Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a Government that's tackling the long-term issues facing our country and one of them is the significant harm that synthetic drugs are having in our community. I think it's actually appropriate as we come towards the end of the third reading of this bill and this bill's about to pass into law that we think about why we're actually here. The issue we've got is that since mid-2017 somewhere between 55 and 80 people have lost their lives as a result of these synthetic drugs. It wasn't just the coroner that alerted us to what was happening to that sudden surge in drug-related deaths but it was also those working on the ambulances who were picking up people that were being severely affected and it was our emergency departments that were talking about the things that they were seeing as people were using these drugs and the consequences they were having. So this bill is a really important bill and what it does is it strikes exactly the right balance because it increases the search and seizure powers and the penalties for those that are supplying and manufacturing these drugs that are having this huge impact in our community. But it also acknowledges the addictive nature of these drugs and other drugs and basically what it does is it says that we need to take a health-based approach to those that are using them. So I just want to take you through those three things that this bill does and the first thing it does is it classifies the two drugs that have caused the most harm in our community—the two synthetics—over the last couple of years. It classifies them as class A drugs and what that means basically is these drugs are considered to be having a high risk of harm to either individuals or society. So once they are on Schedule 1 as class A drugs what it does is it gives customs and the police much greater search and seizure powers and it also increases the penalties for those that are supplying and manufacturing these drugs and that can be up to life imprisonment so that is very very significant in terms of a deterrent and enforcement. So basically what that does is it makes it much tougher in terms of those bringing those drugs into our community. But the problem is that as we add these drugs to the schedule as they become class A drugs what happens out there in the community is these drugs are always evolving and the manufacturers will just tweak things a bit and then bring out something new. So what this legislation also does is it creates a new temporary drug classification class C1. So what that means is if we start to be seeing the things that we were seeing back in 2017 we start to see that spike in hospital admissions the ambulance officers telling us what they're seeing and we start to see the coroner talking about a new surge in deaths what the Minister of Health can do is he can classify one of these drugs as a class C1 drug. What he needs to do or she needs to do is notify that in the Gazette and basically what that means is that's a temporary classification that can last up to one year. It gives greater search and seizure powers etc. to that drug and it means that we can start to address that much much more quickly. But the understanding is that that is only a temporary class order and so what the Minister then must do is go away and make further inquiries organise for further research so that then that drug can be classified whether that turns then into a class A class B class C or whether it is removed from the temporary class Schedule. Also if they need a little bit more time to do that they're allowed one more renewal of that temporary class order. I think not only do we need to be taking this incredibly seriously as different drugs get on to the schedule as class A but we need to be incredibly responsive as things evolve in the community. But the third thing this bill does—and this is the one that's had most of the debate—is it reaffirms the police's existing discretion in terms of whether they want to prosecute or not. Just looking at the actual wording because there's been a lot of debate about this even this afternoon basically all the wording says in new section 7(5) is: To avoid doubt it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute for an offence against subsection (1)(a) and a prosecution should not be brought unless it is required in the public interest." This is something that police already have the ability and the discretion to do and that's really outlined in prosecution guidelines.But then what it does is it also says in new section 7(6): "When considering whether a prosecution is required in the public interest in addition to any other relevant matters consideration should be given to whether a health-centred or therapeutic approach would be more beneficial". This is where the Supplementary Order Paper yesterday added "[in] the public interest". What this says is: considered "in addition to any other relevant matters". So what it does is it brings that health-centred approach and consideration in relation to any other relevant matters. So what it's actually reflecting is the fact that for many a health-based approach in the context of these incredibly addictive drugs may well be in the public interest because if we can get somebody off these drugs and into treatment then the likelihood that they're going to reuse and there's going to be an ongoing issue is much less likely.But what we were hearing about and people were talking about in select committee were some of the questions about "Well how would police then all of a sudden manage this huge number of referrals?" and also "How would police kind of weigh up whether a health-based approach was necessary?" What we were advised by the police and by the Ministry of Health was that they were working together to prepare a whole lot of things in relation to the implementation of the bill. One of them was developing instructions which provide operational guidance for police to assess where the public interest lay when considering people in terms of possession offences. Basically these instructions would be in line with the Solicitor-General's prosecution guidelines.The other thing that they were working on jointly was a single national point of referral for people that are being referred to a health-based approach. The idea there was that there was going to be an app developed and that would then send referrals through to the health sector. So then a health professional would be in touch with that person and what they would do is assess triage and refer as appropriate. What that would mean would be there was a much more consistent approach nationally in terms of people being referred on for a health system approach.But the other query was "Well are the services there going to be there in the community? Do we have the services that we can refer people to?" This is where the Wellbeing Budget's come in because we've put a $1.9 billion investment into our mental health services in addition to a whole lot of investment that's going to be going into primary care so people can go and access mental health workers and the support they need. There's also a big emphasis on addiction services as well.So there's a range of investments in that space. One of them is going to be investing about $14 million over the next four years so that we get an estimated 5000 people a year getting extra support and primary care for alcohol and drug issues. Then there was an extra $44 million over four years that was going to go into support existing addiction services. That was a focus on residential care detoxification and then ongoing support. It is estimated an extra 2000 people would receive support through that.So there's a whole range of other services. I won't go on because basically there's a whole range of them that I could talk about. But the whole emphasis is that this is a Government that cares about the long-term mental health and wellbeing of our community and we're putting in huge investments over the next four to five years to make sure that we've got people there and have the services that they need.So basically just summing up this is a Government that is tackling the long-term issues facing our country and one of them is the harm that these synthetic drugs are doing in our community. So what this bill does is it classifies those two drugs that have been responsible for the majority of those synthetic-related deaths as class A drugs which means that police have greater search and seizure powers and there's much greater penalties for those who supply them. But it also means we can have much quicker responses as those drugs out in the community start to evolve so that we can put in temporary class orders which means that police can respond much more quickly when we're seeing those surges in hospital admissions or deaths.Thirdly it reaffirms the police discretion so that they can take a health-based approach for those that are using these drugs. So it's a really good bill. It really sets the right balance and it's a really important issue that we need to address. I therefore commend this bill to the House."