Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. The member who just resumed her seat Jenny Marcroft is absolutely right: this is a very important issue and a very important bill. I have not been given the honour of serving on the Health Committee but I'm very interested in this issue and have worked with Dr Shane Reti and Michael Woodhouse and some colleagues on this—although as Mr Woodhouse has pointed out the vast overwhelming amount of the work on this issue has been done by Shane Reti bringing his years of clinical expertise governance and policy making to the issue and he has done a superb job. I thank my colleagues on this side of the House for their indulgence to speak in the debate on the second reading.The bill that has come back from the select committee is deficient in a number of different respects. You only had to look at the response from the public and the stakeholders—groups like the Drug Foundation and Shane Le Brun from Medicinal Cannabis Awareness New Zealand—when the bill was reported back some months ago to gauge the level of disappointment at what had come back from the select committee. Submitters who turned up in good faith and who asked for greater access who asked for a comprehensive regime to be developed felt like they were not listened to and they were right because the bill that has come back is as deficient as it was when it went into the select committee in the first place.I think it is fair to describe it as a Clayton's Medicinal Cannabis Bill". It was a 100-day promise of the Government that they said during the election campaign they would do. In the sense that it provides a statutory defence for those who have a terminal illness in the loosest way possible I suppose it liberalises the law around medicinal cannabis so the Prime Minister could say "I've taken action on medicinal cannabis." Except that it doesn't make the supply legal. It means any hospice worker or any hospital or any family member or a husband or a wife who happens to have marijuana who then happens to give it to someone with a terminal illness is committing a crime is acting illegally. The possession and the supply are illegal. It only means that a very few number of people are able to rely on the statutory defence.In the National Party's view it allows for loose-leaf cannabis which we do not believe should be permitted because we believe it will be a backdoor way to decriminalisation or legalisation. In a funny sort of way it actually significantly limits access—or at least there's far less access to medicinal cannabis than people who submitted on the committee actually want.And of course the biggest problem with the bill is that despite saying it sets up a medicinal cannabis regime it does not do that—it just does not. It subcontracts out to officials policy questions that should be the preserve of Parliament: where can you grow medicinal cannabis how will it be manufactured what standard will it be manufactured to how will people who are eligible for medicinal cannabis get it who will determine the eligibility what age do they have to be where will they buy it and how will it be procured? These are fundamental questions that can't just be left to officials and subcontracted off to the never-never—to 2021 2022 and beyond.Chlöe Swarbrick: 2019 now.CHRIS BISHOP: Well we'll see. So the bill that went into the select committee was flawed. The bill that's come back is flawed as well.What are we seeking to do in the National Party led by Dr Reti? We are seeking to fill the gaps in the legislative regime. We are seeking to in good faith provide the ballast—provide the substance—that's just not there. We've gone away and done the work led by Shane and he's informed by international best practice. He's been around the world and has talked to international experts.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Use his full name.CHRIS BISHOP: Dr Reti has been around the world and has talked to international experts. He's met with people in various regimes where medicinal cannabis has been well entrenched and understood for a number of years. We have done the work it's been through the Parliamentary Counsel Office and we are offering up our Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to the Government parties—the Greens New Zealand First and the Labour Party—in good faith and we hope that we will make some progress.I just want to touch briefly on the advance notice of the Government SOPs that may come later. This extension to palliation doesn't deal with one of the fundamental problems with the terminal illness exemption which is as I mentioned before that it doesn't do anything about the problem of hospice members and hospital workers and family members still committing criminal acts. Russell Brown has already pointed this out on Twitter: it doesn't deal with that fundamental problem at the heart of the bill. So that's the first thing.The second thing is "palliation" is an interesting word but I don't know what it means. We're yet to see what the definition is. We're yet to see exactly how it will be defined. New Zealand First has put out a press release congratulating itself on achieving a change to the bill but we don't actually know if it's a good idea or not. The definition of "palliation" wasn't considered by the select committee. I strongly suspect it wouldn't be backed by the official evidence if health officials were asked about it and so we're not really sure about that particular extension and of course we've still got that loose-leaf problem. So I'm not really sure that the Government SOPs improve the bill very much.But look the fundamental problem with this is the lack of the regime that it puts in place. I want to end my speech with a genuine good-faith plea to the Greens in particular New Zealand First and Labour. The National Party has moved quite a long way on the issue of medicinal cannabis. It's well known in our history that in Government a bill was not advanced. We did take some action around cannabidiols and other non-legislative mechanisms. But we came into Opposition as my good friend Dr Reti said we heard the voices of patients—all of us in the National Party have had people in our offices talking about the benefits that medicinal cannabis can provide for them or their loved ones. Our colleagues sat on the Health Committee and heard the submitters turn up and talk about how New Zealand needed to bring itself into line with lots of other countries which recognise that in specific circumstances for specific illnesses or ailments medicinal cannabis can have some effect.We listened. We listened and we did the work and we went away and we came up with a regime. Now we're in Opposition; if we were in Government we would put it into law. We would pass it through and we'd be proud of ourselves and we'd pat ourselves on the back and say "We did that." But we're not—we're not in Government; we're in Opposition. But I'm not one who believes that Opposition should just be about saying "no" all the time. We vote "no" on lots of different bills in this House and we'll keep doing that. I'm not one who got into politics to just say "no" all the time. I got into Parliament and got into politics to do stuff: to make New Zealand a better place to reform the laws that need reforming to put in place things that will make New Zealand a better place. And I fervently believe that the regime that we have developed in Opposition will improve the bill and it will make New Zealand a better place. And so my plea to the Government parties is: talk to us talk to Dr Reti talk to me and talk to our health team about trying to get what we've proposed into the existing Government bill.We originally drafted a member's bill in Dr Shane Reti's name. We have condensed that down into three specific SOPs that essentially replicate the bill. They are designed and ready to go to be inserted into the Government legislation. It fills the gaps. Dr Reti has outlined what it does. It talks about where you can grow who can grow it the criteria you have to fulfil to be a licensed operator how you will get access how eligibility will be determined and how pharmacists will dispense the rules that pharmacists will have to follow. It fills in the gaps on the Government legislation.As I've said we think the Government legislation is deficient in a number of respects. We think our proposals significantly improve it. They are comprehensive they are informed by best practice and most crucially—and if I can finish on this point—it will mean greater access faster. That's the other thing that submitters and the public want: they want this in place. They really do. And frankly they look at the Parliament and wonder why it's taken so long. Well there's lots of different reasons for that but I'm telling you now: a regime where the regulations only come out in 2021 or 2022 will be laughed at by the public. We need to act now. We offer up our SOPs in good faith. I hope the Government will take them seriously and look at them. Thank you."