Genter Julie AnneJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Green Party is supporting this bill. I was not on the Health Committee when it heard submissions on the bill but having spoken to my former colleague Kevin Hague who oversaw this through the select committee process—he spoke highly of the select committee process and the officials and the work that they did to ensure that this bill struck the careful balance between meeting the needs of people who are suffering from severe substance addiction and the right of individuals to give informed consent about their treatment. There are occasions in which there is a need for intervention but it only affects very small numbers of people.I think the best thing we can say about this piece of legislation is that it vastly improves the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act of 1966 which is well overdue for changes. The Law Commission undertook a very helpful report that identified a number of problems with the existing legislation including that although two medical certificates are required before a person could be committed there is no requirement that either of these certificates be issued by a specialist alcohol and drug practitioner following a personal assessment. The committal process under the current legislation begins with an application to the District Court and families are finding it very difficult to make applications. There are delays and problems satisfying the regulatory requirements for applications.The statutory period of detention under the current legislation is 2 years which is quite extraordinary because it far exceeds what would normally be necessary to undertake any programme of treatment. The Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act makes very inadequate provision for review of the detention decision and that is something that has been addressed by the piece of legislation that we are debating this evening. There are generally considered insufficient safeguards to protect the rights of people held under the Act and there are few treatment facilities that are certified to accept people under that particular regime and consequently there is not able to be the flexibility and the type of treatment programme available. There are significant improvements in this legislation that should result in both greater protection of individuals' rights and the potential for review and should also ensure that there is greater access and treatment available for those individuals whose lives may be threatened by severe substance addiction.I guess I will just make a couple of other points. One of them is that fundamentally we are starting to understand that addiction is not just a personal or individual problem; actually it can be quite environmental. Financial stress homelessness and other life circumstances can contribute to addiction even though clearly there potentially could be hereditary or genetic aspects to it. I think it is important that we take an approach that addresses all of the environmental factors and looks to enable individuals to be empowered to live their lives in a healthy way.Secondly one concern that we have overall is inadequate funding of the health system and particularly the mental health system and that is going to pose challenges for the wraparound support services that are needed by people in the future. So although the Green Party does support this bill—and I congratulate the Minister the officials and the select committee for making a substantial improvement to outdated legislation—I think that overall the more that society is faced with challenges of increasing inequality increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty and increasing homelessness we could potentially be seeing an increase in the incidence of vulnerability to substance addiction. It is really important that we treat that as a health issue first and foremost rather than a criminal issue and that we ensure that there are sufficient treatment programmes available for people so that they are able to get the help that they need when they need it because all of us in New Zealand are better off if we do not have people in these dire circumstances.