Faafoi Kris: Psychoactive Substances Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Psychoactive Substances Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 11 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12006. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Well I do have to agree with the one thing that that member Jian Yang said which was that the Psychoactive Substances Bill is an excellent bill.Hon Member: It was only one.KRIS FAAFOI: It was just that one thing. Many months ago I went to a meeting in my electorate and met the principal of BishopViard College a good Catholic college in my electorate. Teresa Cargo the principal there highlighted her concern about synthetic cannabis and the awful effects that it was having in her classrooms. She spoke of the students who were constantly stoned under the effect of K2 I think it was at that stage and also her concerns about the approaches that were being made to the students. Many of her students were not going to the local dairies or the tobacconists to buy their K2; they were actually being approached in the streets under the canopies in the centre of Porirua by people on the street selling K2 to them targeting young students in uniform and she was very concerned about this.This is an excellent bill for the community of Mana. I also want to praise the other principals in Porirua who at the meeting also raised concerns. Many of them were actually primary school principals who were talking about the effects that not just some of the students had been displaying in their classrooms but unfortunately some of their parents. So today is a victory for those communities.I would also like to praise the work of the local Porirua City councillor WaynePoutoa who runs the Streets Ahead 237 scheme in Porirua. He is another person another leader in my community who came forward and proactively came to me and said: “Look we have got some kids some teenagers who are vulnerable.” He looks after them and he was very concerned about the effects that synthetic cannabis was having on some of the young people that he was looking after. Teresa Cargo WaynePoutoa and Paul Basham who is the local area commander for the Kapiti-Mana region were three leaders of the Porirua community who came together and wanted this House to do something swiftly about synthetic cannabis. That is why today is a victory for many communities around the country.I also pay tribute to some of whom I call the responsible retailers in the Porirua area who responded to a letter that I sent out asking them not to sell synthetic cannabis any more. They were perfectly within their legal rights to do so but because of the concern that was obviously there in the community that I have mentioned before they took a proactive step and took the product off their shelves. To those dairy owners who did not and willingly did not I think they should have a good look at themselves. Obviously they were legally entitled to do this but they were well aware of the harm that was being done in our communities and they actively kept selling synthetic cannabis. One good thing out of this bill is that they will no longer be able to do that.Those concerned people in our communities have been waiting a fair amount of time to have this bill passed. As the member previously said this is an excellent bill but if there are some criticisms about how this bill has gone through the House one of them is that it has taken far too long. The recommendations out of the Law Commission report that basically were the base of this bill were presented to this Parliament about 2½ years ago. We had to wait 2½ years for this Government to prioritise it and we had the communities getting up in arms all these young people had all these bad effects and we had the disruption to classrooms and the disruptions and the rubbish in our streets and our homes before we took some serious action.So although I do want to praise Peter Dunne who was the Minister originally responsible for this bill there also has to be some scepticism as to why this was not given higher priority given some of the other bills that this Government prioritised ahead of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. This bill languished on the Order Paper for well over 12 months when this Government could have done something much sooner to take this stuff off the streets. Looking around the House I am pretty sure that everyone in this House is supporting this bill but we have had to wait so long for us to get—Hon Trevor Mallard: I don’t think John Banks is.KRIS FAAFOI: OK maybe I stand corrected. But we had to wait so long for this bill to get to where we are. I praise MPs right around the House who have taken action—Dr Paul Hutchison: Worked constructively.KRIS FAAFOI: —and constructive action. I thank Dr Paul Hutchison the chair of the Health Committee. And well done as well to the members on the Health Committee who have taken proactive action within their own communities like I did in order to make sure that before this legislation was passed we did as much as we could to reduce the harm especially to our youngsters in our communities. I think that showed not just leadership in this House but also that we were listening to our communities to make sure they were much much safer.I also heap praise as I already have not only on my local police force but on police right around the country. I know certainly listening to public debate that they have been working hard and I guess there may have been a bit of sense of frustration on their behalf that this law had not been passed sooner. But they were dealing with the rough end of the stick here because this House had not done something sooner. They were dealing with the crime that was being caused they were dealing with the disruption and unfortunately they were dealing with some violence amongst families because people were taking this drug. You should not be able to walk into a dairy in this country and legally buy something that gets you high. That should not be fine. I think that if there is a criticism of this House from the public it is that this House should have some done something much much faster.As you heard from my colleague Clare Curran the National Poisons Centre has had a huge spike in requests for help in terms of synthetic cannabis. If that is not a sign for this House that something should have happened much much sooner I do not know what we would need to see.This is a good day. It is a victory for our communities right around the country many of whom have taken positive action and protested outside their local dairies that have been selling it. Many have asked for a responsible retailing regime within their own communities to make sure that across the board we can identify those retailers who have taken responsible action and said that it is not OK to sell this rubbish in our communities.I do want to also back up a point Clare Curran made. We also need to make sure that there are the resources within our communities to follow up this law and if there is onecriticism or one point I do want to make it is that police are under so much pressure at the moment with resources that they need to be given the backing to make sure they can go out and give effect to this legislation that we are passing today. Paul Hutchison made an interjection earlier—it was not necessarily heckling—and I would like to pay tribute to the Health Committee.Hon Trevor Mallard: It was shocking that they didn’t hear the submissions.KRIS FAAFOI: I have not finished yet. I used to be a member on the Health Committee in the previous Parliament and I found that Mr Hutchison always acted with dignity. I thank the Health Committee for its work and for making sure that most of the submissions were listened to. I know there is some scepticism as to why some submissions around animal testing were not heard and that is something that this side of the House is very disappointed about.This bill is a victory for communities. They have put up with a fair bit of rubbish but today we are getting through this House a piece of legislation that will hopefully stop that rubbish from being in our streets our schools and our homes.