Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): The National Party opposes this bill. I wish it wasn't so in some ways because this is a well-intentioned bill. And I accept I think actually the Hon Andrew Little is a person who is well-intentioned and wants to and I think—there might be one or two notable exceptions—basically all members of this House want to. I'm not going to rehearse the various arguments that I made at first reading on this bill in any great length. I will just briefly recap though. This is well-intentioned as I said. It's in line with the zeitgeist of the time the fashion the fads of public health—Ginny Andersen: That's a big word.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —and the do-gooders all around the place. Well you can spell it for me later member over there—let's see how she goes. It's in line with all of that but actually I defy this House to come up with studies that show it is actually in reality an evidence-based law.See Andrew Little he refers to the Victoria one. That is literally the only one in The New Zealand Herald in Stuff on RNZ and that he can refer to. By the way it is a self-selecting sample study. It's not remotely scientific in terms of the kind of studies internationally from Australia the United Kingdom and Europe that I've referred to both in the earlier bill which passed this—against National Party wishes temporarily—or this one. Even on that self-selecting sample though I just make this point because they go on so much about evidence without actually citing any of it. Even on that self-selecting sample and there's something like 90 pages in that report there is a lot of evidence or so-called evidence that goes the way of the National Party view on this.You see pill testing provides a false confidence that somehow MDMA—because fundamentally that's the illicit drug we're talking about when we talk about pill testing—is safe. And so what happens? Well as we've seen in Australia and the United Kingdom and Europe and other parts of the world use goes up. And with that—surprise surprise—fatalities deaths also go up as well. And the cruel irony of all of that is it's not the additives that we are making legal in terms of the pill testing in this bill it's not them that kills people; it's the substance itself without the additives. Yes sometimes with alcohol; yes sometimes with too much water all of those things but in the end it's not the additives. And so there's a false confidence use goes up and more deaths occur.See the Labour Party also says because it's fashionable and it sounds good right—and I go along with that actually as I'll come back to—in large part that this is a health issue. It's about harm reduction. Well of course it is—of course it is—but it's also a criminal issue and the Labour Party fails spectacularly to understand that fundamental point. They lost a referendum with the wacky Greens on legalising cannabis a year or two ago and they don't seem to respect that referendum and that New Zealanders decided—yep not by much but nevertheless a majority of New Zealanders and a big turnout—that this was also a criminal matter. And they keep marching on with their soft approach despite that.Today I want to make some additional points actually about this bill and about where we're heading because I think personally there's something a bit slippery about the way the Labour Party in Government is treating this issue about the bad faith that they have shown. Firstly they said this was just about music festivals and that got the media on side and everyone thought that was good. Now though we find this legislation's actually about legalising pill testing everywhere—not just festivals; everywhere. They never said that—they never said that anywhere—it would be everywhere but that is what they have done. And call me old-fashioned but I just have this small technical view that you should kind of campaign on what you're going to do rather than do it and get the acquiescence afterwards.Then here's the kicker—and this is the challenge by the way to the ACT Party: are the ACT Party trendy urban wokesters or are they actually the party of the heritage of libertarians and the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers that they say they are because here's the next thing that Andrew Little has done with one sign of the pen: he's now made it so that taxpayers pay for the pleasure of all this testing. There's no user pays; it's the taxpayers of New Zealand that are going to pay. And I say to the ACT Party you're going to have to decide sooner or later if you're urban wokesters or if you're going to go after the farmers' votes and the various other votes in provincial New Zealand because you're not going to be able to for too much longer try and play both sides of the fence. And I tell you something for myself I for one don't want to pay as a taxpayer for all the legal testing of illicit drugs that's going to be happening up and down New Zealand as a result of this bill. And I think there's a lot of New Zealanders regardless of their views on drugs that also won't want to be publicly funding this. How about this old-fashioned principle user pays? You want it tested pay yourself. Don't make other New Zealanders pay for it.So I say New Zealanders—despite this never being campaigned on despite in the first reading the Minister never saying so—are going to see through this bill and through the changes Andrew Little is making a situation where pill testing is coming everywhere. It'll be on K Road it'll be on Courtenay Place it'll be outside the bars and the clubs. They never said that but that's what's going to happen. And by the way the cost will be on the taxpayer. Andrew Little says it started at $800000. Well how many ICU beds would that buy? How many booster shots for New Zealanders when we can get them would that buy? How many police officers given the very real issues we have with not enough bobbies on the beat would that purchase? But by the way that $800000 that's just the start. It will be—you bet my bottom dollar—by the end of this term millions of dollars in funding of pill testing. So I say actually the Government didn't campaign on any of that; not only that it hasn't post-election said any of that upfront from the start even though I reckon that was probably the plan from the start. They've gone from just music festivals to anywhere everywhere whenever they want and the taxpayer is paying for it all. First it was just the legalising of testing at festivals I say then everywhere and now taxpayers are paying for it although they lost the referendum.Finally I want to come back to what matters: it is harm reduction actually. Yeah criminal matters as well. I actually think most New Zealanders—and we know that from the referendum—think that it should be a matter for the courts as well but harm reduction certainly when we think of our children is what matters. Every New Zealand wants to see that but it's critical for New Zealanders to realise that even with testing pills can never be guaranteed as safe. It is a false confidence. In a very recent—I've got it here—coroner's report I think it's the last several weeks actually that it's become public it's made clear MDMA can cause respiratory depression somnolence cardiac arrhythmia coma and increases the risk of sudden death. Like I say no use of MDMA is safe despite the false confidence that many often young New Zealanders will have as the result of the passage of this bill. What I'm saying may not be fashionable. It may not be—here's the big word again Ginny Andersen—the zeitgeist of the times but I reckon I'll be proven right. I'm not up for this bill. More testing will result in more use and in the end more deaths in New Zealand from this soft-headed soft-on-crime soft-on-drugs Government. National will be voting against this bill.