Roy Heather: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Roy Heather: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21519] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak to the third reading of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3). We will be opposing this bill for a number of reasons which I will come to. This legislation is very untidy. ACT would have liked to be in the position of supporting this bill as it stood in the first instance with just Parts 1 and 2. We agree that there is room for great improvement with the control of possession and supply of dangerous drugs. The bill’s creation of new offences of importing and exporting precursor substances creating powers of search and seizure without warrant for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine and allowing controlled deliveries of precursor substances should in fact occur and we agree with that. But we object strongly to Part 3 which was added at the select committee stage by Supplementary Order Paper. 
It is was interesting to hear some of the comments from the chair of the Health Committee Steve Chadwick when she spoke. She said there was confusion on the Opposition side of the House particularly on the use of the Order in Council and the affirmative resolution process. There is no confusion. We have talked about that long and hard. We had very strong submissions from the Regulations Review Committee which unfortunately have by and large been ignored in the final instance. ACT is very unhappy about that. We thought the advice we received was very good and we were most unhappy that the advice was not followed through. 
As I say we would have liked to support the bill. We did support Parts 1 and 2 through the whole process both at the select committee level and also here in the Committee stage. But we cannot support the overall bill because of the untidiness of the legislation and the time pressure that was put on for it to be passed. Here we are yet again in another period of urgency rushing through legislation that would have been much better much tidier and much more effective in the final outcome had that time pressure not been put on the entire process. 
As I say we would have liked to be in a position to support the bill but in the final instance it promotes draconian powers in relation to substances that may well be little more insidious or addictive than alcohol nicotine or many other harmful but not necessarily catastrophic substances. That should give us pause for thought. I refer to Part 3 which was added at the select committee stage. To be fair to Mr Anderson it was very good that the Supplementary Order Paper came to the select committee in plenty of time so that the full parliamentary process could be gone through and submissions could be made. But I think the fact that it is tacked on to a very rigorous bill when it should have been a stand-alone bill is a retrograde step. I do hope that as time progresses that will in fact happen so that the dangerous substances that as everybody acknowledges cause great harm to society and particularly to our young people can be dealt with properly and the provisions in Part 3 can be dealt with in a proper and efficient manner. 
When the Supplementary Order Paper first came to the select committee it had a blank schedule. There is certainly no historical provision for that to happen and for the committee members to have a blank schedule in front of them with no idea except from guesswork as to what exactly might go on it was unacceptable. To allay the committee’s fears the benzylpiperazine substances were put on that schedule and it did seem as if that was just a ploy to allay the fears of many select committee members. 
As I say the legislation was very untidy. This was acknowledged and has been acknowledged further more informally by many members of the select committee. None of us were really happy with that process and many of us felt that the officials were put under extreme time constraints in coming forward with legislation that would meet the time requirements as opposed to the proper process being gone through and good legislation that is rigorous and that can easily be upheld by the courts where the direction is to be given. That should have been allowed to happen and did not. 
Perhaps our biggest fears were those I referred to with regard to the Regulations Review Committee. The Regulations Review Committee has always given us very rigorous and very good advice but by and large on this occasion this advice has been ignored. That committee said to us that it was unhappy about the use of the affirmative resolution process and it warned that that process should not proliferate—something that at the time all the Health Committee members agreed with. It considered that there should be compelling reasons for applying the affirmative resolution process when primary legislation is being amended in respect of serious offences. The Regulations Review Committee also noted that the affirmative resolution process is justifiable in limited and exceptional circumstances including where there is a need for expeditious change. 
I note that I wrote a letter to the Health Committee in September 2002 outlining problems with particularly the sale and purchase of benzylpiperazine products by many young people some as young as 12 13 or 14 at places like Star Marts. At that time the select committee did not seem to be the least bit worried about those products and my letter was passed on to the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. I felt at the time that that was really just to pacify me. Suddenly now there is an Order in Council process in place. The nature of this matter has hardly I would say been expeditious. That is just one example of what can happen when the Order in Council and the affirmative action process is put in place. 
The Regulations Review Committee also noted that although the affirmative resolution procedure allows a truncated legislative process it considers that there are considerable drawbacks. In particular the procedure allows significant matters of policy and principle to be dealt with in delegated legislation rather than in primary legislation. We have heard other parties raise this issue here today. It allows a limited time for select committee scrutiny—not the great time as in the normal process as Steve Chadwick indicated—which may be insufficient for public consultation or for substantial consideration of the policy rationale. In short it should be used in extreme or very limited circumstances only. The legislation now allows for this process to be undergone in many and varied circumstances. 
In particular I mention new section 4(1AA) inserted by clause 5(2). ACT finds it bizarre that people’s liberties will be able to removed by ministerial decree—the Order in Council process—while all the machinery of Parliament will be needed to reduce regulation. There are no historical precedents for this action at all and to allow the extra regulation of substances by Order in Council but to have the downgrading if you like of those same substances or any other substances on a schedule allowed to happen only by the full machinations of the parliamentary process is really quite bizarre. 
Quite how we reached that point is very questionable. We should either have the same process both ways or the full parliamentary process both ways. Anybody who has any knowledge of the legislative process looking from beyond our own battlegrounds here today would find this absolutely extraordinary. 
ACT New Zealand opposes this legislation because of many process matters. As I say we would have liked to support the bill for the benefit that Parts 1 and 2 will bring to the control and supply of serious methamphetamine-type medications that have brought great problems to our society—we all acknowledge that. We think that Part 3 should have been stand-alone legislation and we are very loath to see substances that have yet to be proven to be very harmful lumped in with very dangerous drugs. Most important we worry about the proliferating use of the affirmative action process through Order in Council. For those reasons we oppose this legislation.