’s important that that discretion is there where the police need it. So it’s not full decriminalisation, as some would have you believe, but it is a step towards treating drugs as a health issue, which we believe is the right approach.

So we don’t support this bill. We consider it to be redundant. We do take very seriously the issue of illicit drug supply and abuse, and we have a plan to sort it out, which we are getting on with moving quickly through this House, but with the appropriate checks and balances in place. Our plan has the support of our coalition and confidence and supply partners and of the people of New Zealand.

I do want to thank, particularly, New Zealand First for the constructive way that they have worked with us on our bill, which will be a better solution, and particularly the member Darroch Ball, who has been very interested in this issue through time and has helped us find a way of looking out for those caught in the web of addiction and also made sure that we have an appropriate penalties regime and the search and supply powers for the police to actually interrupt the supply, to do a constructive thing. So I do want to thank Mr Ball and New Zealand First. I also want to thank the member Chlöe Swarbrick and the Green Party for their support for the legislation we are putting through the House. They have been advocates, and Chlöe in particular, for a health-based approach to drug use, and I want to acknowledge that and the constructive way in which they’ve worked towards getting that legislation through the House.

So, while the bill was well intended, it uses the same old approach that has failed and that has led to the deaths of far too many people from these illicit substances. We know that around 80 New Zealanders over a two-year period have had deaths connected to them. We propose a new and better approach because we take this problem seriously, and I want to thank the coalition and confidence and supply partners that we in Labour are working with to make sure we do have a solution to this scourge on our society.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to talk to the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading. I am saddened by the remarks of the member who has just resumed his seat. While I don’t doubt for a moment that the Minister of Health has best intentions at heart, I still find it difficult to understand why increasing the penalty for the suppliers and the peddlers of these drugs is a bad thing. I think that, unfortunately, the issues with—

💬 Darroch Ball: It’s happening, in the Government bill.

No, it isn’t the same as the Government bill, and I supported your Supplementary Order Paper, actually, Darroch Ball. But I do believe that this is an issue that requires more immediate action.

I think that the bill under its sponsor, Simeon Brown, has very carefully listened to the tragedies, actually. I was there on the forecourt of Parliament on the day that Calum’s father, Lewis Jones, was there, but when I spoke to Lewis and heard about what that family had gone through, and also what their son, Calum, had gone through, I felt that the time to act was needing to be immediate.

The idea that you could place it on hold and take it through a larger body of legislation and all the rest of it, which could take a long period of time to get through this House, rather than to vote through something that would initially, at least, address part of the problem, which is the fact that these people who peddle the drugs—and my colleague Simeon Brown did detail the tragic last day of Calum Jones, where his dealer sent him something like around a hundred texts to try and get him to take more drugs, and then just turned up on his doorstep. So there was young Calum, with a child and with everything to live for. He had got clean, he was back in his environment, and this demon pursued him and, really, besieged him. That is the kind of person and that is the kind of action that deserves much harsher penalties.

I have had personal experience with this in my own wider family, where younger people, in particular, have been predated upon around these psychoactive substances to the point where they’re given them for free. I mean, there are just no boundaries with these people—mixing them in with fentanyl to make them more addictive so that there is more likelihood of having a profit. The people who peddle this stuff are sometimes, but not always, addicted. They are individuals that have no moral compass whatsoever, and what Simeon Brown’s bill is attempting to do—and, you know, the title tells it like it is. It’s about the distribution and the supply. This is not a redundant bill. This is not something that will fail, except by a lack of political will from the other side of the House, which I think is deplorable.

So the petition that came to Parliament reflecting the experience of that one individual, Calum Jones, but also hundreds and hundreds of others before him was, I think, an inquiry that was worth having. To this day, I can’t understand why the Government would not have it. As my colleague pointed out, this is a Government who is far more partial to inquiries than any other in New Zealand’s parliamentary history. Why did they turn this one down? Oh, because they thought that they could get political advantage from introducing another bill. Really? What does that serve in terms of the victims of these drugs?

You know, this bill was never intended to solve all the problems—no one bill can. The bill that the Government is proposing will not. There are a number of approaches that need to be taken, and I think the longer they delay and the longer the time when the penalties are increased and when the health benefits and so forth of rehabilitation are put in place, the more people will die, and it’s as simple as that.

You combine it with what we saw the other night in the House with the Corrections Amendment Bill, which has removed all of the useful things about drug and alcohol rehabilitation which the Hon Louise Upston had worked very hard on and consulted widely on, and which we believed would be a phenomenal deal-breaker, if you like, or game-changer for people who were addicted despite their best efforts and who needed to be cured of that before they could become the people they needed to be. So, for me, the Corrections Amendment Bill also was a wasted opportunity because it did not address the addiction and requiring people to get drug and alcohol treatment while they were in prison and when they come out, and that is a big miss. That is a shame that will result in deaths and a lot of misery for a lot of people.

Again, I don’t understand what motivates this Government to walk away from the humane and the appropriate approach and instead fall back on dogma and their own bills, rather than have the largesse to acknowledge that there are other pieces of legislation that will help and assist so that the Calum Jones tragedy does not repeat itself on a daily basis. I might need to be corrected on this, Simeon Brown, but I seem to recall that the police did manage to get those texts from the dealer, and he was being charged with—

💬 Simeon Brown: He was convicted.

He was actually convicted. So it can work. You can get these people and find the evidence through the text trail that they leave and make the point that they are predating on the vulnerable. They are really profiting, in a way, from the death and the misery of others. They need to be held to account under the law, and they need the penalties. Why would you not have the same penalties as we have for marijuana as you do for psychoactive substance supply? What signal does that send these people?

When I was in the Wairarapa a while ago—probably about eight years ago now—the psychoactive substances were available everywhere; in dairies, garages, and all the rest of it. We have had, I suppose, from that time, before the law was clarified properly—and it still is too loose, from my perspective—young people thinking it was OK to smoke this stuff because it was available readily. It didn’t appear to be illegal. It caused enormous harm, and it is phenomenally addictive.

The stuff that they put into it—which changes all the time, of course, because they need to change it to remain legal—are horse tranquilisers and things that are physically very violent to become clean from. I know that people were having terrible physical responses if they didn’t smoke the psychoactive substances, and because they changed and because the dealers changed and they are more nimble than the law and more nimble than the politicians that make the law, the misery continues. I think, essentially, when you look at what this bill is trying to do, it’s a small bill and narrowly focused, but its provisions around amending, with clause 4, section 70 to increase the penalty for selling or supplying unapproved psychoactive substances—where’s the harm in that?

So how do the people on the other side of the House live with themselves saying, “Ah well, it’s not going to solve all the problems. It’s too punitive.” Actually, if it saves one or two or three lives and if it punishes more of these dealers that are peddling misery and death, it’s worth doing. The high horse on a political agenda isn’t really a comfortable place to be when there are young men like Calum Jones, with their lives ahead of them, who are predated upon by people who need to have penalties that match the harm that they are doing to others, and that’s perhaps where we differ between parties on this.

You take a more benign, relaxed approach. You think that perhaps if a perfectly formed law is there that all problems will be solved. I’m not quite sure what the psyche is behind your logic. I don’t agree with it. But what I believe and what I think would happen with this bill, if it went through, is that by increasing the penalty from a maximum of two years’ imprisonment to a maximum of eight years—and, by the way, bringing it in line with other drugs—it would send a very strong signal.

For the small towns and for the big cities with the dairies and the communities where this stuff is still being peddled, this would be an effective deterrent. We are seeing a growing number of illegal products on the market, so it’s very important that these suppliers comply with the Act and with the testing regimes which are being set up through trial and error to try and ensure the approval of these substances.

So, for me, when I look at what is in this bill and when I think back to the conversation that I had with Lewis Jones, Calum’s father, he was a man who was deeply troubled by what had happened to his son and who desperately wanted this not to happen to anyone else, which is why, as a New Zealand male who was not necessarily used to telling very personal and private stories, he told the stories of his son. He told how, when they did the autopsy, his sons’ internal organs were just completely ruined. These drugs are phenomenally dangerous. They need to be stopped, and the way to do that is to get through to the suppliers, to take this bill and its measures—which, to me, is not a massive step. I’m disappointed in the Government and its supply partners in not recognising that this was something that could have been done. It’s not going to achieve everything, but it’s going to achieve a heck of a lot more than what is happening at the moment, thanks to the inaction and the blocking of this Government to a bill that would do a lot of good to a lot of people.

I think, in memory of Calum Jones, this House should stand ashamed of itself tonight, and members who haven’t yet got the call should stay seated. So this is a bill that should have passed and is not passing because of the dogma and ridiculous philosophy of this Government and its coalition partners. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to begin my contribution in tonight’s debate by acknowledging the sponsor of this bill, Simeon Brown. We have had conversations behind the scenes, and I do think that his intentions behind this bill, and the conversations that he’s obviously had with members of the community in trying to stop the harm that these drugs cause in our communities—I do think that his intentions are noble. But I think, however—and I don’t just think but I know, because I’ve done the research and I’ve looked at the evidence—that this bill won’t do anything to stop that harm.

One of the many reasons that I know this is because we’ve actually had this debate before. We’ve had this debate a number of times before. But the debate that I want to draw members in this Chamber’s attention to is the debate in May 2003 on the reclassification of methamphetamine to a class A substance, carrying lifetime imprisonment for exactly the same things that the sponsor of this bill is trying to do with psychoactive substances: increasing penalties for supply and distribution.

I think it’s quite pertinent to read out some extracts from that debate in 2003, because they could actually be replicated today in this debate if you were to exchange the word “methamphetamine” for “psychoactive substances”. The contribution in 2003 of the National Party MP Dr Lynda Scott was—and I quote—“The Greens did not believe there were sound arguments to show that increasing the classification beyond the one that is currently adopted would reduce the use of amphetamines in New Zealand. I am pretty sure that when the people who are actually making those drugs know that they can get life imprisonment for doing so, that will have an effect.”

We then had the contribution in that 2003 debate from Nandor Tanczos, a former Green MP and my predecessor in the drug harm reduction portfolio, who said, “The Greens are very concerned about how we can do something to reduce the use and abuse of methamphetamines. But I say that reclassifying methamphetamines as a class A drug will do absolutely nothing … to address that situation. If we look at the various arguments put forward in support of the reclassification, we see that they [simply] do not stack up.”

Those arguments are as applicable today as they were 16 years ago, and we have quite straightforward data that demonstrates that. It comes from the Ministry of Justice, which shows that in the last nine years, under a class A regime, the use and the police charges and prosecution of methamphetamine has continued to increase. In New Zealand, the total number of people charged for methamphetamine offences increased from 1,850 in 2009 to 3,222 in 2018. If we break that down into use, in 2009, 1,428 people were charged, and that went up—almost doubled—to 2,487 in 2018.

Those facts go directly to the heart of the argument that has been attempted to be progressed by members of the Opposition, who have argued that, somehow, increasing penalties for supply and distribution is going to be a credible deterrent. Show me the evidence, because there is absolutely none. In fact, if we are to look at direct examples where we have done exactly this approach 16 years ago with methamphetamine, what we have seen is simply an increase in harm, an increase in use, and an increase in prosecutions, meaning an increase in the number of people in our prison cells.

Maggie Barry, the speaker before me—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: “The Hon Maggie Barry” to that one.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —the Hon Maggie Barry—asked why this bill is a bad thing. This bill is a bad thing, the Hon Maggie Barry, because it provides false hope. I want to say to members of the public who have been listening to this debate and who have been following it intently—because it is of significant importance to this country. People’s lives are genuinely at stake, and that is why I have got so riled up throughout this debate over the past year. People’s lives are genuinely at stake.

I would say to those members of the Opposition who are presently heckling me that your former leader, the former Prime Minister Bill English, at the time the death count was starting to rise, called this an issue of personal responsibility. So I’m glad that they’ve now woken up to the fact that the Government does need to step in and design some legislation that works.

I heard members of the Opposition heckling during question time today that “Explaining is losing.”, and therein I can see exactly the approach that they are attempting to take with this bill. This is not explaining. This is not explaining why people become addicted to these substances, why that demand is there, and, therefore, why the supply matches it. It does not explain the evidence and it does not comply with the research and it will do worse than nothing—it will increase the problem.

I want to give another example of how the Opposition appears to be speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. On the one side, they are saying that increasing penalties is, somehow, going to minimise this problem, but they recognise—because they voted for it 16 years ago—that we tried this exact same approach with methamphetamine. But in question No. 9 in question time today, the Hon Paula Bennett asked our Prime Minister: “Has she seen the New Zealand Police evidence that New Zealanders consume around 16 kilograms of methamphetamine a week, doing $20 million worth of social harm,”—that is, the harm that is currently being perpetuated by a drug that we gave a life sentence to 16 years ago. How can we think that having this debate again and again and again is going to do anything about addressing this problem? We keep increasing the penalties and we keep pushing the problem further and further into the shadows and we keep making things worse, and, meanwhile, people are dying.

I want to refer, finally, to the point raised by the sponsor of this bill, Simeon Brown, about the advice of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs to reclassify these two substances implicated in the deaths of, now, over a hundred New Zealanders. This is something which I think requires a bit more explanation, despite the fact that somehow that equates to losing, which I would say is pretty emblematic of many of the problems that pervade this institution.

But the advice to reclassify those two substances coming from the expert advisory committee—the expert advisory committee was established in 2006 with an amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act, and in that amendment, the mandate of the expert advisory committee was only to recommend classification of substances relative to other substances with regard to their harm. They simply cannot and do not have the mandate to recommend any other meaningful or more beneficial approaches to reducing harm in our communities. Literally, all they can do is suggest classification.

The member also spoke about the wont to treat these substances as a health issue and to treat the users as a health issue. You have an opportunity to do that, and it’s through supporting the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill that is presently before the Health Committee. If you genuinely do not want to punish users and if you want to treat this as a health issue—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not me. Not me—thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: If the member and the National Party would like to treat this as a health issue, then they have an opportunity to do so. It looks like decriminalising the users.

💬 Simeon Brown: Well, let’s have a debate on that, but don’t do it by stealth.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: You cannot say that you want to treat something as a health issue and then lock those people up, and, Simeon Brown, we have had that debate. It was in the first reading of the Misuse of Drugs Act. It can’t simultaneously be happening by stealth and then be passing through the exact same process that all legislation in this House does.

So, in summation, this bill will do worse than nothing. We have had this debate over and over again for the last 40 years. The most recent example was those 16 years ago, on methamphetamine. The Greens are proud to, again, stand in opposition to such flawed legislation.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. New Zealand First won’t be supporting the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill any further through the House, even though we did support it through up until this point, and I’ll get into the reasons why we did that in a second. I think, firstly, when anyone is speaking on this bill, we’ve got to be very careful about what this bill is actually aiming to do, understanding what it’s aiming to do and who this bill is targeting. I stand by all of my comments in all my previous speeches through the stages of this bill.

One of the major reasons why New Zealand First supported it up until this point was that, first of all, there was no other option on the table at that point in time. The second was that this bill only targets the dealers and the suppliers. New Zealand First knew—and we have taken that even further and helped develop the Government bill—that we needed to come down hard on the manufacturers and suppliers and dealers of this synthetic poison. In no way, shape, or form would New Zealand First have supported this bill if it was in any way, shape, or form targeting the vulnerable users and those that were addicted to this substance. So although this debate does, obviously, make people passionate about it—and it should, because people are dying, and we’ve heard from Simeon Brown that recently we’ve lost 80 people to this—I can say, with some certainty, that most, if not all, of those people that did die weren’t the dealers and manufacturers of the poison; they were the users and the vulnerable people that were addicted. The people that were manufacturing, and selling, and peddling this stuff were the ones that didn’t care one iota about what was in it, didn’t care one iota about the people that were taking it and those that were suffering from it—not only those people that were taking it, but their families as well. So that’s why New Zealand First was supporting it.

The reason why we’re no longer supporting it is because—and I am pretty certain from listening to both the National Party members so far, but especially the author of this bill, Simeon Brown, that they know that the Government bill and the Government pathway that we’re taking makes this bill that we’re talking about irrelevant; it makes it absolutely irrelevant, and it’s very baseless. All this bill does is change one number from the original bill, which was “2 years”, to “8 years”, which is a class C equivalent for dealers and manufacturers: prison sentence eight years. With New Zealand First Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 23, we increase it to be more like a class B drug, which is a 14-year sentence. So it only ever changes the penalty that can be—not mandatorily—dished out to a supplier and manufacturer if the judge so decides.

So if we’ve got a really big problem—and we do, and Simeon Brown has said that we’ve got a big problem with psychoactive substances—one little change in a number is not going to change the issue. It’s not going to change in its entirety the problem with psychoactive substances, their manufacturing, and the people who are dealing this stuff. It just won’t do it, and he’s admitted that. He said in his speech tonight that this isn’t the perfect bill and this isn’t a silver bullet and it needs to be developed. He also acknowledged the fact that there needs to be a health-based approach for the users of these drugs, of these poisons. The very fact that he’s acknowledged that means that there is something inherently wrong with the very Act that he’s tweaking. We need to have a different approach with the entirety of the problem of psychoactive substances if the Act itself doesn’t work, and that’s what the Government has tabled.

The pathway that the Government wants to go down is—and this is why we’re supporting and helped to develop the Government bill—increased penalties for the drug dealers and the manufacturers and the peddlers of psychoactive substances. This is the main reason why it makes this bill that we’re talking about right now irrelevant. First of all, it takes the two most deadly strains that have killed these people that we’re talking about, and it doesn’t take them from two to eight years, which is what Simeon Brown’s bill did originally, and it doesn’t take it from two to 14 years, which is what New Zealand First’s SOP 23 made it; it takes it to life in prison.

We’ve heard from Maggie Barry and from Simeon Brown about the importance of the penalties to act as deterrents for those people who are manufacturing this poison. We have listened. We understand that. New Zealand First supports that concept. That’s why we have supported the Government bill and pathway to increase the penalties for suppliers and manufacturers. It quite literally makes Simeon Brown’s bill irrelevant. Not only that, but all of the new—

💬 Chris Penk: When did that one pass?

—I’ll get to that in a second—substances that come across will automatically be put into a class C1 , which is eight years in prison, which is the exact same amount that the original bill from Simeon Brown wanted to create. It quite literally makes it irrelevant.

Now, we had a comment from Chris Penk about “When did it pass? When did it pass?”, and we had comments from Simeon Brown about wanting to have the Government bill put through under urgency. I mean, how many lectures have we had from that side of the House about us putting through bills under urgency and not putting it through the proper process and not avoiding the consequences that should’ve been avoided in the first place? The Minister said it himself in his speech; he said it needs to go through the proper process to ensure that we iron out all of the potential problems that would be in there. It is the most responsible thing to do with this legislation.

If we are going to do this and solve a very complicated problem, first of all, it’s not going to be solved by a little tweak taking it from two years to eight years. First of all, that’s not going to happen—it won’t work. But if we are going to do this responsibly, then we have to go through the proper process. If we do it, we’ve got to do it once; we’ve got to do it right. That’s what this Government is doing. We understand the impact and the issues that this poison creates for our society. That’s why we understand that it’s not a one-dimensional approach that we need to take to try and tackle this. Yes, we do need to have increased penalties for the dealers and suppliers and manufacturers, but we also have to have a better approach when we are dealing with those that are vulnerable, that are addicted to this substance, and who are suffering.

New Zealand First understands the intent of Simeon Brown and his bill, and we supported it up until this point when there was nothing else on the table that would even look like dealing with the problem. But we do now—this Government has a solution. It’s a solution that makes this bill irrelevant, and that’s why we won’t be supporting it any further.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, delighted. Thank you very much—

💬 Matt Doocey: Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.

Yeah, I can’t quite get deep enough. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill, at the third reading. Can I, actually, acknowledge the member who’s taken his seat. We are disappointed, on this side of the House, that we cannot—and I can’t speak for the member of the bill, Simeon Brown, but I think, at the start, I’m pleased that there was cooperation between National and New Zealand First, including moving from eight to 14 years. We are, of course, disappointed now that New Zealand First is not continuing to support this bill; it’s going a little bit soft, I think, around this drug law. But to acknowledge—we’ll come back to some of the other parties on this in a moment, and we’ve got a few doozys for the Greens a bit later—the initial work that New Zealand First did in supporting this bill and, again, on record, noting not taking it through to this third reading.

Can I acknowledge Simeon Brown. He’s been the face of this; he has pushed this bill through with great passion. I think that passion’s come through a particular experience with a family and their experiences and the loss of their son. It started with a petition which well over 1,000 Kiwis signed and took an opportunity to express their views that more needed to be done. I think—really positively—Simeon has not only championed the cause but properly engaged with those who not only mourn the loss of loved ones because of the use of these substances, but supporting those who still struggle; then to take it from a petition and bring it into this House as a piece of legislation. With the luck that seems to come to some politicians, and only once to myself, it was drawn very quickly from the ballot and here we are.

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Don’t be bitter.

I’ll try not to be bitter. There’s probably a pill I can take for that anyway, a legal one.

Really, fundamentally, this is about supply and distribution. This is about those who peddle these substances. They’re incredibly dangerous substances, as are all drugs, in fact, those which are legal or illegal. But one of the nasty attributes of psychoactive substances is that we really don’t know what’s in them, and that really increases the danger. But why it’s incredibly important to stress that this is about the supply and distribution is that we’ve heard speeches in this House, including from the Green Party and from Labour, conflating, I would suggest deliberately, the user with the distributor. This bill is not criminalising the users. This bill, I’ll say it again, is not criminalising the users; it’s specifically, deliberately targeting those who supply and distribute these drugs. These drugs which kill people—they kill people. We had over 80 New Zealanders die through the use of these drugs.

One of the reasons this side of the House is a bit agitated about the lack of support—and look, that’s democracy, we appreciate that. We’ll see what the final vote brings. Why we’re agitated is that the talk about the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill that is slowly winding its way through the House is that this bill would provide an immediate partial solution—no one presumes that this is going to fix it overnight; anyone would be naive to think that the drug problem is not too difficult. But had this bill passed, we would have made a positive, strong, deliberate step to actually reducing drug harm by targeting those who peddle these dangerous drugs. Instead, we’re being told that there’s this Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill which will eventually get passed, I assume, in this House. There are two problems with that. One, it’s not passed. It’s still a bill; it’s still progressing through select committee. It’s got to come back through its various readings. So when people lament the death of 80 New Zealanders over a year, you have to think, well, what does that mean if it takes another year for this Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill to pass? What excuse do we make to those 80 dead people and their families?

The other side, too, is the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is a misuse of the English language, because it’s, really, pro-use of drugs. There is very much a distinction in this House between those who are pro-drugs and those who are not. The Green Party, in particular, have been—I’ll give them credit—very consistent in saying that drug use is OK, it’s a health issue. As I’ve often termed it, when people talk about a “health issue”, it basically means one person can use drugs and everyone else pays the consequences. But they are generally pro-drugs, and that’s why the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is, effectively, decriminalising all drugs. I see, actually, today in the paper, the Green Party are also really keen on the use of drugs like phenobarbital for the sick, the disabled, and the elderly. So I’ll give the Green Party credit—you are consistent, so we’ll give you that.

So we oppose this here because to approach the drug issue is always about a multifaceted approach. This side of the House—those of us who are not pro-drugs, who are tougher on crime, tougher on drugs—are often told we’re just singular in our view. The flipside to that is that when we listen to the likes of the Green Party and other libertarians—which is really just a childish philosophy—really, they only have a singular approach as well, and most of us know that it is about both. So we can have a health approach. We can, in a sense, work and try to support those with drug addictions. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life helping people with drug addictions in different shapes and forms, and it’s great that we try to help them. Criminalising them is not the way forward. The criminalisation side comes on the suppliers, the dealers. You attempt, as best you can, to stop the supply.

No one believes, least of all myself, that we’re ever going to stop this. But I’ve said it so many times in the House it probably bores myself as much as everyone else that the enemy of the good is the perfect. So the element here is, fundamentally, we’re never going to get it absolutely, perfectly right but we can always make these attempts. The law in particular always sends a signal, particularly to our young people, that in this case drug use is not right. Our laws too, very importantly, send signals around what is criminal and what is not, where life is important and where it is not. The law is an incredibly important statement.

You begin to see, unfortunately, particularly from the other side, the contradictions that kick in, because it’s the fundamental argument—and one of the Green speakers that took her seat pushed through what is a fairly familiar argument. It’s always prefixed with the notion that all the evidence points in that direction. Well, all the evidence will always point in that direction if that’s the only evidence you look at and not all the other evidence. Because this is actually a debating point; there is a whole lot of evidence and contrary information that has to be debated. But a lot of the argument that was coming through from the Green Party and others is, you know, you don’t and shouldn’t legislate around this sort of stuff—drugs. It won’t change behaviours—

💬 Marama Davidson: Reduce harm—reduce harm.

—in fact, laws like this just increase the harm. The laws just make things worse. I heard some of that coming back through there. In fact, one of the things was, “It just turns the problem into the shadows. It pushes the problems into the shadows.” One of the things I love to do is look at consistency in arguments. So when that proffered by the likes of the Green Party around drugs—so don’t do harder drug laws. In fact, try not to have any laws around drugs really, because it won’t change the behaviour, it’ll make things worse. It’ll turn the problems and push them into the shadows.

So what I’m really interested to know is what the Greens think if I apply that to, let me think, hate speech. Because they’re really keen on using that approach to have hate speech legislation pushed on to this House. They actually want to criminalise words—not drugs but words. So I just encourage the Green Party to think about that when they advocate for the limiting of New Zealand’s speech, that, if that’s going to be the case, that won’t change behaviour. It will make things worse and it will push things into the shadows. That’s just something for the Green Party to think about, because consistency is incredibly, incredibly important.

One thing you’ll find, particularly when it comes to drugs that I will, myself—and I’m pretty sure all on this side of the House—remain consistent on, is that we need to basically have a dual approach to drugs and, really, fundamentally, this bill that Simeon Brown’s put forward is singularly targeted at the suppliers and the distributors of these insidious drugs. It created a system that was proportionate. It was going to put all of these psychoactive substances into a class B category. It didn’t have to require a new—what is it—C1, a new one that’s made up. It was a swift and efficient mechanism.

So we’ve had lots of rending of garments around the various drugs—I don’t have it right in front of me here—that’s the 5F-ADB and AMB-FUBINACA. These can be put into the schedules by the Minister of Health right now by Order in Council. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is making rather, I would suggest, cumbersome process. Simeon Brown’s suggestion was just to make all psychoactive substances into a class B, and so, fundamentally, the nature of psychoactive substances is that they are not, let’s say, predetermined as a heroin or a fentanyl. Phenobarbital—we’re going to hear more about that drug. It’s fascinating. The disabled hate it. We’ll learn more in a few weeks about that. But psychoactive substances are constantly, constantly changing, and the moment that we legislate one by name—so like the AMB-FUBINACA—you just make one little change and it’s no longer that. So there’s a real challenge here for the Government to work harder and stronger and better to actually understand what—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member. His time has finished.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.