Kuriger Barbara; Redmayne Suze; Leary IngridMISUSE OF DRUGS (PSEUDOEPHEDRINE) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteeParts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members we now come to the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. We begin with the debate on Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 4 and 5: amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. The question is that Part 1 stand part. SUZE REDMAYNE (Junior Whip—National): Point of order Madam Chairperson. I seek leave for all parts to be debated as one question. CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Is there any objection to the leave being sought? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3 stand part. INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you Madam Chair. As we have said in our first reading speeches yes we will be supporting this bill to go through to law but with a bit of a caveat because we believe that pseudoephedrine is only safe if it is stored appropriately and I will be tabling an amendment later to that effect. But first I just want to ask the Minister some questions about the process that was undertaken because we do agree that pseudoephedrine is a useful medication for people to have. It's particularly relevant at this time of year when lots of people are kind of going down in flames with coughs and colds and sniffs. Anything to help dry up the nose and mask the symptoms is usually gratefully received and we do realise that the workplace now is different than it has been in the past. People are very mindful of not wanting to be symptomatic around colleagues because of the fear that it could be COVID and just having a little bit more personal space but also the environment and context around methamphetamine—and methamphetamine production in particular—is quite different from when we had this problem previously with people making meth at home. We've seen a change to meds coming across the borders and we've seen the cost of meth go down. So the question has been raised—probably quite rightly—to say: do we need to relook at this medication is there the danger that there was previously in pharmacies stocking it and people having access to it and should we be able to reclassify it so that people can have better access? We do agree—and as far as I'm aware it wasn't in the impact statement. But we are mindful that there are barriers for many of our people to get medication so a visit to the doctor would be that barrier and perhaps having to have a prescription to go to a pharmacy would stop some of our people being able to get pseudoephedrine. So there's a whole lot of reasons where we agree with the Minister about why this would be a good thing to do. I'm not sure that we thought it necessarily had to come in this quickly—this winter. It would have been good to see perhaps a more fulsome process because at the moment in this Parliament we are the fastest lawmakers in the West". It doesn't always lead to the best outcomes and there are some reservations that some of the submitters had around the process too. So I will be asking the Minister some questions around the process. Just for those who are following it at home what this very small bill does is it reclassifies pseudoephedrine from a class B2 to a class C3 controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations determine which class of drug that goes into. But we did do as the Labour Party a dissenting view in the select committee report and that was to express our disappointment with and concerns about the process but also as I've alluded around the safety of how the drug will be kept in pharmacies. We deliberately put some quotations from the Minister—which I would like to ask him about now—because the main body of the report kind of did a very once-over-lightly about what the Minister had said. But we picked up on some of the language that for us is indicative of perhaps a little bit of a cavalier attitude in our view to the communities that will be impacted and also the type of process that was undertaken. For example we asked questions about the reclassification which seemed unusual to us because usually the body that is classifying the medication is made up of experts and this time it looked and sounded from the questions that we asked as if the Minister and Cabinet were doing this reclassification. When we asked the Minister about that he said that there was a "public interest justifying the fast-track of this bill through the House and select committee [for] 'an additional winter so long as the pharmaceutical companies and Medsafe play ball'" and we wanted to know what that meant. There was a bit of a discussion and question and answer about that and the Minister agreed that in effect this was about politicians classifying the medication but that Medsafe still had the ability if it didn't want to play ball or if it disagreed to actually not give the approvals which would have then rendered the political judgment or decision invalid and would have then meant that no pseudoephedrine products would have been available through Medsafe. If I recall rightly the Minister's justification for that was that he said that he felt that the original decision to reclassify it upwards originally in that different environment was a political decision. So one of my first questions to the Minister will be just to talk us through the process of Medsafe. What is the point of having the Medsafe committee meeting to perhaps second-guess political decisions? Is that an appropriate use of the committee and the committee's expertise? Does this set a precedent now for the committee to be taking direction from Government Ministers or Cabinet decisions or is this just a one-off situation? Is it an exemption because he wants the public to be able to have this medicine available to them this winter? The second part that I would like to ask the Minister about is his comments in select committee where he said that this was about rationalising our approach with our Five Eyes partners. That was an interesting one for me because I've heard Five Eyes mentioned in the context of security and defence interoperability of equipment and so on but I'm wanting to know the medical reason for rationalising a methamphetamine classification with Five Eyes when this doesn't change the border settings. I know that my colleague Ginny Andersen will have some questions around the assumptions to do with the border settings and the cost of methamphetamine later on but I'm curious to know why it is important for New Zealand to rationalise this approach with Five Eyes given that the changes made by this bill don't have anything to do with changing the border settings as far as I'm aware. My third question is also asking the Minister about his comment to the select committee when I asked him about what further evidence he had sought on impacted communities—so those were communities impacted by methamphetamine and we did hear some pretty harrowing submissions. There weren't many but there were people with lived experience of drug use who were adamant that they didn't want to see a methamphetamine problem in their community. His response to that was to say that "it was better to focus on the information available … rather than seek further advice" by impacted communities. So there seems to be a bit of a cost-benefit analysis in his own mind if I'm correct as to the value of putting more resources into finding out about those communities. That tells me that there's been a little bit of a cavalier attitude to the harm that this could cause or maybe not—I'd want to know the thinking as to why he wouldn't want to seek further advice impacted communities. We know these are the most vulnerable communities in New Zealand—those who have been impacted by meth problems—and anybody who's had exposure to methamphetamine in their own family will understand the devastation that I am speaking about. The fourth question that I have which I think is No. 4 for the Minister is that he also assured us that when we spoke about people shopping around for methamphetamine—so an organised syndicate of purchasers which has happened in the past to be able to get a bulk amount of tablets to make meth. Now I appreciate that we've had submissions to say that it would take a lot of packets and a lot of shopping around but that hasn't stopped people previously. We've also heard from submitters that drug addicts are not necessarily rational and so we have to allow for the possibility that this could happen. The Minister's response when we raised that was that he said he would monitor sales to see if further regulation was appropriate. My question to the Minister is: how would he even be able to monitor the sales if the register is not there in the first place? It seems to be a bit of tautology because without the register you can't monitor but you're not going to monitor because you're going to keep an eye on it. So I'd be very keen to know what methodology the Minister is planning to use to see if further regulation is necessary. Will it be like a formal process of keeping his eyes on it and will he be instructing officials to do that? Madam Chair I'm going to stop my contribution because I can see that the Minister is really feeling frustrated at how many questions I've levelled at him. I do have a number more and so do my colleagues but I'd love to hear—Hon David Seymour: It's actually not the quantity; it's the quality. INGRID LEARY: —his responses. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No we won't debate from the chair thank you."