Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. I too rise to make a shortish contribution on this bill but the place I want to start I guess is that no member in this House denies the fact that there's a huge amount of harm in New Zealand as a result of these psychoactive substances. What we on this side of the House are arguing is that this particular bill is not going to change things. I can't remember who it was who said that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result—I think it might have been Einstein—but that's exactly what we're doing here. Internationally if you look at the trends if you look at the evidence Governments are moving away from this punitive approach and towards a health approach for a reason because that's what's working—not this.I want to echo the comments made by the member Chlöe Swarbrick who said Show us the evidence." Where is that compelling evidence that increasing sentencing alone as an ad hoc measure is actually going to fix the problem? The problem—Tim van de Molen: Where's the evidence that it doesn't?PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: It's not compelling. There is no compelling evidence because then if you look at the fact that this is about locking people up for longer and throwing away the key potentially—how has that helped? If that were the answer to all our problems when it comes to offending then the fact that our incarceration rate in New Zealand has been sky high should have actually fixed the problem but it hasn't has it? So that's not the key. There is so much more that needs to happen.Actually back on that point about locking people with addictions up—because that's exactly what this bill is going to extend—we have 62 percent of our prisoners in New Zealand who have either a mental health issue or a substance abuse issue and 20 percent who have both. What this bill does and going back again to a point that Chlöe Swarbrick made as well—and this takes me back actually to a submission that was made to the Justice Committee. I was on that select committee for a portion of time while this bill was being considered by the committee. We had a submitter who came to us and told us about the work that they do on the streets of South Auckland where they've seen issues of people who have been supplying psychoactive substances as well. This is cheap nasty stuff. These are potent drugs that are made cheaply. They're cheap to manufacture. Those who supply them are not supplying them to become millionaires; most of them are supplying and selling to feed an addiction that they have. So that's the point that members opposite don't seem to get.When the Hon Tim Macindoe stood up and said that he's strongly in support of this bill because it affects those who manufacture sell and supply psychoactive substances with great respect I say that he is missing the point because the point is that those who are selling and supplying are also those who are affected by the addiction issues here. So by then putting them into prison when we have a huge percentage of prisoners already with mental health issues and substance abuse issues how is that going to help?That takes me to Supplementary Order Paper 168 in my name which would replace clause 4 and amend it to add new clause 4(a)(ii) which says "when sentencing under subparagraph (i) the court must have particular regard to the health including mental health of the offender:". This would actually provide a bit of sentencing guidance as it were to judges by recognising that in many cases a higher penalty will not serve any useful purpose because these people are already addicted and the reason they're selling is to feed the addiction. Many have mental health issues as well and those are the underlying causes that are driving offending when it comes to psychoactive substances which we must address if we are to make any meaningful change in reducing drug harm in New Zealand.I want to emphasise once again that simply increasing the sentence from two years to eight years is an arbitrary measure that's just plucked out with no compelling evidence. I don't believe it's going to solve this issue. I think it's incredibly short-sighted and therefore I will not support the bill. Thank you."