Calder Cam: General Debate 
Calder Cam: General Debate 
[Volume:658;Page:7027] 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 This Government is working hard to cushion our country not only from the effects of the worst recession we have seen since 1930 but also from the ravages of the most inept period of administration that New Zealand has seen in decades. I refer of course to the damage done by the spent drained terminally fatigued listless limp and late Labour administration. 
It was an administration for which the last years of Government were bereft of ideas. Creativity was a distant dream and the idea of action was a barely recoverable memory from a cobwebbed cerebral closet. These last days of wheezy decrepitude extended over at least 3 years possibly 5 years. They were 5 years during which an original thought stood out like an acoustic set at a Gaye Bykers on Acid concert or a moment of fun at a temperance meeting. The empty husk of the late unlamented Labour administration subjected our country to years of “hurry up and wait” calls to inaction. It was an omnipresent legislative leaden hand that stifled innovation and fresh thinking. It was a cloying embrace from a nanny seduced by the idea that consideration of process equated to action. Inaction was the default position of the previous inept administration. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the inaction addressing the scourge of crime and P in New Zealand. 
I am proud of the work that John Key and the National-led Government have done to cope with the multitude of deficits that the previous administration left us to pick up. We have a quiver of measures to address the problem that P makes for all New Zealanders. We have given the police the legislative teeth they need to recover property and proceeds of crime from criminals—crime that is funded more often than not by the production of the scourge on all levels of society of P. We passed the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act and the Sentencing Amendment Act. They are all part of the tool kit to make our country safer. 
We have also directed that we will not just take away gang profits but we will also use those profits against the gangs. We will ensure that the ill-gotten gains of criminal activity are poured back into the fight against crime gangs and P. In addition in our first 100 days in office we introduced the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. That legislation will be passed as a matter of priority. It doubles the penalty for participation in a criminal gang which is often making P from chemicals. It gives the police greater powers to investigate gang members and enable removal orders to gang fortifications which often cloak the nefarious activity of the evil drug cook. 
These measures are supported by the new Search and Surveillance Bill and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill. These will give the police the extra powers for investigating and fighting the scourge of P and of organised crime that afflicts all areas of our society today. They are scourges that were largely overlooked by the previous administration year after year. Some of the measures we are taking in our broad plan to tackle P include restricting access to the precursor chemicals of P. We heard some points on how that will impact upon ordinary New Zealanders upon men and women who want to go and fix their sniffling colds. It will not impact upon them at all because as we heard from the Minister of Health 80 percent of the commonly used medications do not contain pseudoephedrine. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.