Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of this Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill (No 2). I just want to start by reminding people in the House and those listening at home that this bill started last year after the election and we first had the piece of legislation which temporarily allowed for these drug-checking services to be provided over summer—because it was all just about We would like to have the opportunity for young New Zealanders who go to music festivals to have their drugs checked at music festivals." Well that's not what we're talking about here today. This is a much much wider piece of legislation. It's a piece of legislation which allows for these services to operate at a much wider variety of places—in fact with very few limitations—and I think that is a point which many New Zealanders would be very very concerned about. And it sends the wrong message. It sends a very wrong message about what this Parliament considers in regards to illicit drug use in New Zealand.We've heard my very good colleague Mark Mitchell talk about the evidence which is very clear around what this legislation will do—and the false hope that it will give to young people around what is in the substances that are being checked. The only one piece of evidence—the only one piece of evidence—which the Government members have been able to point to to try and argue the fact that this will make things safer for young people using drugs is a self-selected study put out by the University of Victoria where they asked people to fill out a survey. They literally went and put a survey on Facebook and said "If you've used substances recently we'd love you to fill out this survey." And then the University of Victoria has put out a self-selected survey which has come up with some so-called evidence which they're basing all of the arguments on all of the arguments about how this is going to make things safer for young people. But when you actually dig into the detail of that survey firstly you can disregard it for the fact that it's not scientific; it's basically junk science with a self-selected bias. But if you dig into it and you look at the questions which were asked around whether or not people would continue to use the drugs even if they were found to have substances in it that they didn't expect about 80 to 90 percent of people said they'd still use them—80 to 90 percent of people would still use those substances even if they went through the drug-checking service and were told "Look yep your MDMA has also been mixed with some rat poison. And here it is. We'll hand it back."—80 to 90 percent. So if you think you're actually solving a problem here all you're doing is you're giving false hope to young people.If this legislation was actually about creating a safer environment for those people who choose to use those drugs why does the legislation not require the drug-checking service people if there's a substance if some young person comes along and says "Look I've got these pills. I was told they're MDMA. I just want to have them checked to make sure before I take them."—put them through the machine and it comes out and says "Actually you've got a dud. It's a bit of MDMA; it's a bit of rat poison."—shouldn't the bill say that those drugs should be confiscated? If it's about reducing harm wouldn't it make sense to actually say "Hey hey hey we're taking those back off you because of the fact they're not what you expected of them." And actually the safest thing to do particularly in light of the fact there's an 80 percent chance that person is going to go and use them anyway is you take them off that young person. But this piece of legislation does not do that.And the other fact that this piece of legislation ignores is that in the vast majority of cases where people have lost their lives tragically because of use of MDMA substances it's not because of some rat poison. When the coroner goes and does the investigation it's actually the MDMA which is doing the killing. And there's a study done by the University of New South Wales which looked across 16 years I think it was of cases in New South Wales coronial examinations of the cause of death and found what the cause of death was in a drug overdose case and it was not some impurity in those substances; it was actually the use of those substances. And so again we're giving false hope to our young people about the use of these drugs which I think is very very concerning.As I said earlier it's not just now about music festivals which was where this all started; it's now about whether it's at your university campus or whether it's K Road—I think that example was used in one of the debates—but it doesn't limit it. There's no limitation to say "Actually we know young people you know hang out around the school gate at high schools quite often and drug dealers come." If you talk to principals at a number of schools this is quite a big deal. Well there's nothing to say that this service couldn't be offered outside the school as well. That's something that I know many many parents would be incredibly concerned about.But there's other problems in this piece of legislation too. There's no restrictions on who can be doing the drug-checking service. And my colleague Penny Simmonds the MP for Invercargill asked a very good question of the Minister earlier this week and a very simple question which was: can a gang member get the licence to undertake drug-checking services? And he couldn't answer the question because the answer is: a gang member can. We know gang members are peddling drugs and peddling misery up and down New Zealand.Hon Andrew Little: The member should have read the bill.SIMEON BROWN: Well the Minister didn't even answer the question—the Minister didn't answer the question. They are not explicitly excluded under this piece of legislation from being able to operate a drug-checking service. If the Minister was concerned about it he would make it crystal clear that someone who is a gang member cannot be operating a drug-checking service under this piece of legislation.What about people who've got convictions under the legislation regarding drugs in New Zealand as well? There's no restriction on them as well. This is something which is of significant concern to New Zealanders and if the Minister wanted to be clear about those facts he would have put it in his initial statement. He would have put it in the legislation. He would have answered the question last week which he failed to answer for Penny Simmonds.There's other issues in regards to how this operates as well. I've talked about where these operations can happen. I've talked about who can operate these operations but also it's in terms of the whole process and the regulations. There's a whole lot of regulations which will have to come from this legislation and I'm assuming that's where the Minister's suggesting a whole lot of these regulations will actually happen. If it's so important put it in the primary legislation—if it's actually that important put it in the primary legislation. Don't hope it ends up in the regulation. If something is as important as that it needs to be in the actual legislation in the letter of the law that this Parliament is sending and making it very very crystal clear.The other point I'd like to raise in regards to this is around the process through which these drug-checking services—so if a gang member wants to get their drugs checked there's no restriction on him then going out there and saying "Oh look I've checked my substances with the KnowYourStuff people down the road at K Road. So if you buy from me you can know I'm selling the good stuff." Well that's not exactly what we want to see in New Zealand either because actually we've got a situation where we know we've got gangs peddling misery and peddling drugs. They're the ones who are often the supply chain for these substances and this piece of legislation doesn't put any limitations in place and this opens up significant risk around how they are going to be marketing their substances and using their substances out there in the community.So in conclusion this piece of legislation does not leave our young people any safer. It will be giving them a very false sense of security a false sense of hope. If this legislation was really about protecting young people it would be sending a much clearer message and it would at least—at least—be saying "If there was a contaminant in those substances those drugs should be confiscated." But that's not on this piece of legislation. The National Party cannot support legislation which sends a soft-on-drugs message. The soft peddling of illicit substances in New Zealand is something we cannot support. We do not commend this bill to the House."