Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill (No 2). I was a member of the Health Committee that heard the submissions that my colleague Dr Craig spoke of then. The recommendations from the Health Committee were obviously not unanimous. The bill that was introduced was introduced as an omnibus bill that aims to minimise harm from controlled drugs and psychoactive substances. The thought was that it would do this by allowing services to check the composition of those drugs and substances. But as we have said numerous times on this side of the House we are yet to see the evidence that that actually contributes to harm reduction.Of course the bill is similar to the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Act 2020 which was brought in specifically as we were told at the time for festivals for that 2020-2021 summer. But now of course it is not limited to festivals at all. My colleague Simon Bridges talked about how it might be outside nightclubs and other venues. But also what needs to be made very clear is that the bill now allows testing anywhere. It includes mobile services and in fact the Health Committee said that they considered it might help improve access to drug checking particularly in rural areas. So we shouldn't for one minute think that it might be limited to outside festivals or inside festivals or outside nightclubs. In fact it could be rolling up to a town near you to the centre of small rural towns the playgrounds any of the areas in a small rural town. It is specifically noted that it is to allow mobile checking services in vehicles.So there are a number of things that we are concerned about in here and I'm sure it will be characterised as my colleague Simon Bridges said that you know we're old-fashioned and a bit conservative. But I would hope that the vast majority of New Zealanders want to see harm reduction. We want to genuinely see harm reduction for those taking illicit drugs. It's how to get there to that goal that we differ in. This Government keeps telling us that legalising pill testing will reduce drug-related harm but we're not seeing the evidence except for one study which was as my colleague said self-selection. So you would expect to see a bit more than that. We can remain concerned that where the Crown looks as if we are condoning the use of substances either implicitly or explicitly it sends a really bad signal to the people of this country. So we certainly don't believe that the harm reduction has been shown yet.But what we do know about this bill is that it will protect drug dealers from being prosecuted for supplying illicit drugs because the results of drug testing would be inadmissible in criminal proceedings. We believe that legalising pill testing is not going to keep people safe and that it will encourage more people to consume harmful drugs. As I said we all want to see harm reduction but it's absolutely critical for New Zealanders to understand that testing doesn't make pills safe. My colleague talked about the recent coroner's report that made it very clear that MDMA can cause respiratory depression sleepiness cardiac arrhythmia coma and increase the risk of sudden death. Now the Labour Government keeps telling us that pill testing will help users make smarter choices. The problem is there are no smart choices around deciding to take MDMA or ecstasy. It's just either a very dumb or a dumb choice. It's not a smarter choice. If Labour's aim is to reduce drug-related harm then why are they not waiting for the evidence and going out to the people and making sure that the people know the evidence is there that it won't create greater consumption of drugs?So Labour deciding to fund it. This is a difficult one when our health budget is so stretched and people are missing out on hip and knee replacements missing out on getting timely cancer testing and treatment. In the Invercargill hospital in our district health board area to get a hip replacement you wait until you have 70 points that's 20 points more than if you were in the Canterbury region. So do we tell those people waiting that health dollars are going to have to now go into drug testing instead of trying to bring down their waiting time for hip or knee replacements? Do we have to tell all the people that have to wait for admission to hospital in Invercargill longer because we are 90 beds short and two theatres short that this Government's priority is to spend health dollars on drug testing?So I spent time talking to a rural GP recently. I'm going out to speak to him more. This GP is at his wits' end. He has not had a locum there for a number of years. He is working over 60 hours a week. He is concerned that he is going to burn out. But if he burns out and leaves the rural town they will have no medical services. So this Labour Government has not increased the intake into medical school in the entire four years they have been in Government.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the member to relate her comments to the bill which she hasn't done so far.PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you—thank you. I will. Because the reason when I sent a written question to the Minister why this Government had not increased the intake into medical school was because it's expensive to train medical students. So my concern is that this Government is showing that their priority for health funding is not on reducing waiting times for serious operations is not on ensuring that hospitals have the right number of beds or theatres is not on training more medical students but is instead on spending money on drug testing.Now we all want to see—we all want to see—reduction in harm. But actually we would like to see the money spent on more education so that young people are not wanting to experiment with drugs we would like to see more money spent on services and care for those with addiction and mental health issues we would like to see more focus on tougher sentences for dealers because we want to see health money focused on health issues. So this side of the House sees that a priority is to do the very things we've talked about: getting waiting lists down getting the right number of beds getting ICU beds ready training more doctors getting better services and care for people with addictions and educating people on not using drugs rather than testing and making them feel falsely safe. Thank you Mr Speaker.