Whaitiri Meka: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17544. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Chair.Tēnātātou katoa. I rise with all members of this Committee to lend my support to the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill. All I can say to be succinct is thank goodness. Thank goodness for the communities up and down this country who rallied and who marched to get these terrible drugs out of our communities.Hon Trevor Mallard: Meka can you say thank you to Billy Graham. I forgot to in my speech for the work he did.MEKA WHAITIRI: Yes I was going to mention him Mr Mallard. Many of the members on this side of the Chamber and other members who care passionately about their communities have been invited to got involved with or been part of a lot of the rallies that occurred up and down the country. I for one was fortunate to join in the rally down in Naenae with Billy Graham who called it down there. He is a wonderful person who is passionate about the community of Naenae. I was attending with my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard; the Mayor of Hutt City Ray Wallace; councillors; and community workers. Clearly the meeting that was held in Naenae was a reflection of the community’s absolute disdain for these drugs—their absolute disdain for these drugs—and their desire to get rid of them. So in Naenae the message was clear and both Trevor and I as parliamentarians representing areas of the Hutt were charged with bringing this message to Parliament to say that people in Naenae wanted them banned completely.From Naenae I was fortunate enough to attend another rally. That was called by councillors of the Hastings District Council again to say that people do not want these substances regulated; they actually want them banned. So again attending that rally that message was clear to those who were there. The local paperHawke’s Bay Today watched the people who went in an outlet that was selling them and the front page of the paper showed people going in over the space of 6 minutes. It was enough for me to say that people in Hastings do not want these drugs and want them banned. So that was community meeting No. 2.Following on from the steps of that meeting I met with the Gisborne District Council and the Mayor of GisborneMengFoon who again asked what this Government is doing about these substances because they want them banned. Across the river the one outlet there has people coming in. The feedback from concerned people in Gisborne was asking what we are doing in Parliament and saying we need to take the message to this Government yet again because regulation is not meeting what they want as community leaders and community workers. They want them completely banned. Following that there were two more rallies one in Napier and again one in Hastings.My point is about the passion and the drive of our communities to say that these are bad substances that are in our communities and are infecting ourwhānau and we need to get rid of them. I again want to support not just the people who were mentioned in bringing the amendment—clearly the Government has had an about-turn from all the feedback it has received. But the original Act the Psychoactive Substances Act is oneof those where you wonder how it actually got in. I need to acknowledge that I was not in the House at the time but I definitely—Hon Trevor Mallard: Oh! Blame us.MEKA WHAITIRI: Yes. Yes that is right—I was not in the House. But look it is like collective responsibility. If you are a parliamentarian you have to defend that this was passed. But like I have said I am happy to stand here and say that we have amended that Act. The substances are going to be banned. I know that the people of places like Maraenui like Flaxmere like Kaiti like Elgin and like all the small communities that I stand here proudly to represent will be absolutely pleased that we are making this move to completely ban these substances. So that is my small contribution to what I consider is a very important bill and something for which all our communities have rallied to say enough is enough. So I support this bill. Kia ora.