O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I come to this House after 40 years in law enforcement. I acknowledge my colleague across the House Matt King who was a very effective detective in the North. But I'll challenge him I'll challenge Mr Mitchell I'll challenge any police officer anywhere in the world to say that anything we have done has done anything to control to curtail to reduce the amount of drug damage in our world. Actually something did happen. We're talking here about changing a law. In the 1970s speeches were made exactly the same as Simeon Brown made here when he talked about If we just increase the penalties." Well that was done with heroin. In the 1970s New Zealand—Wellington here where I was a young police officer—was awash with heroin. The sentence was changed to take it to life imprisonment and it made not one iota of difference. The only difference that was ever made was when the Mr Asia syndicate which was responsible for bringing virtually all the heroin into New Zealand collapsed—as many business conglomerates do in the United Kingdom—and the supply of heroin into New Zealand stopped overnight. As a result New Zealanders either gave up heroin they went to Australia and some went into homebake. So that wasn't any law change that changed anything. Mr King again—I'll look at Northland because Northland is actually a very very good example because Northland has become one of the worst places in New Zealand for drug use for gangs for drug manufacture. Now Mr King knows full well that he worked very hard and his colleagues worked very hard but actually it did nothing and the whole thing deteriorated and what this determines is that we simply must have a new look at the way we do things. I've been privileged enough in my previous role to travel around the world and spend time with police officers in places like Philadelphia places like Baltimore places like Los Angeles and places like Miami and each of those towns has an area where it is rife with drugs. You'll see a lot of it on television. It's been dramatised but when you actually go into those areas they are virtually no-go areas. Drugs are rife and nothing from Ronald Reagan's war on drugs made one iota of difference. It has simply got worse and worse as time has gone on.All the tough talk—and I hear two of the colleagues on your right Mr King saying "Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs." Mr Hudson while people are still making those stupid comments nothing will be done. What we've got to do is understand that we have to now take a look at what we are doing.Portugal is a very good example. I was actually again fortunate enough to spend time in Portugal. What happened in Portugal was that they were hit with a drug problem. A little bit of history is important because each country is slightly different. They were a country that was very cut out from the rest of the world. They had basically missed the 1960s and 1970s—all the whole heroin liberalisation or that whole heroin wave had missed Portugal. However it hit them all of a sudden and they were getting massive deaths from heroin.They could have gone two ways. They could have gone the way the rest of Europe had gone and tried to hammer down the way of the sort of talk we're hearing this afternoon from the Opposition benches but they didn't. Again I'll go back to Mr Simeon Brown talking about the deaths. They were getting huge deaths from heroin overdose. What did they do? They actually went down and the doctor João—I forget his surname—came out here and I was actually able to spend time with him in Portugal. They actually took another approach and do you know what? The number of heroin deaths actually almost disappeared. It was almost an accidental approach. This guy was running something down in South Portugal and they said "It seems to be working down there. Bring it and let's run it nationally."Look it hasn't solved everything. They do have heroin problems. A good example for those who go to Europe: you can always tell a country that's got a heroin problem because you go to the local railway stations and there's always a lot of people running around and they seemed to have really baggy backsides in their jeans because that's a symptom of drug problems. A symptom of people with a lot of heroin issues is they stop eating. That's the first thing that happens. So just go and have a look. Actually when you know what you're looking for you can see where we have a drug problem.In New Zealand we have a major problem with methamphetamine. We have a major problem with synthetic drugs. Nothing we have done—for methamphetamine we've made it life imprisonment; we've upped all the sentences with methamphetamine. Mr King look at the seizure that you got in the North on the Ninety Mile Beach. It was a massive seizure. It was half a ton of methamphetamine. Do you know what effect that had on the price and availability of methamphetamine in New Zealand—the seizure of half a ton of methamphetamine? Absolutely and utterly none.So here you have colleagues sitting on your right saying "Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs." Well you know that the police in Northland were not soft on drugs. You know that the police in New Zealand were not soft on drugs. And yet it made no difference. So can I just say—and I'll implore those members on the opposite side—can you actually sit back and think what you could do. I would like to think that we all came to this House to do one thing: to make for a better country. Sitting and talking saying "Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs." like some little thing in a circus—it just simply doesn't work.Can we just get together on this one please and let's take it out of politics because if we politicise it—and look Oppositions and Labour Oppositions have been guilty of this in the past; go around the world police associations have been guilty in the past. Anyone who has been looking for a bit of air time on this they will say the same thing: "Hard on drugs. Hard on crime." Well actually it doesn't work. So can we please agree that there has to be a better way.I look at this legislation. Look in about 2012-2013 we had a major problem with synthetic drugs. Actually do you know why it was able to be fixed—not completely fixed but actually the situation was improved considerably? At that time the suppliers of synthetic drugs were mostly legal. Remember back—you used to be able to go down to your dairy and buy it. The first time I saw it my son had it. He had bought it and he told me showed it to me that he had bought this legally this stuff. That was the first time I understood. I was getting youth aid officers around the country ringing me saying "We've got to do something about that." Actually the legislation that went through at the time—because it banned legitimate dealers legitimate suppliers from dealing in the drug—in the short term had a very good effect. Actually generally synthetic drugs—while they didn't disappear—they were diminished considerably in the market.But then what happened? Actually do you know what did happen? The Christchurch earthquake happened. And do you know what happened in the Christchurch earthquake? Drug testing. A lot of the workers that came from overseas realised that with synthetic drugs—cannabis would show up other drugs would show up but these synthetic drugs wouldn't show up. And actually that's one of the big problems we have. That's why people who know the risks are prepared to use it: because they know it will actually pass your drug test. What I'll say: the one that won't two weeks later is cannabis. So you can take this extremely dangerous substance that will kill some of its users that does kill some of its users but actually you can still climb up a building you can still climb up on the scaffolding and use this stuff.So this is how integrated it is and this is how stupid it is for people to sit and say "Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs. Soft on drugs." It's a stupid thing to say and I would ask the Opposition to stop saying it because it is going to be the one thing that is going to prevent a decent joined-up approach to doing something about this problem.For a member to stand up and talk about that yeah 85 or however many 80-odd people have died and to think that passing one little bill that was going to increase the sentencing to eight years was going to make an iota of difference well I'm sorry there's too many other things at play—the things that I've talked about notably the drug-testing regime. Nothing will work in isolation. To sit there and say "Soft on drugs. Soft or drugs." is just the most stupid damaging thing to do. I will request those opposite to stop doing it because the real victims will be those who will die because if we end up so polarised on this that we end up doing nothing about it then actually the situation will continue to deteriorate. And the situation that Matt King and Mark Mitchell and myself worked on for years and now have to admit has not really made an iota of difference will continue. And we the whole of this House will have missed an opportunity to actually try to do something that is not only going to reduce deaths but is actually going to reduce harm. Let's all agree that it would be better if fewer drugs of any type—illicit or otherwise—are used.I could talk about OxyContin—a legal drug that is now highly illegal that actually caused more deaths than this in the United States and caused more problems than that. That was a legal drug and that again caused—for another time perhaps. I commend this bill to the House."