Lees-Galloway Iain: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17511. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Labour will support this Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill. The two principal objectives of this bill are policies that Labour wholeheartedly endorses and supports. The first is to remove the transition provisions of the principal Act that have allowed for untested drugs to remain on the shelf and available for sale to the public. That is a position that like other parties in the House Labour came to in response to the overwhelming public outcry that untested drugs remained available and that their effects were unknown and that their effects became apparent only when young people and other people using those drugs experienced the harmful side-effects of those substances. That situation really flew in the face of the principles behind the original legislation which were that psychoactive substances would need to be tested first before they could go on the market for sale and that the onus of proof that they were of low or no risk would lie with the manufacturers not with the users in the community around them.The other objective of this legislation is to ban all animal testing for psychoactive substances. This is a policy that Labour has supported since the principal legislation was debated in the House and our party along with other parties supported the amendment in the name of Mojo Mathers to remove animal testing right back when we were debating the principal legislation. That amendment was blocked by National by United Future—actually I think it was Peter Dunne independent MP at the time—and through the abstention of the New Zealand First Party. So we could have dealt with this issue of animal testing long before today but we are very very happy that it has been included in this legislation—again because the Government has finally buckled to public pressure and the overwhelming pressure that has been placed upon it by Opposition parties.It is never a positive outcome when a piece of legislation has to be amended in such a short space of time after it was originally passed. The Psychoactive Substances Act was passed in July last year. It received its first reading in April last year—a little over 12 months ago. At the time after the first reading debate there was a debate in the House around the shortened select committee period that Parliament was being given to consider the legislation. At that time in that debate I said I was concerned that we were rushing this legislation that it was complex legislation that it was novel that no other country in the world had attempted this approach to regulating psychoactive substances and that it was absolutely inappropriate for Parliament to be rushing the legislation.I warned that mistakes would be made. In fact I went back and checked out exactly what it was I said and I said: “I don’t want us to be back here in 12 months’ time realising that we have made a mistake and having to fix those mistakes up.” Here we are—Mike Sabin: You said a lot of other stuff too.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —apologies if it is not the exact quote—12 months later admitting that we made a mistake.Dr Paul Hutchison: You supported the bill though—119 to 1.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Paul Hutchison makes a very important point: 119 MPs supported this bill. I supported this bill. I sat on the Health Committee and considered the issues. One of the issues was whether we should have a transition period. The select committee decided that we should. That decision was made at breakneck speed because we were given just 2 months at select committee to deal with these complex issues.We are the first country in the world dealing with this type of legislation and the Government gave us one-third of the time that it would normally give a selectcommittee to consider those issues. The Government will say quite rightly that we needed to have the legislation passed—Mike Sabin: What did the Labour Government do between 1999 and 2008?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —Mike Sabin just be quiet and let me say what I have to say—by August last year but because the Government failed to prioritise the Psychoactive Substances Act the legislation was brought to the House only in February last year. If we had got started in February last year that would have given us a little bit of time.But what the Government did was sit on that legislation from February until April and it gave the select committee even less time to consider the legislation.Mike Sabin: What did the member’s party do until 2008?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: What the member’s party did until 2008 was ask the Law Commission to do a complete review of the Misuse of Drugs Act because we understood that the Misuse of Drugs Act was no longer capable of dealing with the number and variety of drugs that were available for supply in the 21st century. That is what the Labour Government did. We asked the independent Law Commission to go away and figure out what the best way forward was. The Law Commission came back in April 2011 with a comprehensive report one chapter—just one chapter—of which is the precursor to the Psychoactive Substances Act. It took that Government 2 years to take the recommendations on psychoactive substances from the Law Commission—2 years to bring that legislation before the House—and then it said to Parliament: “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to rush this.” That is why mistakes were made—because that Government did not prioritise getting these drugs off the streets. That is why Parliament made a mistake.I am happy to say that I was one of the MPs who voted for that legislation and it was the right thing to do because had we not passed that legislation then all those drugs would still be out there—not 41 but about 300 different drugs would still be out there if we had not passed the legislation. But it was not perfect and one of the main reasons it was not perfect was that the select committee was not given time to consider it properly and the select committee did not have time because that Government did not make this a priority. That is a fact.The other reason we are back here today is that having implemented the legislation the Government then made an absolute dog’s breakfast of resourcing it giving the Ministry of Health the tools it needed and getting the regulations sorted out. One of the reasons we hear for why it has taken so long to get the regulations sorted out is that John Key was uncomfortable with animal testing. But it was National that blocked the amendments that would have stopped animal testing. So if we had gone back and got the legislation right in the first place if National had voted for MojoMather’s amendment then we would not have had to delay the regulation-making process because John Key would not have had to worry about animal testing.The other thing the Government has failed to do is use the provisions in the current legislation to get rid of unsafe drugs. It got rid of five at the beginning of the year—well done; not bad—but then after the announcement that the law was going to be changed it got rid of another six. That just smacks of an under-resourced Ministry of Health incapable of properly implementing the original legislation.This has been a shambles from the National Government from the very beginning—its failure to respond to the Law Commission’s report its slow response as to when one was finally coming the rushed select committee process that caused mistakes in the legislation and then the shambolic implementation of the legislation once it was finally passed. Make no mistake New Zealand the reason why we have got untested unsafe drugs still on our streets is that National has made a hash of this from day one. And thereason for that is that it never prioritised this issue. It was never important to National. It has always been a rush job. Here is another rush job and it is simply a reflection of the fact that making sure our young people are safe from drugs that have a high risk of causing harm was never a priority for this Government. That is why we are in the mess we are in today and that is why we are having to clean it up.