Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this third reading of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill. I want to reprise some of the arguments that have been given in favour of this legislation and also address some of the arguments that have arisen during the debate over the three readings and in the committee stage. I finally want to just comment on what this debate means for New Zealand politics the priorities of the Government and the different positions that some political parties have taken on it.First of all it's important to recognise what this legislation is and isn't. All it does is temporarily allow voluntary organisations filled with people who want to help others reduce harm go about their business without the fear of prosecution that exists in the current legal grey area around pill testing. It allows people who are hosting music festivals concerts and so on to have people who offer a testing service for drugs to be able to be on their premises without fear of legal repercussions; that is all this legislation does. All it does is remove the threat of prosecution for those activities. It does not remove the prohibition on supply and possession of classified illegal drugs. They remain illegal and people who supply possess and use them remain in the same legal jeopardy which they were under before this legislation came about. It's only for testing.This legislation does not place any onus on the taxpayer to fund pill-testing services; it doesn't do that.Hon Dr Nick Smith: It will.DAVID SEYMOUR: It doesn't contemplate taxpayer funding. And I hear Nick Smith from the National Party saying But it will." Let's think about the logic of that. If that's really the logic of the National Party today that we shouldn't legalise anything because anything we let people do might end up being funded by the taxpayer then no wonder we need the ACT Party to stand up for taxpayers in this country. Because the ACT Party says that something can be legal and not actually require taxpayer funding. Isn't it great that we still have a party in this House standing for that position? So this is not about taxpayer funding of pill testing.And finally it is not about the encouragement of drug taking. The question that any sensible person should ask when confronted with an empirical question is: where's the evidence? Now if the opponents of this legislation had stood up and said "Here is a survey of countries who have introduced pill testing and on balance we can show using robust statistics that harm is increased because not only do you have more people using drugs but the reduction in people using bad drugs is less than the increase."—if they could show there was an increase of harm using robust empirical evidence—then maybe that would be a justification for continuing the ban on voluntary organisations helping people know what they are putting in their body maybe that would justify the Government continuing to prohibit people helping each other make better more informed decisions maybe that would be a justification but I have not seen any member of this House who's opposed to this legislation get up and show the robust empirical evidence that this change to the law will increase harm. They haven't done it and that as I've heard in the barracking from some members is to lose the argument. So it's not about more people taking drugs; it's about reducing the harm from people who are taking them.What this legislation is about is something quintessentially Kiwi. It's about Kiwi values: that when we see problems in our community—and there are problems in our community—people band together and form organisations and help each other.Simeon Brown: No.DAVID SEYMOUR: These should be Simeon Brown conservative values. Simeon Brown if he knew what was good for him would be standing up and saying "I actually support people banding together and forming"—as one of his heroes would say—"the little platoons of Edmund Burke to go out and help other people solve problems for themselves." But the problem with Simeon Brown is he doesn't know his own intellectual tradition let alone anyone else's. We should be in favour of people like KnowYourStuffNZ getting together and helping out others make informed decisions. That should be the conservative position on this legislation but sadly it is not at least not on the heart of the National Party.I want to say to people who have questioned the use of urgency that this is one of the examples of urgency being used for the right reason. Urgency exists in our Standing Orders that've been passed down to us through the ages by Parliaments—52 of them before this 53rd one—so that we can make better laws. Urgency should be used when there is time sensitivity about a law. Well the use of these recreational drugs in music festivals is seasonal. I defy any member of this House to tell me they've been to an outdoor music festival in June. My birthday's in June; I know all about the weather in that month. There is a seasonal component here. Now personally I wish the Government would use urgency to help out the horticultural industry by letting in some Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers. We'll talk a bit about priorities later. But the fact is there is actually urgency not just some political prerogative or need to avoid scrutiny there is some urgency here.The next thing I'd say is that this is a time-limited piece of legislation and it is actually removing a prohibition removing a Government prohibition a restriction on people's freedom and I think that the bar for increasing freedom and reducing intervention in people's lives should always be lower than for example banning contracts with only five days' sick pay or increasing the amount of tax taken above a certain threshold. But this is not a bad law to put through under urgency particularly when it is time limited.Now I'll make a couple of comments about what the debate around this bill says about the state of New Zealand politics today. What it says about the Labour Party is that their priority is party pills not the horticultural industry. It's not any of the issues around reconnecting safely with the rest of the COVID world where possible. This is the first piece of legislation that they've put through in this Parliament and I think people will reflect on that. It's not about Pharmac for all those people short of drugs; it's actually about people testing illegal drugs. But that is the Labour Party's choice of priority and people will reflect on that.The National Party chooses to oppose something that I can tell them many of their potential constituents are worried about because their kids are good kids. They know that they are going off and they know that even good kids take risks. This is an opportunity for the risks they take to be safer. Christopher Luxon knows that because he's a sensible parent. He knows his kids are good kids but he also worries about what some of their friends might get up to and he wants them to do it in a safer environment.Then there's the Green Party who are pretty relaxed about people selling and buying drugs but you know I look at the Green Party's economic policies and the problem is that they're trying to stop people buying and selling just about anything else. Whatever it is you try to trade in in the New Zealand economy the Green Party will have a tax or a regulation to try and prevent you unless you're planting crystals in which case they'll give you a subsidy to hurry it along and that is a sad set of priorities.That leaves the ACT Party standing on principle for a freer and more compassionate society where people can make better and more dignified choices about how they live their lives in cooperation with each other. In short as Margaret Thatcher liked to say we stand for freedom under the rule of law. This is an example of a piece of legislation where the ACT Party has come to a position with our small but growing caucus and decided that we should support a more compassionate more informed society that allows people to reduce the risk and harms they face in cooperation with each other. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker."