Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): When I was Leader of the Opposition I was faced with a situation where the Government was doing nothing on medicinal cannabis and many New Zealanders were contacting me—it was a huge issue on the television on the radio all the time there were worthy cases of people in pain who couldn't get the pain relief that they wanted. I was I've got to be honest somewhat sceptical. I wondered if this was a Trojan Chlöe Swarbrick horse for decriminalisation and that's what was really going on here. But I did accept that there was a need for a regime of medicinal cannabis. It was—and is—of course no different than the many other ways that we medicate whether morphine—a class A drug of course—or others in our medical and health system. But I knew that what I also wanted was a regime that was robust that was serious that wasn't—as so many bills member's bills that come before this House are—just a slogan with nothing really behind it. So what was I to do in this situation? Well I asked Dr Shane Reti if he could go away and do this and can I say to the member who's brought this fine bill and done this piece of work forward—he was at that stage in somewhat obscurity not too far in front of Jami-Lee Ross in this Parliament in the pecking order but I asked him if he would go away and do the work on this. A bill to devise the scheme that makes up this bill a legal one but more than a slogan something that was truly robust taking best practice from around the world.Dr Reti came back with what I think is and I don't say this simply to flatter him in the House but one of the best pieces of work I've seen in politics can I say at least from a politician. He did an incredible job on this he looked globally he went to the United States where he had a number of significant medical and political contacts and he put together this brilliant piece of work. We presented it the media they could not find fault and the stakeholders accepted the worth. I don't think there was a criticism there frankly out in the public and David Clark laughs. That's because I'm coming to what he did which was three-fifths of not very much.Hon Dr David Clark: This is absolute nonsense.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And that is that well the member has got to speak if he's going to say that we look forward to it. It was better than what a thousand officials in the Ministry of Health under Dr David Clark came up from. Because in the end a long time after actually Dr Reti had shamed the Government into doing something this Parliament passed a Government law that was a skeleton at best with no bones on it; unlike Dr Shane Reti's bill that had the substance that had the robustness here and did the job and he presents that bill to the House. I'm not going to go through the detail of the bill. It's there people can read it Dr Reti has referred to the seven pieces—Chlöe Swarbrick: Have you?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well the member over there Chlöe Swarbrick says Have you?" and she probably thinks she's funny but the reality is she's boring when it comes to drugs. She only has one agenda and that's to free it up and get more on the streets. That's her view it's not my view actually.And I say I'm not going to go through the detail but this is incredibly well thought through the detail is there that isn't in any of the Government's work. I say to the members opposite there's only one Minister in the House one member of the executive or two if I count Mr Tirikatene over there I urge them to take this on actually to support this. Because if they did that they wouldn't just have a slogan. They just wouldn't have a skeleton without the flesh on it. They would have something of substance that's robust and that would give New Zealand a world-class medicinal cannabis regime we could be proud of."