Roy Heather: Motions — Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003—Approval 
Roy Heather: Motions — Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003—Approval 
[Volume:615;Page:11493] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 ACT will support this motion but has some very serious difficulties with the process—or lack of process—that occurred when this Order in Council was at the select committee stage. ACT supports the classification because what was previously in place regarding in particular the power of the Customs Service to act on the importation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine preparations was certainly inadequate. A fine of $500 and/or up to 3 months’ imprisonment was no deterrent at all to the importation of the quantities that the Customs Service was increasingly seeing. 
Classifying pseudoephedrine and ephedrine will increase the penalties and that is much more appropriate. As a member previously stated there will be up to 8 years’ imprisonment for importation manufacture or supply and up to 7 years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit an offence. The effect of the classification will be to give the Customs Service wider powers to investigate importation syndicates and allow for penalties that will be a genuine deterrent to importation. 
I want to turn to the lack of process during the select committee stage. We know that this motion was discussed widely in October 2003 yet it was not until 2 weeks before Parliament was due to rise for the Christmas break last year that this Order in Council was brought to the select committee. The select committee members went back to their caucuses and a week later—in the last week of Parliament—were told that there were three submissions before them. Each of the three submitters held grave concerns about the effect the classification would have on people being able to buy their ephedrine and pseudoephedrine cough and cold remedies across the counter in chemist shops. 
This highlights the lack of public consultation on the classification proposal. It was very remiss and ACT would like to voice strongly its objection to the way this happened. We were told that as a result of the Order in Council the three submitters were very worried that some medications that can currently be bought across the counter would become dispensary only—anything that contained more than 60 milligrams per tablet of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine—so that people could not buy them unless they spoke to a pharmacist. It was also thought that night-and-day preparations would become prescription only so that people would then have to go to their doctor at a cost of about $40 to $50—unless they happened to live in a Maori-loaded area in which case they could get very cheap consultations through the Government’s new primary health organisations and pay $10. Still a visit to the doctor would be necessary as well as the additional cost of the preparation on top of that. This is clearly a very unsatisfactory course of events. 
We are assured by the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Jim Anderton that this will not be the case but the lack of public consultation on this classification proposal highlights the confusion that can exist when the process is not gone through in the proper way or the proper channels not followed. Punishing 99 percent of the population because 1 percent of the population is not able to function in a law-abiding way is no way at all to work on such problems. ACT is supporting the proposal because it fully supports the additional powers that the Customs Service will be given as a result of this Order in Council being passed. 
The speaker before me Matt Robson from the Progressive party said he was disappointed that this matter did not have full support and unity in the select committee. It did not because of the bulldozer approach of the Associate Minister of Health and the attempt to get it through in a sneaky way that is indicative of some of Labour’s other legislation that has been passed recently. 
We should also not forget that this is not the only measure for dealing with the P epidemic we see in the country at the moment. The Government announced last year that extra money in the Budget would go towards extra resourcing for police yet despite the escalating P problem and the proliferation of methamphetamine laboratories nationwide that money was deferred to 1 January 2004. It clearly shows that the Government was not giving priority to this problem yet it is prepared to bulldoze through classifications such as the one we are seeing now. 
In summary we support this Order in Council but we would like to voice very strongly our disapproval of the manner in which it has been pushed through the select committee and come before the House. It is inappropriate and we certainly will not support things like this happening again. In this case it is a very serious matter—[ 
Interruption 
] Perhaps the newly appointed junior whip would like to take a call? 
Darren Hughes 
: No I was talking to Mr Jones. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Mr Hughes was interrupting the flow of the discussion. 
As I was saying ACT is supporting this measure but the process has been followed in a very unconventional and inappropriate way. 
Motion agreed to.