Hague Kevin: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11783. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):This is a good point for me to pick up from after the contribution from the Associate Minister of Health Todd McClay which I welcome and thank him for. Indeed I thank him in general for what he has added to this bill the Psychoactive Substances Bill because it is a better bill than the bill that the Hon Peter Dunne introduced to this House.Indeed what the Minister says is quite right. I am sure that no member of this Committee is interested in passing legislation that increases the risk to New Zealanders—that sees unsafe products on the shelves. This issue of animal testing I think highlights an error of logic on the part of the Government and I am going to come to that shortly.As Iain Lees-Galloway has said the amendment made by the select committee to the purpose statement of the bill is a very good one. We now clearly set out with the objective of protecting the health of and minimising harm to individuals who use psychoactive substances. That is a great step forward and indeed that should be the prism by which we evaluate the rest of what is in the bill. Actually through consideration of the rest of the bill by means of that prism some errors in fact emerge. Those are errors around the issues of animal testing and they come up in Part 1 and Part 2 and around possession offences in Part 3.I want to briefly touch on clause 9 also which relates to the meaning of “psychoactive substance”. That meaning needs to be read against the offences for possession that are in Part 3. I am going to come to that later when the Committee is discussing Part 3 but I want to highlight clause 9 because that definition of psychoactive substances is pivotal to determining whether or not a person actually is in possession of an unapproved psychoactive substance and it goes to the heart of a fundamental problem with that possession offence as it is cast.In this contribution I want to speak specifically about clauses 11 and 11A in relation to the expert advisory committee and in particular about the provision in subclause 11A(2) and in clause 11A generally that is made for there to be no animal testing provided that a suitable alternative exists. What I want to say to the Committee is that this is a clause that although superficially attractive in fact ensures that the meaning of our law will be determined by the courts and not by this House. I believe that that is not the certainty that Kiwi mums and dads and users of psychoactive substances actually need. It is not the certainty that the manufacturers importers and retailers of psychoactive substances need. What this Committee needs to do instead is actually be clear about what kind of testing is or is not permitted. Given that we are all concerned about safety it seems to me that those who are opposed to animal testing are not saying we oppose animal testing and that therefore an increased range of substances not tested on animals should hit the shelves. What we are instead saying is that there should be a higher standard a narrower range of tests that are appropriate. That in fact imposes a higher standard on the manufacturers importers and retailers of such substances.Dr Hutchison chair of the Health Committee has referred to the response from the interim expert advisory committee. I have to say that the select committee was taken rather by surprise on receiving the letter from this interim expert advisory committee. It was a letter addressed to a previous Associate Minister of Health the Hon Peter Dunne in response to a letter that he had sent to the committee seeking advice. It is important when we consider what that group had to say that we acknowledge that the group did not have in front of it the submissions that had been made by members of the public by experts and indeed by animal welfare organisations in relation to this. It did not have in front of it any of those submissions.What had occurred was that the chair had ruled all issues related to animal testing out of scope. The National members of the select committee had refused a motion that I had moved and that had been supported by members from Labour and from New Zealand First to hear those submissions none the less. The National members and in particular the National chair of that select committee Dr Paul Hutchison ruled all of that evidence out of scope. It was not heard by the select committee by the Government by the Associate Minister or by the interim expert advisory committee.It is a bit rich for the chair of the select committee to then come to this Chamber and talk about the consideration that had been given to expert advice because actually so much of the advice so much of the evidence that would have been available was ruled out of order and not even considered. I need to address the excuse that has been given by the chairman of the select committee Dr Paul Hutchison. He says—and he said it at the second reading also—that the Clerk of the House actually gave advice that forced him to rule those submissions out of order. In fact when the Clerk came to the select committee she was very specific that that was not the case. She said to us that any amendment to the Supplementary Order Paper that sought to amend the Animal Welfare Act would be out of scope for the bill but that did not mean that any submission that had been made to the select committee was automatically out of scope.I point out to this Committee of the whole House that in fact we now have in front of us an amendment made to the bill as introduced that very extensively deals with the issue of animal testing. Those amendments in clause 11A are not out of scope and therefore submissions that could have led to those very same clauses or improved clauses would have been very useful indeed to the select committee. I draw members’ attention to the submission of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society in particular which is addressed in the Green Party’s minority view in the select committee report and which sets out all of the suitable alternatives to animal testing that could have been used. I have to say that in the Chamber this afternoon today we have already heard that the National Government members will be voting against Mojo Mathers’ Supplementary Order Paper 260 but we have yet to hear a single argument as to why that Supplementary Order Paper is not a useful addition to the bill. I think that is a major problem.In my time remaining I wish to deal with one extra problem with clause 11A which relates to animal testing that occurs overseas. The reality is that this clause which is now in the bill will not result in no animals being tested; it will result in animal testing and much of that will occur in other countries. Although the clause as drafted actually puts a requirement on the authority to ensure that such overseas animal testing complies with New Zealand’s Animal Welfare Act in fact there is no realistic way in which the authority can ensure that that takes place.Clause 11A is certainly a major advance on the bill as introduced but it contains very major issues around monitoring and compliance and it ensures that on the pivotal issue of whether or not animals are actually harmed in order to determine whether or not these recreational drugs hit our shelves—on that very pivotal issue—it ducks responsibility. What it will ensure is that it is the courts that actually make that decision. I believe that that is not the correct way for Parliament to go about this. There is no requirement for us to do that—no requirement at all. Thank you.