Wall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17524. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to participate in the first reading of the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill. I do so as a member of the Health Committee which considered the original piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge the 119 of us in this House who voted in support of that legislation. I was one of those people. But I do want to highlight a couple of learning opportunities for us as a Parliament. The first learning opportunity was the manner in which that bill was rushed through the House. The reality is we had a truncated process to meet a deadline that the Government knew about. It forced us as a Parliament to rush through a piece of legislation we are now here having to correct. The reason we are here to correct it is that the people of New Zealand collectively have come out they have marched and they have shown that democracy in this country works. I also need to pay tribute to John Campbell and theCampbell Live programme for allowing the content of our community to be seen and for allowing the large number of people in communities around our country who have huge problems with these substances to have the forum have the platform to then influence this Government.As a member of the select committee I thought it was very interesting that the transition provisions—you are right—were put into the original legislation because we did not want blanket prohibition. That was the reality. We recognised that there were products in the country that needed to be regulated. We did not want prohibition so what we did was say that if the products had been sold within the last 3 months that was the qualification for them to be sold. But the major flaw in the bill that we as a collective group of parliamentarians enacted on 18 July last year was that we were to develop regulations around the approval process for psychoactive products. What the public of New Zealand needs to know is that the Ministry of Health was empowered with that responsibility. It was the responsibility of the then Associate Minister of Health Todd McClay to implement that piece of legislation.What I have just found out through one of his own press releases is that on 21 March this year the Ministry of Health concluded its submission process. So in fact the Ministry of Health at this point in time has not developed the approval process which is actually the biggest flaw in the Act that we are now aiming to address. That is absolutely the fault of the Government. The Government is trying to say it is the fault of Parliament. Actually it is not; it is the fault of the Government.What I want to do is acknowledge our local councils because we did empower our local councils to develop local approved products policy. What I know is that in my community of Manurewa my local board organised a meeting on 14 August last year so that my community could participate in a process to develop our local approved products policy. Local councils like Napier City Council and Hamilton City Council were on to it. Our councils our elected local board officials were on to it. This Parliament was not on to it. We are all here tonight rushing this bill through because of the implementation of the primary piece of legislation which that Government absolutely has to take responsibility for because unless you have developed a regime—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.LOUISA WALL: I thought it was appropriate after the dinner break to talk about why this Parliament voted for the Psychoactive Substances Act. It became a problem for us as a country because on 1 August 2013 there were temporary class drug notices that were going to expire. That would have enabled 30 substances in 50 products that we had deemed unsafe to go back on to the market. So it was with some urgency that we rushed the legislation through. For those people listening Associate Minister of Health Dunne introduced the bill on 26 February 2013. The first reading was on 9 April the second reading was on 27 June the Committee stage was on 9 July and we passed the legislation on 17 July. So my primary point before the dinner break was that on 18 July when the Psychoactive Substances Act became an Act of the New Zealand Parliament no regulations had been created. The importance of those regulations was in fact in the development of a psychoactive products approval process. In fact one of the reasons we are here today is that the Government to this day has not implemented a regime that would see us engage in a process that could deem products to be safe and fit for human consumption.One of the wins I believe we had on the Health Committee was ensuring that the purpose of the Psychoactive Substances Act—and I am going to read it—was “to regulate the availability of psychoactive substances in New Zealand to protect the health of and minimise harm to individuals who use psychoactive substances.” So as a House as representatives of communities right across the country we did recognise that we hadto do something. So I want to acknowledge the Ministers who have been involved in this piece of legislation. Initially it was the Hon Peter Dunne then it was the Hon Todd McClay and now we see the Hon Tony Ryall leading the passage of this Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill through the House.But one of the major issues of contention I guess has been around section 66 of the Psychoactive Substances Act. As a member of the select committee we were really clear that we wanted to empower local communities to develop local approved products policy. What we saw was a very mobilised energised community and local government sector which undertook that task earnestly. So we saw Napier City Council come out in early January 2014 with a comprehensive local approved products policy but the problem that we had was that the regime that should have regulated whether or not products were safe for consumption by New Zealanders was not implemented and to this day it is not implemented.I do want to highlight as a member of the select committee that we were not able to hear submissions about whether or not psychoactive substances should be tested on animals. I would like to acknowledge Mojo Mathers for the leadership that she showed in actually holding her own hearings and getting a lot of New Zealanders to make submissions outside of the select committee process. In fact my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has been engaged in a process just recently that has led to 48000 New Zealanders being very clear that they do not want to test these products on animals.I just want to clarify for the record the position of the Hon John Banks. On 27 June in the second reading debate on the Psychoactive Substances Bill he said: “If you cannot prove your [new-found] drug of choice is safe without putting animals in abject misery you cannot sell the drug.” So the emphasis for the Hon John Banks was in fact about protecting animals. I understand that and I commend him for that position. But when we look at his vote against that bill it was not because he did not want these products to be sold; he just did not want animals used in the testing regime to determine whether or not those substances were safe.I think we were all very clear as a Parliament that prohibition from a central government perspective was not the solution. We unfortunately have been flooded in terms of the market for these products. But what I would like to highlight in my final few minutes are two issues that I think are going to be really important going forward and that the Minister will have to oversee. One is around enforcement of the products. So at 1 minute past midnight on Thursday when this legislation has Royal assent and becomes the law of the country we have to make sure that police are empowered with the resources to ensure that a black market does not develop. In fact that was one of the compelling reasons why we as a select committee approved this bill because we were worried about the products that were in the country.The second issue is the health and well-being of addicts. Because these products have been allowed to be sold in our communities we need to ensure—and Minister this is I guess directly under your responsibility—that people who have addictions people who have mental health issues and people who need support through no fault of their own can access support whether it be counselling or other forms of support to help them through this process. Obviously none of us want people to transition from these drugs to other illegal drugs. They need support so that will be one of the critical follow-ups. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway who holds this shadow portfolio—