Doocey Matt; Williams PotoMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. Fantastic to hear the support of New Zealand First that will allow this bill to be passed tonight in its first reading and go to select committee. I just want to follow on where Darroch Ball left off and I agree with him—where does eight years come from? But in fact that speaks of the process this bill will now go through—the legislative process of going to a select committee hearing evidence from the public and the experts maybe looking at experiences overseas and understanding what the best penalty is because what we had today was Stuart Nash from Labour defending a line that let's be honest he struggled to defend. Every point he raised was basically a reason why Labour should be supporting the bill. Stuart Nash said he agreed with the intent of the bill. Well what's the point of a first reading? For parties to debate the intent of the bill. If you agree with the intent send it to select committee work out the detail and then if you don't like it you don't need to vote for it further down the legislative process. Look I can accept that rhetoric from the hand-wringing liberal-left Green Party but to hear it from someone like Stuart Nash and the Labour Party—I mean you can't fall into this dichotomy that it's either rehabilitation or punitive approaches. In fact if you look at drug treatment it's both. Both are levers for changing behaviour and that is why this is one lever the MP Simeon Brown sponsoring this bill—and I must say what a start to this guy's political career because what this bill represents is a member of Parliament who's engaging his community and listening to the issues that are affecting them. What's he done? Well he's made a bill put it in the ballot and it got pulled out and it will go through and make a real difference in the community he serves. What's the point of being a member of Parliament if you're not listening to your community and passing bills that will make a difference in the community you serve? Not only that but he's started a petition so he's gathering support wider than his electorate across the country and I'm looking forward to hearing more from Simeon Brown about this bill and other issues that he will bring to the House. Coming back to my point it's not all about rehabilitation at one side of the continuum and punitive approaches. It's both and how do we give people and the Government agencies the levers to ultimately break the cycle? But let's not forget—because you're going to hear arguments from other parties right when I sit down who are going to talk about concepts of harm reduction—harm reduction does not make drugs safe. It reduces the risks of drugs—a clear difference. It reduces the risk of drugs. It does not make drug taking safe. But in fact that's a red herring because this bill is not about drug takers. This bill is about drug dealers who prey on people and we're probably here not even talking about recreational users because yep the evidence will show a lot of young people will try things in that risk-taking period of their life—teenage years young adults—and they move on quite successfully. Unfortunately for some people they get caught in that lifestyle and it's an addiction. These are drug dealers and Stuart Nash tried to propose Well it's all about services for mental health and drug addicts." Well what's the evidence? I would say a lot of these drug dealers probably don't even use the drugs themselves but they're happy to peddle it on to people who are addicted themselves. So it's one lever. It's one lever to support this field. When you look at it the increased risk of synthetic drugs—their growing intensity and severity has killed 20 people in 12 months and the penalty is up to two years. A drug that is actively killing 20 people every 12 months and the penalty is two years. This bill will make it up to eight years—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."