O'Connor Simon; Tolley AnneSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker delighted. Thank you very much—Matt Doocey: Thank you very much thank you thank you. SIMON O'CONNOR: Yeah I can't quite get deep enough. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill at the third reading. Can I actually acknowledge the member who's taken his seat. We are disappointed on this side of the House that we cannot—and I can't speak for the member of the bill Simeon Brown but I think at the start I'm pleased that there was cooperation between National and New Zealand First including moving from eight to 14 years. We are of course disappointed now that New Zealand First is not continuing to support this bill; it's going a little bit soft I think around this drug law. But to acknowledge—we'll come back to some of the other parties on this in a moment and we've got a few doozys for the Greens a bit later—the initial work that New Zealand First did in supporting this bill and again on record noting not taking it through to this third reading.Can I acknowledge Simeon Brown. He's been the face of this; he has pushed this bill through with great passion. I think that passion's come through a particular experience with a family and their experiences and the loss of their son. It started with a petition which well over 1000 Kiwis signed and took an opportunity to express their views that more needed to be done. I think—really positively—Simeon has not only championed the cause but properly engaged with those who not only mourn the loss of loved ones because of the use of these substances but supporting those who still struggle; then to take it from a petition and bring it into this House as a piece of legislation. With the luck that seems to come to some politicians and only once to myself it was drawn very quickly from the ballot and here we are.Hon Maggie Barry: Don't be bitter.SIMON O'CONNOR: I'll try not to be bitter. There's probably a pill I can take for that anyway a legal one.Really fundamentally this is about supply and distribution. This is about those who peddle these substances. They're incredibly dangerous substances as are all drugs in fact those which are legal or illegal. But one of the nasty attributes of psychoactive substances is that we really don't know what's in them and that really increases the danger. But why it's incredibly important to stress that this is about the supply and distribution is that we've heard speeches in this House including from the Green Party and from Labour conflating I would suggest deliberately the user with the distributor. This bill is not criminalising the users. This bill I'll say it again is not criminalising the users; it's specifically deliberately targeting those who supply and distribute these drugs. These drugs which kill people—they kill people. We had over 80 New Zealanders die through the use of these drugs.One of the reasons this side of the House is a bit agitated about the lack of support—and look that's democracy we appreciate that. We'll see what the final vote brings. Why we're agitated is that the talk about the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill that is slowly winding its way through the House is that this bill would provide an immediate partial solution—no one presumes that this is going to fix it overnight; anyone would be naive to think that the drug problem is not too difficult. But had this bill passed we would have made a positive strong deliberate step to actually reducing drug harm by targeting those who peddle these dangerous drugs. Instead we're being told that there's this Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill which will eventually get passed I assume in this House. There are two problems with that. One it's not passed. It's still a bill; it's still progressing through select committee. It's got to come back through its various readings. So when people lament the death of 80 New Zealanders over a year you have to think well what does that mean if it takes another year for this Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill to pass? What excuse do we make to those 80 dead people and their families?The other side too is the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is a misuse of the English language because it's really pro-use of drugs. There is very much a distinction in this House between those who are pro-drugs and those who are not. The Green Party in particular have been—I'll give them credit—very consistent in saying that drug use is OK it's a health issue. As I've often termed it when people talk about a health issue" it basically means one person can use drugs and everyone else pays the consequences. But they are generally pro-drugs and that's why the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is effectively decriminalising all drugs. I see actually today in the paper the Green Party are also really keen on the use of drugs like phenobarbital for the sick the disabled and the elderly. So I'll give the Green Party credit—you are consistent so we'll give you that.So we oppose this here because to approach the drug issue is always about a multifaceted approach. This side of the House—those of us who are not pro-drugs who are tougher on crime tougher on drugs—are often told we're just singular in our view. The flipside to that is that when we listen to the likes of the Green Party and other libertarians—which is really just a childish philosophy—really they only have a singular approach as well and most of us know that it is about both. So we can have a health approach. We can in a sense work and try to support those with drug addictions. I've spent a good chunk of my life helping people with drug addictions in different shapes and forms and it's great that we try to help them. Criminalising them is not the way forward. The criminalisation side comes on the suppliers the dealers. You attempt as best you can to stop the supply.No one believes least of all myself that we're ever going to stop this. But I've said it so many times in the House it probably bores myself as much as everyone else that the enemy of the good is the perfect. So the element here is fundamentally we're never going to get it absolutely perfectly right but we can always make these attempts. The law in particular always sends a signal particularly to our young people that in this case drug use is not right. Our laws too very importantly send signals around what is criminal and what is not where life is important and where it is not. The law is an incredibly important statement.You begin to see unfortunately particularly from the other side the contradictions that kick in because it's the fundamental argument—and one of the Green speakers that took her seat pushed through what is a fairly familiar argument. It's always prefixed with the notion that all the evidence points in that direction. Well all the evidence will always point in that direction if that's the only evidence you look at and not all the other evidence. Because this is actually a debating point; there is a whole lot of evidence and contrary information that has to be debated. But a lot of the argument that was coming through from the Green Party and others is you know you don't and shouldn't legislate around this sort of stuff—drugs. It won't change behaviours—Marama Davidson: Reduce harm—reduce harm.SIMON O'CONNOR: —in fact laws like this just increase the harm. The laws just make things worse. I heard some of that coming back through there. In fact one of the things was "It just turns the problem into the shadows. It pushes the problems into the shadows." One of the things I love to do is look at consistency in arguments. So when that proffered by the likes of the Green Party around drugs—so don't do harder drug laws. In fact try not to have any laws around drugs really because it won't change the behaviour it'll make things worse. It'll turn the problems and push them into the shadows.So what I'm really interested to know is what the Greens think if I apply that to let me think hate speech. Because they're really keen on using that approach to have hate speech legislation pushed on to this House. They actually want to criminalise words—not drugs but words. So I just encourage the Green Party to think about that when they advocate for the limiting of New Zealand's speech that if that's going to be the case that won't change behaviour. It will make things worse and it will push things into the shadows. That's just something for the Green Party to think about because consistency is incredibly incredibly important.One thing you'll find particularly when it comes to drugs that I will myself—and I'm pretty sure all on this side of the House—remain consistent on is that we need to basically have a dual approach to drugs and really fundamentally this bill that Simeon Brown's put forward is singularly targeted at the suppliers and the distributors of these insidious drugs. It created a system that was proportionate. It was going to put all of these psychoactive substances into a class B category. It didn't have to require a new—what is it—C1 a new one that's made up. It was a swift and efficient mechanism.So we've had lots of rending of garments around the various drugs—I don't have it right in front of me here—that's the 5F-ADB and AMB-FUBINACA. These can be put into the schedules by the Minister of Health right now by Order in Council. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is making rather I would suggest cumbersome process. Simeon Brown's suggestion was just to make all psychoactive substances into a class B and so fundamentally the nature of psychoactive substances is that they are not let's say predetermined as a heroin or a fentanyl. Phenobarbital—we're going to hear more about that drug. It's fascinating. The disabled hate it. We'll learn more in a few weeks about that. But psychoactive substances are constantly constantly changing and the moment that we legislate one by name—so like the AMB-FUBINACA—you just make one little change and it's no longer that. So there's a real challenge here for the Government to work harder and stronger and better to actually understand what—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member. His time has finished.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m."