King MattMATT KING (National—Northland): Thank you Madam Chair—didn't have to work so hard this time. Look this bill is a throw-together lazy shambles of a bill. We've done a lot of work on our bill and this Government could've taken on board some of the pearlers that we've got in our bill—Kieran McAnulty: Clause 5.MATT KING: —and made a really good piece of legislation.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Thank you—that's my job.MATT KING: But I see that you have the carve-out for requiring palliation and you have to be certified by a medical practitioner or a nurse practitioner. I mean we understand all that but this is just going to allow smoking of cannabis consumption of cannabis. It just provides a defence against consumption and possession of cannabis. So it's too simplistic and it's de facto decriminalisation so why don't you just come out and say it? We'll just call it and let's have a referendum on it if that's what you're going to do because that's effectively what the bill will do.I say this because the police—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! Don't bring me into it. I'm not saying that.MATT KING: I'm sorry Madam Chair—nothing to do with you sorry. It's the good people across the Chamber there.Hon Michael Woodhouse: She is from Gisborne!MATT KING: Ha ha! You're from Gisborne; I'm from Northland—we know all about this drug!I say this because I find the police will find this fraught with difficulties. You stop a car full of people with cannabis in it; one person produces a certificate and then all the others get off. That is effectively what you're going to have: a lot of unintended consequences. So I can tell you now that police will steer a wide berth because of this and it will be de facto decriminalisation. If that's what's intended let's come out and have a referendum on it.We've lodged a member's bill. It has a comprehensive medicinal cannabis regime put together by the Hon—not the honourable yet but Shane Reti. He's done a lot of work in this area and it's a clear workable alternative—an alternative that can be enforced and policed and I think the Government bill fails on both these tests. It's only minor improvements. It's also totally silent on how a medicinal cannabis regime would operate in practice.Now how do the people that have the certificates that are near the end of their life—and we're not denying treatments to people nearing the end of their lives; our medicinal cannabis regime would have brought that out. We're not denying that—I'm for that—but how does that person obtain that cannabis lawfully? They've got a defence if they have it in their possession but they've got to commit an offence to get it and the person selling to them is committing an offence so how does that take place? And what happens if the police come upon a transaction taking place? So none of that's been thought through. So the buyer produces a certificate and walks and the seller gets locked up for possession for supply or possession or supplying which is a relatively serious offence. So how does that work? This bill doesn't cover any of that.The Government has said that it will work out the details later and as the previous speaker said they will think through the controls and the consequences later and talk about it later—maybe a year from now maybe two years. So that's typical of this Government. It's not acceptable. We've got a comprehensive alternative. I don't understand why the good people across the Chamber cannot get together with our people—Shane Reti and co.—and work out a good bill that will have everyone supporting it and we'll all be happy and the good people out in TV land will be cheering as well.We've met with the majority of the people in the Health Committee and we've talked to them. We're fine-tuning and we've got feedback. I know there's a lot of confusion out there about cannabis. It means different things to different people. For some people it's loose-leaf cannabis; to others it's cannabis-based products that have undergone rigorous testing. Our regime is more the second lot. We're not for loose-leaf cannabis. I don't see how you could operate having possession of loose-leaf cannabis—it's not going to work.So this bill is too simplistic poorly thought-out and a lazy piece of legislation with many unintended consequences. This Government has said that they would be bipartisan with things and they're always asking us to come and work with them. We did that with the mental health thing—we tried. We're just imploring—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Now we need to get back to clause 5.MATT KING: Sorry Madam Chair. We're imploring the Government to work with us take on board some of these things and let's get a good bill together and let's all vote on it and pass it through unanimously. Thank you.