Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Not for the first time I agree with every word of the Minister's last intervention and that's why were we able to secure an end date to what the Government in their own words describe as a temporary exemption we could support this clause. But we now know—and in his previous intervention the Minister used what I thought was quite a revealing comment—that this part of the bill the terminal exemption is actually the main thrust of the change. It's not actually. Those were the words that the Minister used. He's shaking his head. He might be able to take another call. I heard him say The main thrust of the Act"—and I'll check the Hansard—"is the terminal exemption." Now that is a quite remarkable comment. I would have thought that the main thrust of that would be the licensing regime. And my criticism of the famous 59 words is predicated on the licensing regime being the main thrust of the bill.He then went on to talk about the review and my commentary on the review being—I can't remember the words he used but they were unfair. Actually I maintain that reviews are sometimes necessary and appropriate but if the purpose is to have a finite period of time then tighter better legislation is to say "Put the time frame in and then come back to Parliament if that time line needs to be extended." not leave it open-ended have a review and then maybe at the prerogative of the Government of the day decide to give effect to the temporary nature of this part of the Act. It's completely around the wrong way.Now I want to just touch on one other thing the Minister said and that was in respect of a somewhat I admit extreme example of a person who is smoking cannabis in a mall and he did indeed say—because we are talking about people who are terminally ill—that they're unlikely of course to do that. Those were his words: they might use a spray or an oil. But indeed we don't make laws for the most; we make laws for every situation and therefore if an Act is silent on those sorts of things it may well give rise to those sorts of offences not only to the Misuse of Drugs Act but to the Smoke-free Environments Act.I'll touch on smoking now because Ms Swarbrick said in her intervention that there is no reference to loose leaf in this bill. Actually that is true but in this clause we're talking about proceedings for an offence against stuff that is smoked and in the next clause new clause 5A the tools for smoking plant material. The clear inference is that this stuff will be smoked—which is OK. As the Minister said in his last intervention these people are at end of life. If they choose to take comfort from a psychoactive THC-based cannabis product because they believe that it eases their burden more power to them I say. And indeed as Richard Chambers the assistant commissioner of police has said that's probably happening now and they're not being rounded up and arrested and jailed.So we don't have a problem of that nature if indeed legitimising that behaviour is a temporary goal pending the development of a licensing regime. If it is let's just put a date on it. We've suggested "30 months and a day" or something. We can debate that and change it but to create an open-ended exemption which goes on even after the medicinal cannabis regime is in place completely undermines the purpose.Well the Minister was shaking his head and he said "Actually it's not the main thrust of the bill. The main thrust of the bill is to have a medicinal cannabis regime." That's OK. This clause if it's not time bound will completely undermine the regime. Why would people switch over? Why would they? It's a technical offence then—"Oh well you know I got it from the guy down the road but I could have equally got it from the pharmacist." Cannabis use then becomes a technical breach of a pharmaceutical framework not the Misuse of Drugs Act. It's really important. And again Ms Swarbrick talks about "Well the National Party wants to write the regulations." No we don't but it's not unusual to have a belts and braces approach to the criteria that officials then use to go away to write those regulations. And there's a particularly good clause in here both on sunset and on non-use of loose leaf."