Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I earlier presented to the House a legislative statement on the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill. I move, That the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

As the House has heard, this bill amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013. It makes amendments to enable drug-checking services to operate and to operate without the threat of criminal liability for both those operating the drug-checking services and also for those who host events or organised events at which drug-checking services are available.

The reason we’re doing this and doing it under urgency is because it is December. The music festival season for the forthcoming summer is upon us. We know that there are festivals organised, music events organised. We know that the cohort of people who go to those festivals tend to be younger people, and many of them are at an age where they are experimenting with substances, many of them illicit substances, and some of them are substances the safety and security of which is not really known. So we accept the reality that this is going to happen. People are going to turn up to these events with illicit substances. We know that some of those substances are at risk of a lack of safety and causing harm to the potential user of them, and we want to minimise that harm and we want to make the ingestion of those substances, or the risk being taken with the ingestion of those substances, as low as possible and therefore promoting greater public safety. That’s the motivation for it.

This is a time-limited bill, so it will self-repeal within 12 months, but my commitment to the House is that within that time we will bring back a piece of legislation that is a more thoroughgoing solution to that particular policy problem, with a view to having that passed in time for this time next year, and that will come under the full scrutiny of the House. Members opposite have raised legitimate questions about whether this is the appropriate way to go about this with this particular policy challenge, and I get that and I do make the commitment that we will have a draft law that will come back to the House which they will be able to give full scrutiny to. But, in the meantime, we have to deal with the very real challenge that that festival season is upon us. We have outfits that have operated already in previous summer seasons as drug-checking services, but they are facing a heightened risk or a growing risk of criminal prosecution—or, at least, the volunteers who operate the actual services—and we want to take that risk away from them. We also want to take the risk away from the event organisers because we think it is important that more event organisers, particularly those who are attracting that young cohort—that young demographic—make these services available to provide greater safety for young people who are prone to wanting to experiment with and ingest these substances.

Members opposite have raised a number of concerns, some of which, in my view, are not relevant to what we are trying to achieve here. We can all cast moral judgment on those who would use illicit substances. We can all be horrified that some people might actually want to engage in activities that are on the edge of or outside the law, but I think, when it comes to the consumption of drugs and the health effects that go with that, I would rather that we focus on taking a health approach, not criminalising more and more people. We’ve done that for far too long and criminalised far too many people whose only crime, really, if you like, is they’ve taken a risk, a risk with their own health. For some of them, they do fall into a bit of a hole of addiction and other kinds of reactions on their own part and, actually, what they don’t need is a criminal prosecution; what they do need is some help, and this is a further step in the direction when it comes to drugs in our community, illicit substances, mind-altering substances—to say actually offering help for health responses is way more effective and way more beneficial than simply another criminal prosecution, another bed in another jail, over another extended period of time.

So that’s why we have introduced this law and, on that basis, I commend it to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On my stroll home last night, immediately after this debate, I might say, reflecting on the debate, it seemed to me really what we’re debating is one big issue—the safety of our kids, and what makes our kids, our young adults, if you want to be more modern in this vernacular, more safe. The Labour Party’s view is, well, it’s happening anyway, and this bill when law means that parents can sleep easily, they can have confidence that their kids are safe when they’re out at their raves and parties and whatever it is that they’re doing. The problem is, in National’s view, that that’s not so.

We referred to studies and actually haven’t, despite all the protestation and, frankly, anger—woke anger—from Chlöe Swarbrick, been seriously challenged on any of those contentions or studies. The facts of testing and the message that it sends will see more use, and I refer again to the clear evidence of the United Kingdom, since testing, of use going up and up and up—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Ninety-five percent less hospitalisation.

—and more harm—you’ll get your turn, Chlöe Swarbrick—and more harm.

That’s the reality of it, and we’re seeing again, just in that UK example, where from 40-something to 90-something fatalities a year are occurring. More of our kids, as a result of this bill becoming law, will take drugs like ecstasy and more will be harmed. Dare I say it, and I don’t like to be alarmist about it—they scoff over there—I don’t like to be alarmist about it, but that includes that harm, more fatalities, given the morbidity rate with ecstasy. Parents of kids just can’t be confident. Actually, if they are, it’s a false confidence, because no ecstasy pill is safe—not a single one of them. People respond differently to them, and, in fact, differently to different ecstasy pills. MDMA, right from the start, is harmful. What’s more—and again I challenge Chlöe Swarbrick because she’s such an expert about all of these things; just ask her! I challenge her to find me studies that show that it’s impurities and compounds that are the big deal, because, actually, they’re not. They’re not the things within the pills that are killing young people, and, again, we referred to that much earlier.

What’s also worrying here is the context of this Government’s drug agenda—I repeat again. Andrew Little—I mean, I credit him at a level in that I think he is being more upfront and direct than your average Government Minister in this Government and, dare I say it, the Prime Minister about what’s really going on here. He’s quite explicit: it’s happening anyway; let’s go with it. He makes clear: “It’s now a health matter, not a criminal one.” That’s his clear position. Well, actually, Andrew Little, it is both, and this is not a moral contest. Morality doesn’t come into it at any level, right? That’s the law of the land. It is illegal in New Zealand. It is a criminal offence to consume and possess classes A, B, and C drugs, as listed in the Misuse of Drugs Act schedules. So you’re wrong, Andrew Little, when you say it’s not a health or a criminal matter.

The reality is they could change that law. I’m hearing squawking from the other side. They could change those laws if they wanted to, but Kiwis rejected the legalisation of cannabis. That was a class C drug. Ecstasy, which primarily is what we’re dealing with here, is a class A drug, and Kiwis are even less keen, and they know this. Kiwis are even less keen, the harder the drug, to see a liberalisation, whether decriminalisation or legalisation. So knowing this—and, again, I credit Andrew Little for his candid talking on these issues at a level—this Government isn’t going to come out and do what their convictions, in their view, tell them, and that’s decriminalise or legalise classes A, B, and C drugs in New Zealand. They know that’s political kamikaze, right? They know that. So they do it through bills like this—the bill in the last Parliament which, effectively, directed police not to arrest for possession of any illicit drug in New Zealand.

If members of the public don’t believe me—and I say with respect to our press, they won’t, but they should be, frankly, reporting this, because it is a big story; it is a significant thing that is happening in this Parliament right now. We’ve heard from Andrew Little, clear words in committee, that his intent is to come back to this Parliament with a bill when this one runs out. With what started as just pill-testing at the festivals, the One Love and the one in Gisborne that Angie Warren-Clark goes to—I can’t remember what it’s called. I don’t know that, by the way.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: I wish I did!

She wishes she did. I could see you there, right? I could see—anyway, let’s not go down that rabbit hole that takes us nowhere. From that, they will move from those festivals to pill-testing all over New Zealand on our streets.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: God forbid!

Now, see the member over there says, “God forbid!” Well, why don’t the Government have the courage of their convictions and do the honest thing and decriminalise? Well, they won’t. What they will do, though, is actually just do it through laws like this, because they don’t have the courage of their convictions. They won’t say it, but it’ll be on us, and this bill and what is coming is part of a wholesale decriminalisation of drugs in New Zealand. By the time it’s done, New Zealanders will say, “What? We didn’t like that. We weren’t sure about that.” But that’s what’s happening today under urgency.

Finally, you know, actually, whether you agree with what I’m saying or not, this bill—the first bill of this Parliament—is being rushed and there’s no chance for the contest of evidence that Chlöe Swarbrick goes on about but never produces studies on. There’s no chance for any of that. This bill comes to us flawed, I think, actually, and what the Minister didn’t say when he was in the chair in committee—that’s quite clear—he’s going to have to come back and do it properly. The evidence of this comes, actually, just—the other members did a great job fleshing some of this out as well, but just from my questions, from a cursory look at this bill, we see there’s no provisional process for the disposal of the bad illicit drugs. You could drive a truck through that as a criminal lawyer in a jury trial, by the way, at good hourly rates, dare I say it. There’s no provision there for disposal.

There’s no good character requirements, given that we’re dealing with class A drugs, around any of this. David Seymour, and fleshed out by Nick Smith, made, I thought, an excellent point around the health and safety ramifications that have not been thought out, and, yet, this will be law very shortly—actually, by the end of today. We’re rushing this, and all the while we rush it, on the other side, where there is proven fatalities from the blood tests of over a hundred Kiwis every single year, by being hit and killed for drug-driving on our roads, where there’s proven technology, where we could get this up and running very quickly, that bill languishes on the Order Paper. No deaths from music festivals in New Zealand from this. There will be, as the numbers rack up, because that’s simply statistically what’s happened overseas, but on the other side, proven over a hundred fatalities, the biggest killer on our roads and the Government does nothing. It’s got its priorities wrong. Nick Smith’s point about that—the lack of fatalities at the festivals, the roadside deaths—I think is a very powerful one.

We’d support real harm reduction initiatives—drug-driving law, more beds, more counselling services; none of that is happening. This is a law which has passed with haste but which New Zealanders, when they wake up, will repent and disagree with at their leisure.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is an incredibly important bill because it’s going to ensure that young people are kept safe this festival season by putting in place a time-limited solution to make sure that drug-checking services and the festival organisers who host them can operate with legal certainty. That’s because, at the moment, those that are operating these drug-testing services and those that are hosting them are at risk from prosecution under the current law. The issue is that services like KnowYourStuffNZ are actually going out there and they are doing the checking services because they believe that those services have the potential to reduce harm and save people’s lives. Now, this is only a temporary measure; so it expires 12 months after it comes into force because, in the meantime, the Minister of Health is going to go back to Cabinet with a more detailed solution. At that time, Parliament will be able to debate in detail and will have a full select committee process so the people of New Zealand can come in and provide their feedback on that more detailed solution. Important bill; important to get under way before Christmas; and I commend this bill to the House.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Mr Speaker.

I’ll let you get back to your desk! I call the Hon Mark Mitchell.

I was just checking to see if I was up now! I haven’t had the chance to speak on this bill, but I’m glad that I’m being given the chance. Mr Speaker, first of all, can I just take my first opportunity to say congratulations on taking up the role of Deputy Speaker. I always enjoy when you’re in the seat. You are very fair. I would ask that you, maybe, advocate for removing the sanctions around the use of “you”, because I seem to be the one that gets most heavily penalised in this House for that.

But, anyway, I’m very pleased to stand and take a call on this bill. I think the reality of it is that all of us come to this House because we want to make New Zealand a safer place and, in particular, we want to protect our young people. We do understand and we do know that we have got a drug problem in New Zealand—methamphetamine, these party pills. It’s becoming a growing industry, unfortunately, because we are being the recipients of serious criminal organisations like these 501s, these gangs, the Comancheros and the Mongols, that are coming in from Australia, and they’re taking us to a new level in terms of violence and organisation around the drug trade and the supply chain. So we’ve got a big issue—we’ve got a big issue in our country; there’s no doubt about that.

I can see why the Government would want to be focused on tackling that, but I feel very strongly in my heart of hearts that this is the wrong pathway to go down. I’m just going to step that through quickly. I think I’ve listened carefully to the evidence and the data that Chlöe Swarbrick has put up. I’ve listened carefully to the evidence and the data that our own team has put up. The one thing that’s become very evident to me is that we needed a select committee process, and we needed to go through that because, actually, we need to sift through all that information, that data—

Chlöe Swarbrick: You didn’t turn up, Mark. There was one for my petition.

💬 Simeon Brown: That was a petition.

Well—yeah, that’s right. That was—

Chlöe Swarbrick: There was Ministry of Health advisers and officials.

And, like they said, that was on a petition. But the reality of it is that this is a serious, serious piece of legislation as we come into the summer break. Make no mistake about it.

I just want to run through the concerns that I have from an operational level. Maybe the next caller, or even, Chlöe, you could stand and respond to this—that, firstly, we’re going to send a message as a Parliament. We should be the responsible ones. We should be the ones that are actually studying and making very, very clear decisions, because what we do here does matter, and the signals that we send to the rest of the country and our young people do matter. The reality of it is, passing this bill today, it’s going to change the conversation amongst young people. There are good young people out there, actually, that won’t take drugs, and the reason why they won’t take drugs is that it’s illegal and they don’t want to break the law. But the conversation is now going to change—and trust me, the conversation will change. Now they’re going to have a lot more peer pressure and they’re going to have people saying, well, you know what, the Government said that it’s OK; we’ll test your drugs. But—

💬 Hon Member: We haven’t, though.

I know that you keep putting up the argument that you’re saying that it’s not OK and it’s making it safer. That is a false argument, because the way that the young people see it is—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: They won’t get that advice.

They won’t, and they’ll see their Parliament as quite simply saying that it is OK—it is OK to take these drugs. And, by the way, when they hand the drugs over and they are tested and they receive them back, they will think—they’re not going to be involved in a nuanced debate about what the ingredients are or what’s actually in them; all that they’ll know is that they’ve had their drugs tested and they’ve got them back and they’re safe. And they’re not safe; they can kill them. I can tell you what, I had a long conversation with Simon Watts, who’s a new MP, the MP for North Shore, who’s come into our caucus. He’s a paramedic—he’s a paramedic that actually attends these concerts. He incubates people that have taken these drugs. I’ve got no doubt at all—the chemical product inside these drugs that’s harmful is the MDMA. That’s what kills young people. So that’s the first thing.

The next thing that I want to know is—because I heard the Minister on the radio this morning saying that these drugs are still illegal, that people can still be arrested and charged. So if young people—or not even young people; if anyone, a member of the public, is coming into a concert—by the way, these concert promoters normally try to promote their concerts as drug free because a lot of parents, when they let their kids go to them, want to have a high level of confidence that there’s not drugs there, that there aren’t drug dealers there, that they’re not being peddled. So when people arrive and they’re coming in with their drugs and they’re being tested and they’re being handed back, are the police allowed to monitor and watch? Are the promoters of the concert allowed to watch those people, knowing that they’re coming in with drugs, knowing that probably an outcome is going to be that guys like Simon Watts and our paramedics are going to have to be incubating and trying to save them? Are they allowed to monitor them? Are they allowed to watch them? I don’t know.

In my view that would be common sense, wouldn’t it? Because you know that you’ve got people entering with a harmful product or a harmful drug that could ultimately end up with them in a seizure, frothing at the mouth, or even in a cardiac arrest with some brain damage.

💬 Shanan Halbert: Simon Watts would want a health response.

Sorry, what was that? Simon Watts—

💬 Shanan Halbert: —would want a health response.

So I’ve just had a response here from one of the new members. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, but it’s a good question.

💬 Hon Member: You know his name.

No, I’m genuine. I’m sorry, I don’t. But it’s a good question. The member for Northcote—Shanan. So congratulations and it’s a good question. He said a health response—let’s have a health response. So if we’re going to have a debate in this Chamber that this is a health response and this is a health-related policy, then put up the evidence and the data that shows us that less people will use drugs and there’ll be less harm, because in this debate, not one of you—take a call, take a call and convince me and show me that, actually, you’ve got the data that shows that there’s less use and there’s less harm.

I’ll make a prediction—I’ll make a prediction—that this summer season at these concerts there’s going to be more use and there’s going to be more harm. And I’ll make another prediction, because what we’ve done is we’ve created a safe zone and we’ve incubated drug dealers from prosecution. You might raise your eyebrows. You might say, “Oh, he’s being alarmist.” No, I’m not being alarmist. I’m just providing you with feedback from our front-line responders, the people like the police. I don’t know if you’ve been and spoken with the police or whether you’ve spoken with our paramedics.

💬 Simeon Brown: They haven’t been consulted.

I don’t know if they’ve been consulted on this legislation. Apparently, I’m told that they haven’t been. They are the ones that pick up the pieces. When we’re off on our summer holidays at the beach, they’re the ones that are actually picking up the pieces. They’re the ones that have got the kids vomiting in a comatose, semi-comatose, state. They’re the ones trying to contact parents or taking them to the hospital or trying to track down where the drugs are coming from and shut the supply chain down. They’re the ones that are actually dealing with it. Surely, on a piece of legislation like this, we should have actually been listening to them. We should have been listening to what they had to say and their feedback.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Police have been supportive of a health response.

So what did they say? We’ve got the Hon David Clark in the House. Let’s listen—let’s listen. Let’s get some feedback. Take a call and give us the feedback on what they said, because I can predict something right now: you are going to have—I’m getting the wind-up message. So you are going to have drug dealers—

Chlöe Swarbrick: You have them now.

—that are going to come—no, you’re going to have drug dealers now that target concerts, because you know why? They are now incubated. Concert goers and drug dealers now will freely ply their trade. Not only will they freely ply their trade; their pills will actually be quality tested. So they’re going to have them quality tested and then people are going to go in there, they’re going to consume them, and they’re going to have the results of drug use and drug overdoses. That’s what’s going to happen.

So this bill is not a good bill. It’s not a safe bill. I’m pleased that it’s going to have to come back to the House, but I am concerned and I do flag—and I hope that we’ll all be watching to make sure this doesn’t happen—that there will be an increase in use of these drugs. There’ll be a new insidious pressure put on young people that currently say, “Our Government says that it’s illegal and we shouldn’t be taking them.”, and there’s going to be an increase in harm, talking to the health policy. That’s what I’ll be watching very closely this summer. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m not quite sure how we are incubating the drug dealers, however—however. I’d also like to respond to the Hon Simon Bridges. I’m sorry, I’ve never been to Rhythm and Vines. I have never been to One Love, our own local concert, and—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I’ll go with you.

Oh, all right, it’s a date, Simon Bridges. It’s a date—One Love.

I would like to take a very quick call to refer to this bill. As we know, it is about harm reduction. What we all wish for our children and the thing that we teach our children is that we very much hope that they will not go down this path, but what we do know is that at a certain point our young people make their own decisions. Those decisions are being made with their peers in mind, and, yes, there is peer pressure. What we really want is for kids to say no, but what we do know is that they don’t—that they actually take the opportunity to try things out—and this bill is merely, simply about making it safer for those young people to try things. We are not encouraging them to do so. It is still illegal to take these drugs and to possess these drugs, but what we want is safety for these young people.

I’d also like to say very quickly a big thankyou to the volunteers who go to these concerts, who spend day after day and evenings in hot, stinky tents where they’ve got people, and they have those conversations which talk about the harm that can occur when they take these drugs. Whether they are having the ingredients that the person who purchased them wants to take or not, they’re having those conversations and they are persuading, or talking with people and saying, “This is the harm that will occur. Do you need help? Do you want an alternative to taking this?” That, in essence, is what this bill does. I commend it to the House.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It is an absolute pleasure to rise and speak on this, the third reading of this bill, which will legalise festival drug-checking services. I have lost the name of the actual bill, but none the less that’s exactly what it does. I want everybody in the House and everybody who’s at home and all those who are in the gallery today to just imagine a scenario, to paint a picture the likes of what the Hon Dr Nick Smith did: you walk into a festival—there’s a music festival, there’s music going; I’m not sure what level of musicality is required, Dr Nick Smith, but none the less there is music going—you line up, and you’re in line for a socially acceptable drug. This socially acceptable drug has been tested for toxicity, and it is licensed, and it is regulated. You’re in line, and you get this drug, and that drug is alcohol.

We’ve been doing it for a really long time now, in terms of legally regulating substances to reduce harm. I absolutely will stand here in this House today, as I have multiple times before, and say that we need to do a whole lot better when it comes to regulating the harm that alcohol presently causes in our communities, because there’s a spectrum of approaches that you can take to any given substance. The likes of this legislation recognise, as I hope other legislation throughout this term recognises, that a substance is one thing, but the legal response that we have to that substance can either increase or decrease that harm. So, if the National Party want to talk about decreasing harm when it comes to substances, I’d absolutely invite them to collaborate with me on reducing the harm that alcohol can cause by removing alcohol advertising, glamorisation, and sponsorship. There’s a challenge for you.

Moving forward, the Hon Simon Bridges asked me to speak about the deaths that have been experienced in other countries, other jurisdictions, and states such as in the likes of Australia. There he spoke primarily to the instances in New South Wales, where young people—and, actually, there’s been a lot of talk about young people, about young ravers in particular, but I know that there are folks out there, such as the journalist Russell Brown, who want me to make a shout-out to the elder ravers, because there’s been a bit of age discrimination. There are a number of people who are experienced and have been engaging in illicit substances for a while now, many of whom have been doing so under the shadows of, effectively, the black market. But we’ll get back to that point later.

So the Hon Simon Bridges was asking about those deaths, which have resulted—again, primarily, not necessarily—when it comes to ecstasy, from a lack of impurities, but from excessive use of that substance. All of this has happened, I might add, without festival drug-checking services being legal. That is without people having access to the information and the education that festival drug-checking services provide. Notably, as well, New South Wales has experienced a number of deaths at festivals without those drug-checking services, which has led the chief coroner there to recommend the introduction of drug-checking services to end unnecessary, needless deaths. I also want to respond to the points raised by, particularly, the Hon Mark Mitchell around the likes of paramedics. Again, in the UK, where this has been legal now for around seven years—since 2013—there have been 95 percent fewer hospitalisations as a result of legal festival drug-checking services.

So here’s the simple problem that this bill, this soon-to-be law, will fix: section 12 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 makes it a crime to knowingly provide a place, an event, or a space for people to consume illicit substances. By virtue of currently providing drug-checking services on their premises or at their event, it could be argued that a festival organiser, that a bar owner, or a club owner is, effectively, providing tacit endorsement for the consumption of illicit substances on their premises. That is the legal grey area, the quandary, if you will, that NGOs like KnowYourStuffNZ have been operating in for the past six-odd years—risking criminal prosecution, as those festival organisers have been too. And I really do hope that the National Party go and speak to those festival organisers, who have, actually, actively over the past several years, come to me behind the scenes. I’ve had conversations with them about the moral rock and a hard place that they are between, where they do not want to be breaking the law by providing services like KnowYourStuffNZ whilst section 12 was in effect but they also don’t want to be responsible for hosting an event that a young person ends up using illicit substances at and dying. They want this law to go through so that they can reduce harm.

So the other thing that the Hon Mark Mitchell was saying is about the message that this sends to young people. First things first: I’m not sure which young people he’s spoken to about the messages that they care about that the Government is sending, because quite typically it’s young people actually doing the opposite of what those in authority are saying they should do. So, first and foremost, with regard to the messages that are presently being sent from a prohibition type of approach, they’re “Do it secretly. Just do it over there. We don’t really want to know about it, but we kind of tacitly know that it is occurring right now.” And all of that has actually been acknowledged, ironically, by the National Party. They know that it exists. I have constantly laid out the challenge to them to propose the alternative, but they keep saying, “Oh, this is happening, and the Government wants to acknowledge the reality that this is happening, but we don’t think that that’s a good thing.” Well, what is your alternative? Please outline how you want to reduce harm, because so far all I’ve heard is that you want to be an impediment to improvements in the law—to looking to the research, looking to the evidence, looking at what’s happening internationally.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Drug courts. Improved rehab.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The Hon Nick Smith, drug courts occur after the crime has been committed. It does not actually help whatsoever when it comes to people’s consumption habits.

On top of that, I also just want to challenge the National Party Opposition here. Alongside the challenge that I have laid down with regard to collaborating on alcohol law changes, there also is, evidently—as they’ve identified, interestingly enough—a need to change the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, because it’s demonstrably unfit for purpose. I’m really interested, though, in whether the National Party just thinks that we should make the illegal drugs more illegal, as though people who are currently contemplating whether they consume a substance are cross-referencing it to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and thinking about, you know, “Do I want nine years? Do I want life?” The Misuse of Drugs Act has been found time and again to simply not stop people from using illicit substances, and, as I referred to in my speeches last night, we have a situation where the countries that have taken more hard-line approaches have not got rid of these substances. And, in fact, those that have taken the most hard-line approaches, such as Singapore, have amongst the least independently verifiable data on drug consumption habits in those jurisdictions.

When it comes to debating what this health approach actually looks like, I think we need to acknowledge the reality that, over the past several years, we have seen constant carve-outs of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. We’ve seen it for medicinal cannabis. We’ve seen it for hemp. We’ve seen it for drug-checking services now, and we’ve seen it for the section 7 changes that have been alluded to time and again during this debate—which, I note, the National Party also opposed but seemed to invoke multiple times during debates around cannabis legalisation over this past election cycle. When are we going to admit that this Frankenstein of a law is simply not serving its purpose?

Well, we have the 2011 Law Commission review, which says exactly that: the Misuse of Drugs Act is demonstrably unfit for purpose; decriminalise substances and provide a meaningful health approach. We also have two reports to Labour Party Ministers. Interestingly, the same Minister who now is the Minister of Health was formerly the Minister of Justice, where he received a report known as Turuki! Turuki!, the Safe and Effective Justice Programme Advisory Group review, which recommended looking to legalise all substances to regulate that harm. And just to really drive this home to the Hon Nick Smith, this doesn’t look like retail shops. I’d highly recommend that you look at the 1990 approach of Switzerland when it came to regulating heroin to reduce the harm thereof. There also is He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry, which said, again, we need to stop criminalising people for using these substances.

So, when the National Party genuinely want to engage in good faith, and if they genuinely will, then I’d love to start a working group with you. I’d love to just get on with the dang work that New Zealanders expect and anticipate from those who have the privilege of sitting in this Chamber. Quite frankly, I’m stoked to be delivering my last speech on this bill, because we are going to get it through and we are going to have to stop listening to the high-horse moralising from the National Party, who, by the sounds of the way that they are talking about substances, have never engaged in them. So I’d love to hear how the National Party seeks to resolve these issues. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this third reading of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill. I want to reprise some of the arguments that have been given in favour of this legislation and also address some of the arguments that have arisen during the debate over the three readings and in the committee stage. I finally want to just comment on what this debate means for New Zealand politics, the priorities of the Government, and the different positions that some political parties have taken on it.

First of all, it’s important to recognise what this legislation is and isn’t. All it does is temporarily allow voluntary organisations, filled with people who want to help others reduce harm, go about their business without the fear of prosecution that exists in the current legal grey area around pill testing. It allows people who are hosting music festivals, concerts, and so on to have people who offer a testing service for drugs to be able to be on their premises without fear of legal repercussions; that is all this legislation does. All it does is remove the threat of prosecution for those activities. It does not remove the prohibition on supply and possession of classified illegal drugs. They remain illegal, and people who supply, possess, and use them remain in the same legal jeopardy, which they were under before this legislation came about. It’s only for testing.

This legislation does not place any onus on the taxpayer to fund pill-testing services; it doesn’t do that.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It will.

It doesn’t contemplate taxpayer funding. And I hear Nick Smith from the National Party saying, “But it will.” Let’s think about the logic of that. If that’s really the logic of the National Party today, that we shouldn’t legalise anything because anything we let people do might end up being funded by the taxpayer, then no wonder we need the ACT Party to stand up for taxpayers in this country. Because the ACT Party says that something can be legal and not actually require taxpayer funding. Isn’t it great that we still have a party in this House standing for that position? So this is not about taxpayer funding of pill testing.

And, finally, it is not about the encouragement of drug taking. The question that any sensible person should ask when confronted with an empirical question is: where’s the evidence? Now, if the opponents of this legislation had stood up and said, “Here is a survey of countries who have introduced pill testing, and, on balance, we can show, using robust statistics, that harm is increased, because not only do you have more people using drugs but the reduction in people using bad drugs is less than the increase.”—if they could show there was an increase of harm, using robust empirical evidence—then maybe that would be a justification for continuing the ban on voluntary organisations helping people know what they are putting in their body, maybe that would justify the Government continuing to prohibit people helping each other make better, more informed decisions, maybe that would be a justification, but I have not seen any member of this House who’s opposed to this legislation get up and show the robust empirical evidence that this change to the law will increase harm. They haven’t done it, and that, as I’ve heard in the barracking from some members, is to lose the argument. So it’s not about more people taking drugs; it’s about reducing the harm from people who are taking them.

What this legislation is about is something quintessentially Kiwi. It’s about Kiwi values: that when we see problems in our community—and there are problems in our community—people band together and form organisations and help each other.

💬 Simeon Brown: No.

These should be, Simeon Brown, conservative values. Simeon Brown, if he knew what was good for him, would be standing up and saying, “I actually support people banding together and forming”—as one of his heroes would say—“the little platoons of Edmund Burke to go out and help other people solve problems for themselves.” But the problem with Simeon Brown is he doesn’t know his own intellectual tradition, let alone anyone else’s. We should be in favour of people like KnowYourStuffNZ getting together and helping out others make informed decisions. That should be the conservative position on this legislation, but, sadly, it is not, at least not on the heart of the National Party.

I want to say to people who have questioned the use of urgency that this is one of the examples of urgency being used for the right reason. Urgency exists in our Standing Orders that’ve been passed down to us through the ages by Parliaments—52 of them before this 53rd one—so that we can make better laws. Urgency should be used when there is time sensitivity about a law. Well, the use of these recreational drugs in music festivals is seasonal. I defy any member of this House to tell me they’ve been to an outdoor music festival in June. My birthday’s in June; I know all about the weather in that month. There is a seasonal component here. Now, personally, I wish the Government would use urgency to help out the horticultural industry by letting in some Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers. We’ll talk a bit about priorities later. But the fact is there is actually urgency, not just some political prerogative or need to avoid scrutiny, there is some urgency here.

The next thing I’d say is that this is a time-limited piece of legislation, and it is actually removing a prohibition, removing a Government prohibition, a restriction on people’s freedom, and I think that the bar for increasing freedom and reducing intervention in people’s lives should always be lower than, for example, banning contracts with only five days’ sick pay or increasing the amount of tax taken above a certain threshold. But this is not a bad law to put through under urgency, particularly when it is time limited.

Now, I’ll make a couple of comments about what the debate around this bill says about the state of New Zealand politics today. What it says about the Labour Party is that their priority is party pills, not the horticultural industry. It’s not any of the issues around reconnecting safely with the rest of the COVID world where possible. This is the first piece of legislation that they’ve put through in this Parliament, and I think people will reflect on that. It’s not about Pharmac for all those people short of drugs; it’s actually about people testing illegal drugs. But that is the Labour Party’s choice of priority, and people will reflect on that.

The National Party chooses to oppose something that I can tell them many of their potential constituents are worried about because their kids are good kids. They know that they are going off, and they know that even good kids take risks. This is an opportunity for the risks they take to be safer. Christopher Luxon knows that because he’s a sensible parent. He knows his kids are good kids, but he also worries about what some of their friends might get up to, and he wants them to do it in a safer environment.

Then there’s the Green Party, who are pretty relaxed about people selling and buying drugs, but, you know, I look at the Green Party’s economic policies and the problem is that they’re trying to stop people buying and selling just about anything else. Whatever it is you try to trade in in the New Zealand economy, the Green Party will have a tax or a regulation to try and prevent you, unless you’re planting crystals, in which case they’ll give you a subsidy to hurry it along, and that is a sad set of priorities.

That leaves the ACT Party standing on principle for a freer and more compassionate society, where people can make better and more dignified choices about how they live their lives, in cooperation with each other. In short, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, we stand for freedom under the rule of law. This is an example of a piece of legislation where the ACT Party has come to a position with our small but growing caucus and decided that we should support a more compassionate, more informed society that allows people to reduce the risk and harms they face, in cooperation with each other. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Te Mana Whakawā, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge you—yesterday I had forgotten to do that. Thank you for also pronouncing my name correctly. So I look forward to future pronunciations from the rest of us. It is an honour and a privilege to speak on this Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Minister of Health, the Minister’s leadership in bringing this bill into urgency—because it is. It’s the reason for the season. We are going into the festive season, where we are having all these festivals and we want every person that attends the festivals to be safe. The Minister also had the insightful—we heard the other side talk about how there needs to be a contest of evidence, that it didn’t go to select committee, da da da, da da da; well, actually, they have the opportunity to do that next year, when the Minister brings it back. So I want to acknowledge the Minister for that.

So, just to remind us that this bill ensures that our young people who attend festivals have access to drug testing and the opportunity to make an informed choice, and, for the organisers—if they find a dangerous substance in these drugs—that they use social media, that they use every method that they have to warn festival goers and to warn the country of effects of the dangerous drug that’s circulating. Also, we know history tells us that Māori and Pasifika people are more likely to be arrested around New Zealand for certain offences. This bill ensures there’s no risk from prosecution. The evidence taken at the testing will not be used to prosecute anybody who uses the testing services. I want to again commend this side of the House, on my right—that we can all work together in this House, except for that side, together on something that will add value to the safety of all New Zealanders. Te Mana Whakawā, tautoko ahau ki tēnei pire ki te Whare. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call on the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill at its third reading—and what an interesting debate that we’ve had on this piece of legislation. I find the contribution from my Green colleague Chlöe Swarbrick to be Trumpian, to say the least, when she won’t answer the question whether she’ll accept the referendum result on marijuana. Her speech seemed to spend more time talking about her vision of more drugs in this world, not less, and she doesn’t seem to understand that no means no.

We also had a lecture from David Seymour in the ACT Party trying to lecture us on conservatism. Well, I would encourage him to consider this study by Andrew Groves, which said that there have been no studies which have fully tested in a controlled way whether pill testing reduces harm, and the actual conservative approach is actually to look at the evidence to see whether there is a need for change. There have been no studies which have fully tested in a controlled way whether pill testing actually reduces harm, and that is why here in the National Party we’ve been very clear that, actually, this should have gone to a select committee to actually look at the evidence, look at the facts, and actually have submissions and the public have their say.

This bill will not reduce harm. The evidence from overseas is clear. The evidence in the United Kingdom is clear that where they have had legal drug-testing at music festivals, the amount of people using MDMA, ecstasy, has increased from 1.2 percent of the population to 1.7 percent—an almost 50 percent increase in usage. Secondly, in Australia, we have seen that it is not the impurities in these substances but it is the ecstasy itself which is doing the killing. A University of New South Wales study of 392 ecstasy deaths between 2001 and 2016 found no deaths in those 392 deaths from impurities or contaminants. The deaths came from the use of the drug itself, and so what this bill is doing is giving young people the green light to go ahead and it’s saying this drug is safe. Well, I’m sorry, these drugs are not safe; these drugs are deadly, and what we are saying is we’re giving them a little ticket, which could be their ticket to their death. That is something which I think is incredibly dangerous, and we will see more harm from this law change.

There has been no evidence given from the departmental statement. The departmental statement on this bill is absolutely bereft of detail. The only people consulted have been KnowYourStuffNZ, the organisation in this country which has a direct interest in this issue, and the departmental statement does say that this will put the cost on to the Department of Health to have to fund this activity here in New Zealand. So I reject what my friend David Seymour says. This will have a cost on the taxpayer.

💬 David Seymour: What cost?

And I wish he had read—I would suggest you read the departmental statement, because it’s probably good you read that before you come down here and make statements which are opposite to that. So, the National Party will be opposing this legislation.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s good to take another call on the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill. As I’ve listened to the debate as it’s progressed over the last day or so, it’s, essentially, been a debate on harm minimisation. So we know that any drug strategy or any approach to illicit substances has three areas: one being supply control, which is, for example, police action to remove drugs; the second being demand control, which is educating people about the harms of drugs; and the third being harm minimisation, and that is to acknowledge that there is a level of drug use that occurs, and to enable that to happen as safely as possible so people don’t die.

Now, the alternate—the argument that we’ve heard against harm minimisation from those members opposite—is to turn a blind eye. It’s to say it’s illegal, it’s not happening, we don’t want to know about it—by enabling safety and lives to be saved, we are somehow implicitly condoning illegal drug use. So that’s where the crux of the debate lies, and it lies right across many countries. We’re not the only one having this discussion.

This issue, I remember, was first raised by the Law Commission, right back under the last National Government when the Misuse of Drugs Act was first being reviewed. And, at that time, under the past National Government, it was declined, again, for those very reasons: it was perceived as not being able to be proven as reducing harm. It’s difficult to look at that evidence when it’s currently illegal, but we do know for a fact that those people who have had a pill tested and have been told that it is not in fact the substance they thought they were purchasing, they discard it. We know that happens. So we do know that it has an impact upon what people are ingesting.

My concern, to conclude, is that what this split in ideology has actually demonstrated is the split within the National caucus, because straight away when this idea was first touted by the then Minister of Police Stuart Nash, we heard the spokesperson from National in support of pill testing—in strong support—and what we’ve seen since then is the diminishing liberal voice within the National caucus, which has been subsequently subsumed by a very strong Puritan view that everything bad is wrong, and rule it out, and don’t talk about it. And that will come at the peril of the next generation.

Point of order. I’m very conscious that we’re about to debate the Holidays (Increasing Sick Leave) Amendment Bill. The bill refers to regulatory impact analysis, though there be none provided on the Table. Now, members, of course, can find it online, but I just wonder if you could inquire: are we still putting all the documents on the Table, because it’s pretty important stuff for people to be able to read. It doesn’t appear to be there, unless I’ve missed it—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK.

—and I wonder if the Minister might be able to say if he’s provided it.

Thank you for that. I’ll just take a bit of advice. Thank you to the member. So the matter’s not been called yet. It’s not on the Order Paper. It’s part of the urgency motion, and so the matter will be tabled when the item is under consideration.

There are three key concerns that I have in respect of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill, the very first bill to be passed under this new Parliament. The first concern is that this is a law that’s being passed under urgency and it only arrived yesterday. What an awful precedent we’re setting with the very first bill—to ram it through overnight—and I say to all those new members of Parliament whose job it was to come here and scrutinise legislation that they are neglecting their duty. I bet you the bulk of them have not even read the 34 clauses of this bill.

My second concern is a lack of respect for the referendum in which New Zealanders rejected the liberalisation of our laws. I have to say to Chlöe Swarbrick and the Green Party that they sound horribly like President Trump in respect of their view of the referendum result. New Zealanders said no to liberalising drug laws, and that has not been registered either by the Government or by the Green Party.

The third part for me is a contradiction of mandate. There was only one commitment from Labour in their manifesto on the issue of drugs, and that was to respect the outcome of the referendum. Andrew Little, prior to the election, was specifically asked if drug testing would be legalised by a Labour Government. He said it would not, and the very first bill we have contradicts that position. Now, the key premise on which this bill is based is that people are dying because of impurities in illegal drugs being used at music festivals. Here’s the evidence: 392 deaths in Australia from party pills; not one from impurities—not one. Every one of those deaths was caused by the ecstasy, the cocaine, or the P, not from any impurities.

My last point is this, and it’s about priorities. It is a matter of evidence and fact that 107 New Zealanders died last year as a consequence of drug-impaired driving. We on this side of the House have tried and tried and tried to get the Parliament to pass a law to introduce roadside drug testing, and the Labour and Green parties have come up with every excuse not to progress that. In contrast, there has not been a single death in New Zealand from the use of party pills. We have repeatedly asked at each stage of this debate why the Government is giving enormous priority to ramming through legislation over the issue of party pills when there has been no documented evidence of death in New Zealand but is dragging its feet and doing everything it can to slow the introduction of roadside drug testing, something that we know will save dozens of lives—it’s costing two deaths every single week. The truth is that this Government is soft on drugs, and the contradiction in its approach to the issue of party pills and testing and in respect of the issue of roadside deaths actually says that it’s just about its agenda of wanting to soften the laws.

My very last point is that I don’t doubt that there is a uniformity of concern in this Parliament about protecting young people from the use of drugs. The difference on this side of the House is that we say that actions speak louder than words. Members opposite can say to young people as much as they like, “Oh, we don’t really think you should take ecstasy or cocaine or P; it’s just that we want to test it to make sure it is safe.” Young people are not foolish. They know it is actions that actually speak louder than words, and the action of saying that these pills have been tested and they are safe runs a very real risk of increasing harm. I say to members opposite that, if there is an increase in use and an increase in fatalities or harm from this bill, it will rest on your conscience for rushing through legislation on an issue that poses a very real risk to New Zealand.

The honourable member Nick Smith wishes to talk about contradictions. So do I. Let’s talk about the contradictions of the position of the National Party on this bill. Here we have one faction of the National Party, such as it is, led by Simon Bridges and Simeon Brown and the Hon Dr Nick Smith, saying that the National Party opposes this bill, and yet their leader goes on TV and says that, personally, she does not have an issue with it. How is that for contradictions?

When the leader of a political party that likes to frame themselves as that side of the House—but I’d like to point out that we not only have the National Party on that side of the House now; we also have the Māori Party—welcome—and we also have the ACT Party, the Green Party, and some of the Labour Party. So it is not that side of the House that opposes this bill; it is the National Party—well, half of it, I suspect. Half of the National Party, or perhaps slightly half. If the leader of the National Party cannot lead them into a position that every other party in this Parliament holds in support of this bill, I think that we are in for a very interesting summer.

The reason that the vast majority of this Parliament supports this bill is because we accept a very simple principle: no one wants to see people take drugs, no one wants to see consumption increase, but we accept that consumption happens. We accept that consumption will happen over summer, and let’s take measures to ensure that we increase the safety of that behaviour. That’s what this bill is about, and I think it speaks volumes that not only are the National Party divided but they are choosing this issue—an issue of safety, primarily for our young—on which to desperately clutch at headlines to try and get themselves into the papers. I think it’s a shame, and I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.