Bakshi Kanwaljit SinghKANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's my privilege to stand in support of the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill under the name of Simeon Brown a hard-working MP from Pakuranga. He has brought in this bill—Michael Wood: Makes one on that side of the House. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Sorry I didn't get that Michael what did you say? Michael Wood: I said it makes one on that side of the House. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: All right. The thing is that the person who got the bill drawn is I think hard-working; who has got a thought to put in front of Parliament to discuss. Bringing this up to this stage the third reading makes a lot of difference. It is not just that he has got this bill to this stage—I remember that when he was a member of the local board he organised a protest when a shop was being opened up in Manurewa and he managed to organise a really big protest and the result of that was that shop was not opened. So I know he is hard-working passionate and wants to make sure that the harm to the community is stopped.A little while ago we were also debating another bill where the leader of the ACT Party was trying to say that I have just learnt this speaking skill. For the nine minutes I have taken to express my views I would like to clarify for him—I know that he is very passionate he wants his bill to be debated but it takes a while; keep some patience you will get your turn in due course. This bill is needed to protect New Zealanders from the harm of illegal psychoactive substances which are currently being supplied and are proving to be extremely dangerous. I would like to clarify what Louisa Wall was trying to say: it is important that we should stop and make sure that the suppliers don't supply these harmful substances to the users and they are not the addicted people—the addicted people are getting supply from someone who is making some profit and has got a motive behind supplying these things. The non-approved products which are being seen are having far greater harmful effect than was envisioned when the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was put in place. What we have seen is that every time there is a product which is banned there is a chemical change in some formulation and that product becomes un-banned and that is being supplied to the people. Day by day the strength of these products is increasing which is really harmful. We have seen in the last 18 months more than 80 people have died because of the effect of these psychoactive substances and we want to ensure—and that is the main intention that we should make sure that the suppliers don't supply these things to the addicted people. Definitely we want to ensure that the addicted people should be given treatment under the health—but obviously if there is no supply how are they going to use these products? So these products are far more potent than what was seen before the regulations were put in place and require strict penalties to deter people from producing and supplying these products to individuals. This legislation targets the suppliers and the distributor. I would like to repeat that: this bill is targeting suppliers and distributors rather than the users. We will maintain a focus on treating the use of psychoactive substances as health issues encouraging health and rehabilitation services rather than punitive measures. It is very important that we make sure that the suppliers are targeted to stop supplying this product. I am repeating this again and again because some of the parties were supporting this bill up until the second reading but now they are not supporting it. They should understand that this is an issue which is affecting New Zealanders and we should be passing this bill tonight so that we can have effective control—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I apologise to the member; your time has expired.