Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Speaker—Chlöe Swarbrick: Here we go!SIMEON BROWN: —and thank you Chlöe Swarbrick—for the opportunity to take a call on the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill (No 2). Yes now she can save her woke rage till a little bit later when I'm sure she'll get a chance to be able to speak on this piece of legislation. National continues to oppose this legislation. I think it is fair to say that everyone coming to this debate wants to keep New Zealanders safe and particularly younger New Zealanders but there are also sound reasons why it is logical not to support the legislation and what it is doing here. It is a consistent approach from the National Party which takes a view that drug policy is both a health issue and a criminal issue.This bill is not based on strong evidence. That's the first point. The departmental disclosure statement which has been provided to this House says here that There are no inquiries reviews or evaluation reports specifically about regulation of drug … services. However there is research from New Zealand and overseas on the effectiveness of drug checking services." and quotes only one report. That one report is a report from the Victoria University which seeks to provide some rationale as to why this should be put in place. That report Drug Checking at New Zealand Festivals (Final Report) was issued last year in November.This report which the Government has relied on is in my opinion not worth the paper that it has been written on. Firstly you go to the page on acknowledgments where it says here on page 2: "Thanks also go to the politicians and ministry staff who supported this project. The use of illegal drugs is a politically sensitive topic"—fair point—"so it was very welcome that Hon Stuart Nash Chlöe Swarbrick and Hon Dr David Clark openly supported the research." Well I'm pretty sure that sounds like a pretty objective bunch of people helping to support this research! "[The] research would also not have been possible without the support of 'Know Your Stuff' "—another completely unbiased organisation trying to put forward some evidence around this particular issue.I then turn to the executive summary where it says here that "Four groups of people were interviewed: festival/event organisers; medical personnel who worked at … events; volunteers working for [Know Your Stuff New Zealand]; festival attendees/wider New Zealand public … Overall 66 people were interviewed … 911 surveys were completed with the final survey sample after cleaning totalling 861. The sample was a purposeful focused non-random sample." Now for an organisation such as the Victoria University of Wellington which prides itself on its academic inquiry its independence and its ability to try to really understand the issues this seems to be one of the most biased documents I've seen which has used what is called "purposeful focused non-random samples" which I think pretty much means asking people who you think will agree with you and getting a result which they wanted.And then you look at the findings. They interviewed 66 people. Well guess what? "All 66 people who were interviewed … thought drug checking was a good idea". Oh my goodness! You ask people who agree with you and guess what? They agree with you. Amazing. You go to the methodology—amazing—"The key aims of the research were to gather … a [wide] range of views." Well they didn't do a very good job at doing that. There was an online survey which was distributed via social media—whose social media? "the lead researcher's Twitter account"—she's very well known for her views—" 'Vic Deals' and … Facebook pages of 'JustSpeak' "—very independent lobby group—"the 'New Zealand Drug Foundation' "—they don't have an interest in this at all—and " 'Know Your Stuff' "—another organisation with no interest in this particular topic.So here we are looking for an evidence-based approach which is what the Green Party and the Labour Party will try to tell us and the one New Zealand document which they have based the rationale for passing this legislation on is anything but rational anything but independent and impartial. That piece of document as I said is not worth the paper it's written on and I believe Victoria University should be ashamed to have their name on that piece of document.The other overseas piece of research was Andrew Groves in the Harm Reduction Journal which says that there have been "no studies [which] have fully tested in a controlled way whether pill testing reduces harm."Chlöe Swarbrick: Maybe because it's illegal?SIMEON BROWN: Well there have been plenty of opportunities in other countries where it has been legal and he looked around the world and came to the conclusion that there have been no studies—Chlöe Swarbrick: Give us a citation Simmo.SIMEON BROWN: Andrew Groves in the Harm Reduction Journal; you're most welcome to look it up.The next point is that this bill goes wider than previous legislation. This bill allows for much wider testing than just at music festivals. I think we can put aside the issue of music festivals but the public then need to ask the question of whether they want to see drug testing like this more widespread around New Zealand. Do we want to see drug-testing services in the main street of our local town centre? There's some in the House who might think that's a good idea. There are others who would see and remember what happened during the whole issue of the Psychoactive Substances Act. I was on the Manurewa Local Board at the time and I remember when a legal high shop opened in the main street of Manurewa and because it said "legal highs" everyone thought "Well they must be OK so therefore we'll use them." and we saw the enormous social consequence and devastation caused by those substances. This is something which will also see that mission creep as these drug-checking services open up.And it's already happening. The New Zealand Drug Foundation has already started drug testing out of their offices in Wellington and recently started doing it out of their office in Auckland. The question the public need to ask is whether they wish this to happen in more localities other town centres and near other places where their children may go—all of those questions and those are issues which I don't believe the public have been asked to give consideration to. Those are something which I hope if this bill does go through select committee—which I hope it doesn't but assuming it does—the public put their voices forward on that very point: should this just be limited to music festivals or is the public actually happy with drug-checking services popping up on main streets up and down our country? That I think is a very serious issue.Another significant issue here in this piece of legislation is that the legislation makes it explicit that the results of testing by drug and substance checking services will not be admissible in criminal proceedings against the person who supplied any controlled drug or unapproved psychoactive substance for testing. Now this is something which we need in some way—the police need to have some ability to hold to account those supplying drugs which are harmful and which are causing major major harm in our communities.The final point I want to make is that it needs to be put on the record that the reality is it doesn't matter how many times you test MDMA; it's still a dangerous drug. This bill does not make MDMA safe—doesn't matter how many times you test it; it's still not going to be safe. It doesn't matter how many times you have a conversation about it; it still doesn't make it safe. This legislation doesn't have the evidence basis that the Government claims it does and the National Party will not support it."