Bishop Chris; Rurawhe AdrianCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a shocker of a bill. It's the bill that you get when you actually really want to decriminalise drugs but you're just not quite sure where the public is at on it and you're not going to go quite that far. So in other words we've got this totally inadequate halfway house where they can look like they're cracking down on the suppliers and the users of drugs—or the suppliers at least—in the first part of the bill and then we've got the sop to the Green Party in the second part of the bill which claims to affirm that the police have discretion around prosecution for individual use and possession. So it's a kind of halfway-house bill. It's a very strange beast.Darroch Ball's speech actually summarised exactly how strange this approach is because on the one hand we had Chlöe Swarbrick in her contribution heralding the brave new world of drug decriminalisation and how this is part of a sea change to the way in which New Zealand deals with drugs and the war on drugs is a failure and the Green Party are at the vanguard of this health-based approach that the Government's going to adopt—all very powerful words some of which I happen to agree with. But then if you listen to Darroch Ball's speech that was a speech in which he was at pains to play down that this bill does anything. He kept saying over and over again and quite contemptuously towards National Party members that the police already have discretion. What are you talking about?" he said. "This is just the status quo." He kept saying over and over again "There's nothing to see here—nothing new. This is just the police. They already have this power. They already have this discretion."Well both statements can't be true. It can't be on the one hand the brave new world of drug decriminalisation in which New Zealand's in the vanguard of adopting a health-based approach to drug policy and simultaneously the status quo in which nothing is changing and the police just have exactly the same power and exactly the same discretion as they had before. Both can't be true and it's incumbent upon Government members to sort out exactly what's going on here. Is this the brave new world or is this just what we have always done which is to allow the police to prosecute in the public interest? Because Darroch Ball kept saying it's exactly what we have now; there is no change.It's a curious thing isn't it when you have to legislate to affirm something. Parliament doesn't actually do that. Clause 6 in this bill is very strange: "To avoid doubt"—and Parliament does that sometimes because Parliament wants to make very clear but it doesn't often say things like this: "To avoid doubt it is affirmed". It is affirmed? No Parliament legislates to do something. Parliament legislates a change to the law. Parliament legislates things that are not currently the status quo. It puts the later state into being—that's what Parliament does. Parliament doesn't in a separate piece of legislation affirm an existing law. It's a very peculiar phrase. So maybe Darroch Ball's right; maybe it is actually just the status quo. Maybe we're just affirming the status quo. Maybe he is right. But then of course we get this other phrase: "prosecution should not be brought unless it is required in the public interest." We've had this interesting discussion between Mr Mitchell and Mr Woodhouse about exactly what change that will create. Then of course we get new section 7(6) around "health-centred or therapeutic approach".Well this bill is going to go to a committee. We're going to invigilate and investigate those issues very closely at the select committee because on the one hand we may be making a massive change—certainly what the Greens think we're doing—and on the other hand apparently we're just not doing anything. Apparently we're just putting in place what exists right now.Darroch Ball says the police want this. Well I draw him to the remarks of the Police Association. Now the Police Association represent police members. Well he might say the police want it—well police top brass might be OK with it. I suspect that's actually not true. We're waiting for the advice on that. But I'll read to you the statement of the Police Association: "[This] has an air of drug reform on the fly rather than a more considered debate and informed legislation. I am worried that by codifying police discretion the Government is potentially asking officers to be the spearhead of decriminalisation." I note a former Police Association president over the other side of the House and I suspect Mr O'Connor agrees with every single word I've just said because let's face it; what the Government is doing is subcontracting out to police officers decriminalisation.My message to the Government is: if you want to have a debate about drug decriminalisation and if you want to have a debate about making sure that people who are addicted to heroin are not prosecuted OK maybe there's a role for that debate. Maybe there is a debate we need to have about that. But to do it in this dishonest halfway-house solution where you put police officers at the front line of drug decriminalisation—frankly police officers who are under-equipped and ill-equipped to deal with the hard vexed decisions around this—then you are mistaken.I haven't even mentioned as my other colleagues have the lack of support out there in the community around community treatment and addiction services. Jacinda Ardern was asked "Will there be more money in the Budget on Monday?" by Jack Tame. She was asked "Will there be more money in the Budget for these much-needed services?" and she refused to commit to it. So what we've got is a situation where the Government is going to subcontract out to police their attempts to decriminalise drugs and they're not even going to provide the services to make sure that all the people who aren't going to be prosecuted and all the people who are going to be referred to these drug services are going to have the necessary treatment and support that they need. It is a disgrace. This Government should be honest about what it's actually trying to do and have the legitimate debate rather than try and subcontract it out to the police.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes."