Costello Casey; Kuriger BarbaraHon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police): I rise to speak in support of Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. I would reiterate the fact that this is a common-sense practical approach particularly as I have a cold and we're heading into winter. Pseudoephedrine would be incredibly helpful right about now. I suppose I'd go back to putting this into a process of reality check. I was a uniformed sergeant when methamphetamine first made its appearance in South Auckland. The reality was that it was an incredible scourge on our society and it ran away. The complexity of the environment we dealt with at the time to create meth labs to cook the process of obtaining pseudoephedrine—it was a complex and really difficult environment. The labs themselves were highly volatile and the cooks were highly sought after and traded commodity to produce the methamphetamine. It wasn't an easy process. Quickly methamphetamine took hold. It was logical that we did everything we could do to restrict the ability to create that supply. It was damaging so many lives and so many societies. So at the time pseudoephedrine was reclassified. It was logical it was practical and it was a process that needed to be followed to achieve some kind of impact in the industry. But as has been pointed out drug addicts have incredible difficulties to deal with. They get manipulated and the market quickly pivoted to create a level of supply that enabled methamphetamine to become the most prevalent drug in New Zealand. We're now talking about an environment where just in January we had a seizure of 4.8 tonnes that was heading to Australia and New Zealand. We're now dealing with completed product in the tonnage that is heading to New Zealand. This is something we could never have thought of creating under a pseudoephedrine lab in New Zealand. The fact is it's cheaper it is more efficient and it is easier to supply. I'll comment on the fact that you know yes we know that when you're addicted your drive to achieve what you need is such that you will do desperate things. But I would suggest that purchasing stealing obtaining pseudoephedrine in order to set up a lab to cook when just about everyone will know where meth can be supplied in their communities and obtaining cash is far simpler than obtaining pseudoephedrine. So yes we need to do a lot of work. We need to do a lot of work to control methamphetamine's impact it has on New Zealand society.But that is not going to change with pseudoephedrine being available as a suitable practical medical solution for colds and flus. It's a good medicine. We've all endorsed that it is a good medicine and bringing it back to ready availability is just a common-sense solution. That's really what this legislation is about. It's a common-sense solution because the motivation for making it or classifying it differently has shifted. This doesn't mean we take the eye off the ball and don't continue to look at the methods around which we can remove methamphetamine control it and reduce its harm on societies but the prevalence is such that we need different initiatives. I think that the discussion that we've had around the risk that pseudoephedrine presents to the creation of methamphetamine—I think that that environment has passed us and we now have much bigger issues to deal with.As Minister of Customs I see daily the reports coming through around the systems and processes that are in place to deliver methamphetamine to New Zealand. That's not in the form of pseudoephedrine. This is just about fixing what was done. We did it for the right motivations at the time it was done but now New Zealand has moved on and the environment has moved on. We need to ensure that we continue to make good medicines available. I acknowledge that there is a range of medicines that you know we need to ensure a supply to the market. But pseudoephedrine—this is a simple piece of legislation that is being noted. It is encouraging that all parties recognise the importance and the dangers of the drugs that are prevalent in society and that they support the benefits of pseudoephedrine in recognising that it is suitable to be re-introduced back to New Zealand. The risk it poses in this crime environment is minimal I would suggest. I think that we are smarter and more intelligent and we need to be able to pivot quickly and effectively to ensure that we are responding to what New Zealanders need and heading into winter in this environment—I think it is really important that we work together to change things that are no longer relevant to what is occurring in New Zealand. For that reason I recommend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is a split call. I call Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.