Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak to this bill and I am wanting to in this contribution speak to three points. The first point would be the aspects of the bill that deal with synthetic cannabis and in that respect I think across the House there is a large degree of common thinking. Personally I'd like to acknowledge Simeon Brown for the work he's done and I believe that the contribution he's brought to this discussion has been substantive in many areas and very thorough—indeed more thorough than parts of this bill.The second point I'd like to talk to is the way that this bill starts with synthetic cannabis and then morphs to cover all drugs in various parts of the bill. We were very happy to be supportive of synthetic cannabis but it's over embracing with encompassing all drugs that makes that a problem for us. As my third point I too would then like to talk to section 7 in clause 6 and this issue of discretion—the ability for police or more specifically that police should not prosecute for possession and use in three instances: when a health approach might be beneficial when a therapeutic approach might be beneficial or with what the legislation says any other relevant matters". I'd echo the point: when would a health approach not be beneficial? I can't imagine any circumstance like that. When would a therapeutic approach for someone who has possession and use not be beneficial? I can't imagine a circumstance of that type and this very nebulous "any other relevant matters". So it's very easy to see why we can consider this as decriminalisation—I mean those are all the arguments why you would not prosecute and there's no instance therefore when we would not prosecute. That is decriminalisation.But it actually gets better because in the regulatory impact statement it confirms that this is decriminalisation. So let me move on to that. Let's look at sort of how well-crafted this bill is and whether it achieves its objectives. In the very first point in the regulatory impact statement is the quality assurance summary which says "The panel considers that [these] Synthetic Drugs Response Regulatory Impact [statement] … does not meet the Quality Assurance criteria." Well what a great start to a bill like this to have its own internal assessors saying that this impact statement doesn't meet the quality assurance criterion.It goes down into limitations and says that one of the limitations is that the range of options was limited to taking a health approach - only to drug use. Well remember the bill talks about three approaches: a health approach a therapeutic approach and an "other relevant matters" approach. But this bill the regulatory impact statement only looked at one of them. The summary then goes on to say "The Panel considers … that the [regulatory impact statement] does not provide sufficient information for Ministers to make an informed decision about the regulatory proposals." So again the Government is looking at itself saying that well you don't actually have enough information to make a decision on this but the bill appears here in the House.Now there's been some discussion across the House whether it is decriminalisation or not. We believe it is. Some of our colleagues across the House have said it's not. I draw their attention to page two of the regulatory impact statement that says "This will go some way to achieving the Government's objective of not criminalising users." That is decriminalisation. Let me read it again. "This will go some way to achieving the Government's objective of not criminalising users." This is a decriminalisation bill. The tragedy is the bill does it very poorly. We know that because later down the impact statement says "The [regulatory impact statement] is not convincing that emphasising discretion will be sufficient to avoid criminalising users." So the intention is there to decriminalise but the bill does a very poor job of it.Other risks while identified are insufficiently addressed and this question of possession and use whether the bill also picks up supply is highlighted in the risks. An option that included setting a very high presumption of supply in order to target importers and manufacturers could have been considered—oh yes it could have been considered but clearly it wasn't. I also want to point to the consultation around this bill and as the regulatory impact statement points out other than Government departments the only other NGO or community organisation that was consulted was the Drug Foundation and the regulatory impact statement says "Broader public consultation might have gained feedback from experts in health and social services for example." What a poor bill. How embarrassing when the Government's own team—the Ministry of Health in this case—are saying that yes this bill's about decriminalisation; but sorry it does poorly.Secondly we haven't identified all the risks. It doesn't meet the quality assurance criterion and by the way the only group we've consulted with is the New Zealand Drug Foundation and you really should have spoken with health specialist and social services.So it is really hard to support this bill and it looks like the Ministry of Health have really struggled to support it as well. So we'll see where this progresses. But for any number of reasons which I've outlined here we won't be supporting this bill."