Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill. I just want to make a couple of quick comments around what the member Darroch Ball was just saying—that the arguments being put forward by this side of the House make absolutely no sense. I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind this House of what Chlöe Swarbrick said and which is the direct opposite of what she will be doing tonight when she said regarding classifying class A drugs David Clark's call to reclassify two of the synthetic compounds as class A drugs puts our country on the wrong path." Those were the words that she said in October last year. Tonight the Green Party will be voting for exactly what she said was what she didn't want done back in October last year.The National Party supports parts of this piece of legislation but does not support other parts. But firstly I would like to talk about one of the parts of this piece of legislation which is incredibly important and that's the classification of two of the most dangerous synthetic drug compounds as class A drugs—AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB. It is with a heavy heart that we discuss this subject because we know that there have been around 80 deaths from those two killer substances over the past 18 months. It is good that finally Parliament will be passing into law and actually doing something about giving those substances the classification that they need and ensuring that the suppliers the manufacturers and the distributors of those substances are targeted by the police and they face the full consequences of the law for their actions. That was why I brought legislation to this Parliament to address it through the Psychoactive Substances Act to ensure that those who are supplying these dangerous drugs do face a hefty hefty penalty—the suppliers and manufacturers and distributors of drugs which kill of drugs which cause enormous harm should face long sentences and heavy penalties.I remind this House and acknowledge Lewis Jones and his son Calum who died from synthetic drugs. He was targeted by a dealer over 100 times in the 24 hours prior to his death. He was given a free sample and that free sample claimed that young man and that young father's life. We are talking about real people and real consequences. So it is good that this Parliament is finally taking action regarding classifying those two drugs.But I would make the point that this is far too late. It's over a year since the Rt Hon Winston Peters said as Acting Prime Minister that this issue would be dealt with with "unction and urgency" on 31 July last year and that the Government would take serious action. It is now 7 August 2019 and Parliament is only just getting around to classifying those substances as class A drugs. That is something which has taken far too long; however it is the right thing to be doing to be classifying those two substances.I would like to remind the House of the fact that what I was trying to do through the Psychoactive Substances Act was something which was opposed consistently by the same people who are now standing up and saying that this is something which should be done. So I do applaud the Government for finally actually taking action. I would also like to put on the record that the Government could have taken action much faster if they had actually used the Misuse of Drugs Act to classify AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB by using an Order in Council which the Minister of Health has under that piece of legislation but failed to do and instead chose to legislate and take even more time in doing so.The second point that I'd like to touch on is in regards to the additional clause clause 5 which includes temporary class drug orders. This is a good step. Again it's something which I think my bill was trying to do which was to ensure that we're not seeing the Parliament and the Minister having to continually respond to new substances being created by synthetic drug dealers. The reality is that these drugs can be created very quickly overnight by synthetic drug dealers and the Psychoactive Substances Act has essentially a ban on all of these substances. What the new temporary class C1 orders will mean is that the Minister will be able to quickly issue these. The concern that I have is around the speed and the harm which can be done in the interim. But at least it's something which allows the Minister to be able to take action when new substances are brought in and allows the Minister to take action against the dealers and suppliers and their new ways that they try to make money from people's misery.Finally I would like to touch on clause 7 of this bill which Darroch Ball says just reaffirms what police already do. The question has to be asked: if all it does is reaffirm what police already do why is it in the piece of legislation? Why is it here? I would like to remind MP Darroch Ball of what Chris Cahill said when this policy was announced late last year: "It has an air of drug reform on the fly rather than a more considered debate and informed legislation. I am worried that by codifying police discretion the Government is potentially asking officers to be the spearhead of decriminalisation. If decriminalisation is what Parliament wants then that's what the law should say." That's essentially the position that the National Party has taken and we are saying if that's what this Government wants that's what the Government should be saying. But instead they are doing it by de facto and we have de facto decriminalisation in this piece of legislation by essentially legislating that the police should not prosecute—should not prosecute. That's exactly what it says.Of course we have an interesting situation here where the Green Party claim that this is full-on decriminalisation; whereas New Zealand First says this is not decriminalisation. But the reality is when you look at the legislation and you look at what it says it says "prosecution should not be brought".I'd like to remind the House that this is not just about decriminalisation of cannabis; this is about all substances—class A class B and class C. That is cocaine heroin meth opium MDMA. These are harmful substances and the Government is sending a message that the police should not prosecute for personal use and possession of all of those drugs.Now the police currently do have discretion. They have to take into account a range of factors when deciding whether to prosecute. That is the right thing to do. Parliament should not be dictating to the police who they should be prosecuting and what they should be prosecuting them for. That is the police's job. That is their job to make those decisions to use their discretion. But here we have legislation which says the police should not prosecute and that is something which National cannot support. The police should not be put in that position. We cannot support this piece of legislation because it goes far too far on these on this particular clause. I cannot commend this bill to the House."