Salesa Jenny; Penk ChrisASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Chris Penk.CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Madam Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill (No 2).We've heard a number of different claims on the other side of the House and on this side of the House to the extent that the ACT Party has contributed to the debate along the lines of course of harm minimisation. I think it's worth acknowledging from the start that that in itself is a worthy goal. I'd like to think that every member of this House would want to minimise the harm associated with drug taking. So just to put it in that context I very much hope that we are arguing over the detail about how that might best be achieved and of course more particularly on whether sending a particular message about the safety of particular drugs notwithstanding any additional elements is where we need to focus our efforts.So taking the intent of the legislation at its face value namely to try to minimise drug and substance harm by allowing drug and substance checking services to operate legally in New Zealand." we can make a number of different observations. The first is that one of the points of emphasis of the bill is the idea of legal certainty. This is explained in the general policy statement with reference to the handling of controlled drugs. But more accurately or more importantly the point is not simply the handling of the drugs; it's the fact of handing them back to a person who has handed them into the care of these checkers who might have the best intentions in the world but who are nevertheless engaging in activity that will increase the likelihood of harm from the drugs themselves in the act of handing them back. So whereas we see in the explanatory note a number of different functions that can be carried out one of which is the testing another of which is the checking another being the advising—these things are all fine of course in themselves but it is the returning of the drug or substance to the individual who had presented it for checking that is the dangerous element that we can see in the licensing regime that is to allow the activities to be carried out in a way that's licensed or regulated.Of course there is also an interesting issue as one of the stated aims of the licensing regime to legitimate the activity is "providing information and harm reduction advice to help individuals make informed decisions about drug and psychoactive substance use:"—well amen to that. Providing information and advice is a very worthy aim indeed but it is not illegal at the moment to provide information about the harm that drugs can cause to young people or indeed any other people and the more of that the better but it doesn't require an act of Parliament to allow such education to take place and it is indulging in a straw man argument to suggest otherwise.I do also want to comment on the scope of the bill in the sense of the different aspects of New Zealand public life or private life indeed that are covered by it. Again somewhat of a straw man argument to reference heavily music festivals because there is no such limitation in the bill. But if we're going to focus on that then let's at least interrogate that notion in a way that is giving the proper attention that this category of entertainment deserves. There has been far too little comment on the nature of so-called music festivals at which drug taking is so rife. A drug festival with a soundtrack is not a music festival. If the amount of drug-taking activity endangering the lives of young Kiwis is such that we need to make a law so that they need not be afraid of allowing drug checkers on site then how about we as a Parliament legislate better and as a society deal with the problem better of the fact that there is so much illicit drug supply and use going on in the first place. That is at the heart of what we should be dealing with and not the relatively innocuous activity of the checking the testing certainly the educational element but of course the handing back of that which is dangerous with or without additional elements which may or may not be known; that is a straw man. Again we should resist that notion. We should resist sending the message that drug taking in the case of these very harmful substances is OK. We must resist this idea that we could hand back that which will kill or injure our young people under the guise of education and false notions of harm minimisation."