Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. We begin with the debate on Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 4 and 5: amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave for all parts to be debated as one question.

Is there any objection to the leave being sought? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we have said in our first reading speeches, yes, we will be supporting this bill to go through to law, but with a bit of a caveat, because we believe that pseudoephedrine is only safe if it is stored appropriately, and I will be tabling an amendment later to that effect.

But first, I just want to ask the Minister some questions about the process that was undertaken, because we do agree that pseudoephedrine is a useful medication for people to have. It’s particularly relevant at this time of year, when lots of people are kind of going down in flames with coughs and colds and sniffs. Anything to help dry up the nose and mask the symptoms is usually gratefully received, and we do realise that the workplace now is different than it has been in the past. People are very mindful of not wanting to be symptomatic around colleagues because of the fear that it could be COVID, and just having a little bit more personal space, but also the environment and context around methamphetamine—and methamphetamine production, in particular—is quite different from when we had this problem previously, with people making meth at home.

We’ve seen a change to meds coming across the borders, and we’ve seen the cost of meth go down. So the question has been raised—probably quite rightly—to say: do we need to relook at this medication, is there the danger that there was previously in pharmacies stocking it and people having access to it, and should we be able to reclassify it so that people can have better access?

We do agree—and, as far as I’m aware, it wasn’t in the impact statement. But we are mindful that there are barriers for many of our people to get medication, so a visit to the doctor would be that barrier, and perhaps having to have a prescription to go to a pharmacy would stop some of our people being able to get pseudoephedrine. So there’s a whole lot of reasons where we agree with the Minister about why this would be a good thing to do.

I’m not sure that we thought it necessarily had to come in this quickly—this winter. It would have been good to see perhaps a more fulsome process, because at the moment in this Parliament, we are the “fastest lawmakers in the West”. It doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes, and there are some reservations that some of the submitters had around the process, too. So I will be asking the Minister some questions around the process.

Just for those who are following it at home, what this very small bill does is it reclassifies pseudoephedrine from a class B2 to a class C3 controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations determine which class of drug that goes into. But we did do, as the Labour Party, a dissenting view in the select committee report, and that was to express our disappointment with and concerns about the process but also, as I’ve alluded, around the safety of how the drug will be kept in pharmacies.

We deliberately put some quotations from the Minister—which I would like to ask him about now—because the main body of the report kind of did a very once-over-lightly about what the Minister had said. But we picked up on some of the language that, for us, is indicative of perhaps a little bit of a cavalier attitude, in our view, to the communities that will be impacted, and also the type of process that was undertaken.

For example, we asked questions about the reclassification, which seemed unusual to us, because usually the body that is classifying the medication is made up of experts, and this time it looked and sounded from the questions that we asked as if the Minister and Cabinet were doing this reclassification. When we asked the Minister about that, he said that there was a “public interest justifying the fast-track of this bill through the House and select committee [for] ‘an additional winter, so long as the pharmaceutical companies and Medsafe play ball’”, and we wanted to know what that meant.

There was a bit of a discussion, and question and answer, about that, and the Minister agreed that, in effect, this was about politicians classifying the medication but that Medsafe still had the ability, if it didn’t want to play ball, or if it disagreed, to actually not give the approvals, which would have then rendered the political judgment or decision invalid and would have then meant that no pseudoephedrine products would have been available through Medsafe. If I recall rightly, the Minister’s justification for that was that he said that he felt that the original decision to reclassify it upwards originally in that different environment was a political decision.

So one of my first questions to the Minister will be just to talk us through the process of Medsafe. What is the point of having the Medsafe committee meeting to perhaps second-guess political decisions? Is that an appropriate use of the committee and the committee’s expertise? Does this set a precedent now for the committee to be taking direction from Government Ministers or Cabinet decisions, or is this just a one-off situation? Is it an exemption because he wants the public to be able to have this medicine available to them this winter?

The second part that I would like to ask the Minister about is his comments in select committee, where he said that this was about rationalising our approach with our Five Eyes partners. That was an interesting one for me, because I’ve heard Five Eyes mentioned in the context of security and defence, interoperability of equipment, and so on, but I’m wanting to know the medical reason for rationalising a methamphetamine classification with Five Eyes when this doesn’t change the border settings. I know that my colleague Ginny Andersen will have some questions around the assumptions to do with the border settings and the cost of methamphetamine later on, but I’m curious to know why it is important for New Zealand to rationalise this approach with Five Eyes, given that the changes made by this bill don’t have anything to do with changing the border settings, as far as I’m aware.

My third question is also asking the Minister about his comment to the select committee when I asked him about what further evidence he had sought on impacted communities—so those were communities impacted by methamphetamine, and we did hear some pretty harrowing submissions. There weren’t many, but there were people with lived experience of drug use who were adamant that they didn’t want to see a methamphetamine problem in their community.

His response to that was to say that “it was better to focus on the information available … rather than seek further advice” by impacted communities. So there seems to be a bit of a cost-benefit analysis in his own mind, if I’m correct, as to the value of putting more resources into finding out about those communities. That tells me that there’s been a little bit of a cavalier attitude to the harm that this could cause, or maybe not—I’d want to know the thinking as to why he wouldn’t want to seek further advice on impacted communities. We know these are the most vulnerable communities in New Zealand—those who have been impacted by meth problems—and anybody who’s had exposure to methamphetamine in their own family will understand the devastation that I am speaking about.

The fourth question that I have, which I think is No. 4 for the Minister, is that he also assured us that when we spoke about people shopping around for methamphetamine—so, an organised syndicate of purchasers, which has happened in the past, to be able to get a bulk amount of tablets to make meth. Now, I appreciate that we’ve had submissions to say that it would take a lot of packets and a lot of shopping around, but that hasn’t stopped people previously. We’ve also heard from submitters that drug addicts are not necessarily rational, and so we have to allow for the possibility that this could happen.

The Minister’s response when we raised that was that he said he would monitor sales to see if further regulation was appropriate. My question to the Minister is: how would he even be able to monitor the sales if the register is not there in the first place? It seems to be a bit of tautology, because without the register, you can’t monitor, but you’re not going to monitor because you’re going to keep an eye on it. So I’d be very keen to know what methodology the Minister is planning to use to see if further regulation is necessary. Will it be like a formal process of keeping his eyes on it, and will he be instructing officials to do that?

Madam Chair, I’m going to stop my contribution because I can see that the Minister is really feeling frustrated at how many questions I’ve levelled at him. I do have a number more, and so do my colleagues, but I’d love to hear—

💬 Hon David Seymour: It’s actually not the quantity; it’s the quality.

—his responses. Thank you.

No, we won’t debate from the chair, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, it’s good to be able to speak on a bill, and we’ve made it clear that we support the availability of over-the-counter pseudoephedrine, provided that the Government does act in order to curtail any potential harm that we might see. I think it’s important to state that I was actually involved in the recoding of this, back in the day when John Key was the Prime Minister, and tackling methamphetamine was the strategy that I was seconded into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to work with, alongside Health, Justice, and Customs officials. This was one of the changes that was done.

At that point in time, the market for illegal methamphetamine was predominantly done through manufacture in New Zealand, and we’ve seen a significant shift over that period of time for there to be the vast bulk of meth coming in pre-made over our borders in a range of creative and different ways in order to smuggle that into New Zealand. That has shifted, and so we see that there are good grounds to revisit the classification of this drug in order to make it available for law-abiding New Zealanders who have a cold and need to still keep soldiering on.

The two questions that I have to the Minister really go to the heart of the concern about our pharmacies. If they are stocking a drug that is potentially—we want to look at seeing what that does to the domestic market. There is the potential, as outlined in the regulatory impact statement, that we could see changing domestic manufacture once this drug once again becomes more readily available. In the past, we did have instances of pill shopping, where you would see people go around and, I guess, do stand-over tactics to pharmacies in order to get the medicine. So I’d be interested to know what’s in place for the safety of those pharmacies, both in terms of stand-over tactics—that has occurred in the past—but also the more recent occurrence of ram raids or going in and breaking into a pharmacy in order to steal pseudoephedrine.

I know there have been some questions raised in and around how pharmacies will be storing—you know, it’s a bigger requirement for them to put all the higher-risk drugs in some kind of a safe area. We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we possibly can to make sure that they’re not accessible to criminal groups or criminal individuals who want to exploit the increased availability that this medicine would have.

I think it’s also important that we turn our mind to what’s happening at our borders. While police have seen, and Customs as well have seen, record numbers of seizures of methamphetamine, particularly over the last four or five years, each seizure seems to be growing in size. That is a reflection of the size of the market. There is far more methamphetamine coming into New Zealand than we’ve ever seen before, and that’s a real concern. So what I’m interested to also know, as we make this drug more readily available, is how we are resourcing Customs to make sure—

Tim van de Molen: The last Government was soft on crime.

I’m sure Customs aren’t soft on crime, but what would be soft on crime is a 6.5 percent cut to the Customs budget. That would be really soft on crime.

So we want to make sure that there are resources in place at our border so that if there is increased pressure on the border as a result of international organised criminal networks—we want to understand how we are resourcing Customs to be able to look into those containers, look into all those instances, to be able to make sure that they’re doing their job appropriately. There is real concern if there are voluntary redundancies being offered up in that space; we want to make sure that there is resourcing ongoing to make sure that this change doesn’t open up the floodgates for other things to be happening and a squeezing out of the market into different ways.

So I think it’ll be incredibly important to be watching what this change does both to our domestic market but also any changes we see in how new importation methods might be coming in. I look forward to the Minister addressing those questions.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. The Green Party cautiously support this bill as we move forward in this discussion. I want to support the sentiments of my colleagues from the Labour Party in terms of the way in which we need to take a holistic approach with the management of this drug coming into our community.

I am coming from a Tai Tokerau perspective, an iwi Māori perspective, in worrying about the mitigations in terms of treatment. What services are available for those who are already gripped by the addiction, and then what services will be supported to increase its capacity, increase access for those who will become addicted as we release this drug into our community? Let us not forget that the coordinated shoppers—the aunties that get together and who might be tools for supply of meth could come back into our community and then start cooking in their kāinga, and knowing the current social circumstances of many whānau who might be desperate in this drug space, could start cooking again in their kāinga, putting at risk both their whānau and also the wider community.

So I do worry about monitoring of access and if there will be a register established for the monitoring of the live sales—who will do that in terms of the Government response to the release of pseudoephedrine within our community? Will we have officials that will be watching the sales and those who are making purchases? And then, from there, what will be the measures put in place for those that are caught in coordinated syndicates of purchasing?

But treatment of those who are in the grips of methamphetamine is a concern within our kāinga. As we know, many are already facing this addiction in reality right now, but also into the future, as we could see more methamphetamine, because we know it might even get cheaper. So what will that look like? I think about Te Ara Oranga, a Tai Tokerau - based kaupapa, very successful, evidence-based approach to supporting those with methamphetamine addiction. Can we increase access to services such as Te Ara Oranga and then also access across the country, referral services, and pathways for whānau affected, as well, to receive support?

Considering the way in which this bill has been rushed through, we could call it the “Fast-Track Again”. We know that submissions were only open for a small window of time. In the number of submitters that we did receive, we heard a diversity of concern and thinking also about targeted engagement with our pharmacist community and those businesses who will have to bear the burden of holding this product. Now, not everyone might have the large safe to securely store the quantities necessary to serve a community with pseudoephedrine. So I’m wondering about the storage practices but also what is determined as safe storage and what are practical solutions for those who will have to administer this medication in our communities.

When thinking about our communities as a whole, and particularly in the pharmacy space, what can we do in terms of engagement with the sector now to ready them for implementation? Will there be supports available, and also monitoring and regulation in place to give them surety that as they open up for these services and the delivery of pseudoephedrine back into our community, that they will be able to safely administer access to this drug?

May I also speak to Amendment Paper 22 that my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick has tabled, and the opportunity for us in considering this amendment bill is to look at a way with which we can examine the entire Misuse of Drugs Act. In the Amendment Paper that my colleague has tabled, it calls for us to come back to the table together on 1 January 2026 and look at how we’ve operationalised the Act and then look to, as a part of that review, bring a report back to the House with suggested opportunities for improvement. Now, that’s been something consistent from the Green Party, that we’re calling for a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act in its entirety so that we can take a holistic hauora approach, which is evidence-based, and take a harm reduction approach; we know whānau Māori and many of our community are impacted. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to ask the Minister some questions about this bill, the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. As my colleague Ingrid Leary and as my colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen have both said, we are supportive of this bill in so far as we agree that there should be flexibility in our system to allow for people who need to get the things they need to get, and we also are very supportive and have a history of being very supportive of our local community pharmacies. And we demonstrated that, certainly, with our minor ailments bills and removing prescription charges so that people weren’t dissuaded by those $5 prescription charges and therefore could better utilise their community pharmacies, because often it’s the community pharmacy that knows people and knows the community really well.

That leads me to have a certain level of concern for those community pharmacists, because whilst I think there’s been variance in the feedback and in the concern, I think that together the fact that this process was quite quick—and, as other people have said, characterised it as being rushed—I don’t think the pharmacy communities themselves have really had much of a chance to think about what this might mean to them. And we’ve heard other contributors throughout this very short process talk about the fact that pharmacies don’t have to stock pseudoephedrine, which is obviously correct, and that’s as it should be. But then it kind of puts that commercial impetus or that commercial imbalance—and as someone commented not that long ago, at what stage does someone who wants to ram-raid that pharmacy know that they’re not one of the pharmacies that are stocking pseudoephedrine? Is it just something you find out after the damage is done?

So I think there are some questions that the Minister hasn’t taken to his feet yet to answer in relation to particularly community pharmacy safety and also storage. Because when we think of other controlled drugs, I can understand why it’s not just about controlling drugs, is it. It’s not just about installing safe places or safe cupboards; it’s about having a double sign-out sort of system where people are responsible for checking and no one can just get their hands or dispense controlled drugs that quickly. I can understand that in this case that might not have seemed particularly attractive if we’re expecting the volume of people that are going to come into pharmacies and wanting to do that. But that shouldn’t be the reason why you don’t control drugs. The controlled drug methodologies, which are there to protect people’s local practice and their professional registered practice—because every person who is a registered professional is responsible for their own practice—are there for all of those protections, and it’s not a matter of simply removing those protections so that it’s convenient for the public, per se. So I think there’s some questions around that.

Now, I know that someone mentioned the register, so I would like the Minister, maybe, to give us a little bit more information, because I’m sure that he’s looked at these various aspects that are of concern to us. But the real-time register that we know that is used in Queensland—not a perfect system from what I understand, but it is something that could have been a starting point. No need for us to reinvent the wheel. We know Te Whatu Ora have mentioned getting something online, but why the rush? If we don’t have that scaffolding and that infrastructure to support the safe delivery of pseudoephedrine to the community, then does the Minister have any kind of time lines, any further information? He can tell us during this process about the latest innovations with regard to that with that real-time monitoring and registering sort of process—well, both monitoring and registering, because, obviously, they’re two different things.

So I think that that would be a good start. I have some further questions—just as a wee heads-up—about the concept of rational actors in markets, but I’ll leave it there. And if the Minister would like to answer that, that would be fantastic.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to those who have risen to their feet. I just want to preface my comments by referring to the Standing Orders. It is very clear that the purpose of the committee stage is to verify and inquire if the bill as drafted actually fits with the objects and principles that were decided at the second reading. There’s been quite a lot of commentary that, frankly, doesn’t fit that criteria, but I will try and address as much as I can anyway. There is, for example, a suggestion of an amendment on storage; I look forward to debating that.

There were some questions about the process gone through to make the law, but it was actually a reference to the regulations made under the Medicines Act rather than anything to do with this bill, which is an amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act. There was a question, the danger to pharmacy, that came up in various ways. There was an acknowledgment that the prescriptions and doctors visits are a barrier to people getting pseudoephedrine. That’s certainly true. Somebody asked if there was a cavalier attitude to cough medicine. I don’t think you can have that, but they asked about some comments I’d made about “It’ll be here by winter if Medsafe and the suppliers play ball.” Well, again, you know that is in relation to the regulations made under the Medicines Act. That’s actually quite separate from this bill, but it is certainly true, for the member’s information, that Medsafe must allow a specific product to be allowed in. That’s quite different from the definition of pseudoephedrine medications, in general, becoming a restricted medicine under the regulations.

Then there’s the question of my comments about the Five Eyes partners. I think it’s pretty obvious that this has got nothing to do with defence, security, or intelligence; it’s just cough medicine. However, I did use Five Eyes as shorthand for the five countries—Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States—that, along with New Zealand, make up the Five Eyes networks. Those other four countries all have near identical, if not identical, approaches to pseudoephedrine cough medicine, as New Zealand has, or will have very soon if this law passes. And that was the only point I had wanted to make with that.

Somebody said that I’d said it was better not to seek information from affected communities. I think the wider point there is that, actually, you can have paralysis by analysis. I think what we need to do is make clear that we are introducing a regime of regulating cough medicine similar to the four other countries that we most often compare ourselves with. I think that, you know, we can safely say that people have had the opportunity to submit, and I listen to the likes of Know Your Stuff NZ, who know a lot about drugs; they have been pretty clear about the fact they don’t believe it’s viable to manufacture methamphetamine.

And then, finally, there was a question of how sales will be monitored. Again, this is not part of the legislation. There was no agreement at second reading to talk about monitoring sales. So it’s not really in order for the committee stage to talk about that, but I’ll answer anyway just to try and, you know, entertain the member. Look, first of all, pharmacies do actually have to record them. They are increasingly using e-prescribing, so I suspect that the amount of information available is only going to grow with technology. But in terms of how I could monitor sales, or anyone could, Medsafe have to let the stuff be imported. So we’ll have a pretty good idea of how much is coming into the country if you wanted to monitor sales.

Ginny Andersen mentioned pharmacies and drug shopping. Again, not strictly part of this stage of considering the bill but, none the less, I think it’s pretty clear that the evidence that’s come through the Health Committee is such that people don’t believe it will be viable to manufacture methamphetamine in this way. The price has come down dramatically. People have better ways of getting it, sadly, and that’s why they don’t believe that this will be an issue.

Hūhana Lyndon brought up, again, very interesting issues, but they’re not part of the legislation that we’re considering right now. The question is the drug counselling for those addicted; I think schemes like Te Ara Oranga are well worth funding, but that’s not what we’re considering as part of this legislation; that wasn’t what was agreed at the second reading of this bill.

And finally, what if you’re caught pill shopping? Well, you would be misusing a drug, and there are penalties in return for doing that.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The committee of the whole House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Members, the committee is resumed. When we broke for the dinner break, the committee was considering the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. The question, again, is that Parts 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I’d like to thank the Minister, the Hon David Seymour, for his considerable contribution just before the break. I appreciate his comments that he thought some of the things were out of scope, but actually I would put it to him that this was a bit more interesting and on point for, particularly, members of the public, who are interested in this issue, instead of going through a line-by-line analysis of the legislation. So I thank him for responding in a very sincere and genuine way to the questions that we put.

I hope that, in that spirit, he will also consider a very genuine and sincere suggestion for an Amendment Paper which has been submitted. I’m sure the Minister has had time to read it. And this is about saying Labour agrees with the policy on the balance of considering public harm and the benefits that would flow from this bill. We do think it’s a good idea to support it, for all the reasons I’ve said before, but there is one really critical area where we feel the risks could be mitigated, and that is with appropriate storage. And these are the risks to the pharmacies, the pharmacists, but also to those who work in the pharmacies, who don’t necessarily have the same level of choice about opting into the scheme, which the Minister has made very clear pharmacists can do.

This Amendment Paper is in the name of my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall. It, basically, proposes to replace clause 9, page 2, lines 23 to 25, with “9 Regulation 28 amended (Custody of controlled drugs) Revoke regulation 28(4)(e).” There’s a whole explanatory note. I don’t need to take up the committee’s time with that. What I will do, just briefly for people following at home, is say that the context is that the current bill, in clause 9, removes any safe storage requirement for pseudoephedrine. We understand that pharmacists can opt into the scheme. So, in some ways, they may or may not be opting into any of the risks that that poses for people to ram-raid their shop or burgle their shop or their pharmacy, or whatever. But also, as I said before, this is about the staff who work there. They don’t have that choice. They have families to feed. And so this is about protecting them as well.

I note, in putting this amendment there on behalf of my colleague, that we had comments from pharmacists who said they were constantly burgled when pseudoephedrine was on the shelves. One of them said 12 times per year, and the select committee did ask advice around the storage of medicines and equivalent medicines—one could say “analogue” medicines—and we were told that, with this kind of quantity, codeine was a good comparator. And codeine, in fact, does seem to be under lock and key. So it would be appropriate, in our view, to make sure that pseudoephedrine has the same level of safety.

This Government really needs to do everything it can to protect pharmacists and those who work in pharmacies from the risks of the declassification. So it is with real sincerity and an amount of pride, actually, for the work that we did as a select committee to tease out the issues, to really understand the context, understand what the real risks were about pseudoephedrine to the community—it’s very easy to have moral panic and hysteria. We understand that now there seems to be a pricing reality, with meth coming over the border, that it is unlikely people will make pseudoephedrine at home. It is unlikely that they will go and shop around, although we are very keen that the Minister will keep an eye on that for all the reasons named across the House. But I would like to see the Minister adopt this Amendment Paper.

For us, that would really seal the deal on being able to give full-hearted support to this bill instead of just the cautious enthusiasm for it. We want people to have the benefit. We don’t want to stop people from getting pseudoephedrine because they have to go to a doctor or have it on prescription, but we need to keep our pharmacists safe, we need to keep their staff safe. Ram raids are still happening. This Government said they wouldn’t happen when they got hard on crime, whatever. Ram raids are happening, and I hope the Minister understands the responsibility he has if and when there are ram raids if he doesn’t adopt our Amendment Paper. So I’m very keen for the Minister to adopt it.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This is a really short piece of legislation, and the Amendment Paper in my name is what I’d like to speak to today, but I’d just like to contextualise that Amendment Paper within the reason that we have this amendment bill before us.

So, as I outlined in my first and my second reading speeches, within the Misuse of Drugs Act (MODA) there is a self-fulfilling prophecy which continues to entrench an anti-health or anti - evidence-based approach to substances as classified within MODA 1975. To that effect, there is a requirement that if you are to introduce a new substance for classification, and therefore to bring along with it new criminal penalties, you only need to pass an Order in Council, which is typically rubber-stamped and waved through Parliament within a few minutes. However, if you are to declassify or to down-classify a substance, you need an entire amendment bill, which is the reason that we have this Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill before us today. Obviously, the intent of this Government is to try and get this passed before Christmas, which is the very reason that we’ve had the deeply truncated select committee process, but what this speaks to is the fact that there are fundamental flaws within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

So that’s where I now get to, the Amendment Paper in my name. This Amendment Paper would insert new clauses 4AA and 4AB and, effectively, would require that the Minister institute or create or commence a review on the operation of the broader Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. This is entirely consistent with the need for us to operate in a direction which is an evidence-based and harm minimisation approach to substances and, I’d say, entirely aligned with the very arguments and rationale that the Minister in the chair, David Seymour, is making when it comes to this reclassification or down-classification bill when it comes to pseudoephedrine.

To that effect, we have seen it reflected in the Law Commission’s work from 2011; from He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry; and Turuki! Turuki!, the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group review—all of which, effectively, said we just need a straight-up repeal and replacement to replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 with a health-based, harm minimisation type of approach. But in lieu of having that political consensus, why not add another review to the pile so that, hopefully, a Government further down the track does the right thing when it comes to the evidence and a harm minimisation type of approach.

I guess that’s just the baseline appeal that we would like to make across the House today as the Greens: entirely consistent with the approach that we have taken on cigarettes, on alcohol, on cannabis, and on all other substances, including pseudoephedrine, let’s take an evidence-based, harm minimisation approach, but let’s apply that to substances across the board. Why not have an entire review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, because as the Minister is underscoring in his rationale for this legislation in front of us today, the classification schemes and the moral panics that tend to be associated with them simply are not working and are not fit for purpose.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair—thank you. Look, I’ll just take a short call. Even though it was an incredibly short time for select committee to hear submissions and gather evidence around what the impact of this bill will have on communities, one of the points that I thought was really interesting is that there’s a proportion within New Zealand of people who have either complex drug and alcohol—a range of issues, that will take whatever’s going at the moment. At the time, that once was synthetic cannabis; other times, there’s been new kinds of drugs—fentanyl was a real risk that we’ve seen in other countries. But one of the observations is that as pseudoephedrine becomes more readily available, the group of frequent drug users in New Zealand will use this drug and, potentially, use it to manufacture methamphetamine.

So I think with that power to change the law for the Government, there also comes responsibility to talk about what types of addiction services will be made more readily available to those people in our community who need that assistance but aren’t yet still receiving it. So I would be really interested to hear from the Minister: if there is going to be more readily available pseudoephedrine within the community, then what are the steps that will be taken to provide communities with the support, treatment, and ways of having more wellbeing, more supported transitions, and therapeutic communities that assist people to make positive choices and to move away from harmful abuse of substances? When you’re making a substance like this, which can be potentially harmful, more readily available, it would be good to have an understanding about what the Government’s plan is to provide assistance into those areas where they might be more harmful.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve just got some questions of the Minister; they’ll be around the context of this. Now, I accept this is a very simple bill that by itself, out of any context, merely changes the legal status of a substance. However, as the Minister knows, nothing ever happens in isolation, and I think it’s important to note that the difference with methamphetamine from every other drug, virtually, that we deal with—some of them being mentioned by my colleague previously, Ginny Andersen—is that this starts life, as does every ingredient which goes into it: every precursor is legal when it starts life, and it’s only when they are put together that you have an illegal substance.

I’ll give an example of that. When I was a younger police officer, we had a major heroin epidemic in New Zealand, and it was not unusual to have two or three heroin overdose deaths in Wellington. Now, that was cured overnight, because the Mr Asia syndicate—the very efficient Mr Asia syndicate—had been bringing basically all the heroin into New Zealand. So when they were busted, they fell apart quite badly—ended up with one of them handless and headless in a quarry in northern England. As a result, the whole syndicate collapsed and there was no heroin in New Zealand for quite some time.

The next lot of heroin arrived because the very resourceful criminals and drug addicts who were left actually started to make heroin, what we called homebake heroin, using codeine-based products—very resourceful. We hadn’t had a problem for about three or four years; all of a sudden, we had a problem again, where this homebake heroin, which actually turned out to be more of a problem than heroin itself, was actually harder on the body and resulted in more deaths than heroin did itself.

Now, coming forward to the question that I’m asking here: has the Minister, in bringing forward this legislation, considered what may happen here? It was a very unlikely scenario that a country awash with heroin all of a sudden would have no white powder available, and the same thing could actually happen. New Zealand has relatively secure borders, unlike most countries where you can drive into or sail into—well, you can sail into New Zealand but you lose control of the product. It’s actually quite conceivable in New Zealand that we could end up with very little heroin around, as we did during the COVID lockdowns, I might say, when it was very difficult to obtain this. Now, with this product now available—there are other products; the main ones, things like red phosphorus, some of the acetic acids whose names I could never quite pronounce, let alone remember, but there was about four or five basic core ingredients that went into this.

Has the Minister considered the importance of ensuring that there is a monitoring regime so that by, for example, working out how much red phosphorus is being sold, another essential ingredient—some of those other core products are actually being sold, so if the amount of them being sold, stolen, or otherwise acquired starts to rise, is there anything that the member has considered? Certainly, there’s nothing I can see in the bill that will just give that security that this simple bill won’t result in us going back to the old homebake heroin situation or allowing young amateurs around, particularly, school kids. Also, bearing in mind, we have a regime now where things are much more readily available through mail order, through various sales regimes, where those other ingredients are much easier to get hold of now. So is the Minister happy that we’re not actually re-establishing the conditions where we could actually end up with a problem in the future without some sort of monitoring regime to make sure that we have that reassurance that it won’t happen?

Well, I just want to acknowledge a couple of members that have risen to their feet and made speeches or asked questions.

In Ingrid Leary’s case, an Amendment Paper that she is speaking on, on behalf of Ayesha Verrall—the basic thrust of the Amendment Paper is that pharmacies would be required to keep cough medicine, or pseudoephedrine-based cough medicine, in safes. This is something that was actually submitted on during the select committee process. I’m advised that pharmacists have made it clear to the Ministry of Health that that is impractical for them to do.

Secondly, I need to make it clear to the committee that it is actually not currently a requirement to keep pseudoephedrine medications in safes in pharmacists. So the notion that this legislation is taking away that requirement is untrue, and not only is it untrue, it couldn’t be true, if somebody knew that basic fact.

Finally, I’ll just make the point that there’s nothing to stop a pharmacy from keeping their pseudoephedrine-based cough and cold medicine in a safe. To legislate that they have to do it would make their business unworkable. I don’t think that’s a responsible thing to do. The Government does not accept that particular Amendment Paper.

We had a speech from Chlöe Swarbrick which appeared to be completely out of order, trying to promote another policy area that is not actually a part of this debate because it is not part of what was agreed to at the second reading.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: That’s not your job. We have someone else to do that for us.

Somebody said it is not my job. Well, actually, reading the Standing Orders to know what a committee stage of a debate is about—that actually is a part of my job, and it might surprise the member to learn that it is part of his job too. If only he opened the Standing Orders, he might be astonished what he could learn.

Finally, Greg O’Connor—and I’ve got to say, while I was listening to Greg O’Connor, Hello Sailor’s “Blue Lady” was ringing in my ears. Greg O’Connor has got to be one of the best recounters. What I took from his story about heroin in the 1970s being replaced by homebake—I think what he is saying is that were the current supplies of methamphetamine, which are more voluminous, more available, and cheaper than anything available the last time we had pseudoephedrine-based cough medicine in pharmacies; were that supply to cease the way the supply of heroin ceased with the Mr Asia syndicate was blown up, I think in the 1970s—it was before my time—then perhaps there would be some other substitute; for example, people trying to manufacture meth again. I think, sadly, it is unlikely that anything we’re doing right now is going to stop that supply. It seems to be a strong supply.

Obviously, the Government is doing everything it can to stop. But were it to stop, hypothetically, if I’m following Mr O’Connor’s analogy correctly, then, certainly, the Government will look to stamp out any other sources of P, including anything relating to the manufacture of it with other precursors or other manufacturing components, such as—I think he talked about a chemical, red metal—you might be able to help me, but I haven’t written clearly enough the chemical he mentioned, but—

💬 Greg O’Connor: Red phosphorus.

No, red phosphorus, yes. I think Mr O’Connor would know that the police in their enforcement activities might well look for those kinds of things, but it would be wrong for the Parliament or the Government to tell them exactly what to do, because we just don’t direct the police in this country.

Finally, there were some comments from a member—I think it was Ginny Andersen—who asked about support for the drug harm in the community, very similar to earlier comments by Hūhana Lyndon, which I’d also addressed. In my response to those comments, I pointed out that while I think it is very noble thing to have initiatives such as Te Ara Oranga in the community, it is not strictly connected to this piece of legislation we’re debating tonight. The assumed need for it suggests that this legislation will increase the availability of methamphetamine, when all the evidence and most of the submissions that came into the select committee told us that the opposite is true.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Motion agreed to.

Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment to insert new clauses 4AA and 4AB, set out on Amendment Paper 22, is ruled out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question is that Dr Ayesha Verrall’s amendment to Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 27 be agreed to.