Hutchison Paul: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21233] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak on this very important Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3). As the Hon Jim Anderton pointed out there are some very important aspects of this bill related to its initial intention—that is to restrict and control the use of serious controlled drugs. It is a shame that we no longer see Mr Anderton here because— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member knows that that is outside the Standing Orders. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I am sorry Mr Assistant Speaker. What I was going to say was that Jim Anderton has finally emerged from his dinosaurian sleep to realise that people using party pills herbal highs and a vast spectrum of mildly psychoactive substances should indeed deserve attention. But what he has done is add a Supplementary Order Paper that violates some of the basic democratic principles on which this Parliament is founded. Although the National Party certainly supports the original part of this bill—that is to deal with presumption of supply matters and amphetamine in particular—it creates new offences of importing and exporting precursor substances; creates powers of searches and seizures without warrant for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine; and allows controlled delivery of precursor substances these which have undoubtedly a very strong scientific evidence base of needing attention by the Parliament. 
What the National Party is concerned about is the Jim Anderton Supplementary Order Paper which has now become Part 3 of the bill and which we believe is highly inappropriate. 
It is important to understand the history of this legislation. It was realised in the late 1990s that the new amphetamines LSD and various other controlled drugs were becoming a very very serious scourge on the horizon in New Zealand. That issue was certainly made more and more apparent as we saw the P clandestine laboratories suddenly sprouting up right around New Zealand. In fact I think their emergence was quite prolific from about 1996 although it was not until 2000 that nine laboratories were pounced upon by the police. But by 2003 something like 146 clan-labs were discovered by the police and it has become worse and worse throughout the country. 
In fact I was on a forum the other day where one of the police officers said that wherever one goes in New Zealand within 10 kilometres there is likely to be an illicit clan-lab. As it turned out where we were in the rural part of the Waikato two clan-labs were discovered within the next few weeks. 
There is no doubt that the methamphetamines and pure P have extraordinarily detrimental aspects to them and the problem is getting worse and worse. The objective evidence is that the use of these drugs can cause serious health effects including paranoia hallucinations mood disturbance delusions and potentially death. We have seen throughout the country some really disastrous instances where people using these medications have carried out the most bizarre and serious attacks on people attacks that have resulted in death. 
It was because of this in the 1990s that Wyatt Creech initiated a bill whereby there could be some ready recourse to keeping up with the drug dealers and the rapid changes of formula that they had for those medications so that they could find that on one occasion a drug could be legal but within a month the formulation would be changed and it would be illegal. 
Hence the affirmative resolution process was somewhat reluctantly embarked on with the original Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill for these controlled drugs. The National Party has supported that move and we have supported the extreme measures that the Customs Service and the police force require to track down the perpetrators who sell those drugs particularly to young people around New Zealand. It is becoming a very very serious problem and in these circumstances particularly serious responses are needed in the legislation. 
But it does seem to be a great worry when finally Jim Anderton wakes up to the fact that party pills herbal highs and substances like benzylpiperazine are causing problems around the country. In actual fact they have been around for the last 10 years or so and again the objective evidence is that while they have mild psychoactive effects they in no way come into the class of the controlled substances whereby the affirmative resolution process has been enacted. 
I think that it is important to point out some of the aspects of the advice that members of the Regulations Review Committee gave to the select committee. They warned strongly against the liberal use or the proliferation of the affirmative resolution procedure. In fact they said the amendment of primary legislation by an Order in Council is commonly referred to as a “Henry VIII” clause and is regarded as being undesirable because it allows the executive the power to override Parliament. Such powers should be granted by Parliament rarely and with strict controls. 
It is a great concern to me that Jim Anderton has suddenly woken up to the fact that there are party pills and other such substances around the country and he is bringing in a Supplementary Order Paper that was willingly embraced by the Labour Government even though the Regulations Review Committee made very very clear warnings. 
It said: “In particular we consider objections can be raised to the following: amendment of primary legislation by an Order in Council except in rare cases and with strict controls; allowing matters of significant policy to be dealt with and delegated rather than primary legislation.” and it goes on to state: “If a matter needs to be dealt with urgently there are ways of dealing with primary legislation in an expeditious manner.”—and of course that is the case. It is quite clear that those restricted substances should have their own legislation. It should be well-thought-out it should be well considered. The National Party agrees that this is a major problem in New Zealand but it should not be addressed by legislation that is quite inappropriate and according to the Regulations Review Committee this legislation is absolutely inappropriate. 
In fact its recommendations were absolutely clear. It stated: “We are of the view that there are significant issues with Jim Anderton’s SOP and we recommend the following: that amendments to the schedule concerned ‘Restricted Substances’ should be made by primary legislation not by Order in Council.” It goes on to state: “Regulations should only override the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 in rare cases in very limited terms.” 
This a very important bill. It addresses a very important subject. The National Party will indeed support it but we will not support Jim Anderton’s Supplementary Order Paper 298 substituting Part 3 of the bill which we believe is highly injudicious.