Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Greens on this the committee of the whole House stage of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill and I think that I actually can be of some use in addressing the questions put by the member Simeon Brown because the Minister is on the record a number of times speaking to that point. But also I think that it would be quite useful to take him through a history lesson as to how the expert advisory committee came to be and what its powers actually are given that he consistently refers to them. So the member the National Party member Simeon Brown asked why the Minister chose this legislative process to reclassify the two chemical compounds that are implicated in the deaths of nigh on 100 New Zealanders. He noted that the National Party supports the increase of penalties for the supply and production of these two chemicals but he doesn't note that the National Party doesn't support what is perhaps the most important part of this legislation which deviates from his own member's bill which he referred to as well multiple times—that being the ability for those who are caught in the web of addiction to access help and to access treatment and the codification the explicit codification of police discretion to choose to put people down that therapeutic pathway. So to let Mr Simeon Brown know the expert advisory committee came into effect in the early 2000s as a result of amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 an archaic piece of legislation by any measure especially given the huge swathes of evidence internationally that have progressed with regard to drug harm reduction. But the expert advisory committee was established with the powers limited solely to recommending where substances should be classified in relation to other substances and where they are classified.The expert advisory committee simply put cannot recommend anything but classification. They are limited in being unable to recommend alternative better harm reduction measures that are evidence-based. They can literally only refer to harm and where within the classification of other substances the substances that they are speaking to should be classified. I find it an interesting point raised by the member of the Opposition but that brings me particularly to the part which the Opposition doesn't support—probably because it actually requires taking some action that would actually make a difference.I'll refer now to Supplementary Order Paper 291 in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett. I hope that she does seek a call on this given that it is in her name because what this Supplementary Order Paper actually seeks to do is remove the most important parts of this legislation in that it seeks to remove or delete clause 6 which legislates police discretion. There's a little bit of misinformation—might be one way to put it—in the explanatory note that the Hon Paula Bennett has put together because she says which legislates police discretion not to prosecute for the possession and use of controlled drugs." That is not quite true.For the fourth or fifth time I will read out to the members in Opposition what clause 6 actually does explicitly per this legislation as drafted. It says "To avoid doubt"—the members may want to read this—"it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute for an offence against this subsection (1)(a) and a prosecution should not be brought unless it is required in the public interest." Interestingly enough when this was being debated in the first and second reading the Opposition the National Party sought to say that this made absolutely no change whatsoever to how the police currently operate. They sought to say that this makes absolutely no change but then they simultaneously on the other hand said that it was a huge fundamental change.So I put it to the members of the National Party opposite to get clarity and coherency of their position on this legislation. Ultimately fundamentally do they want to punish people who are caught in the web of addiction? What this legislation does is make it explicit that the police have the power to prosecute as a backstop; otherwise they should be directing to a therapeutic approach."