McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to rise and speak on the Synthetic Urine (Prohibition on Importation Supply and Acquisition to Pass a Workplace Drug Test) Bill. I'd like to say it's a good wee bill but it's not. There is no evidence that the use of synthetic urine to pass drug tests is a widespread problem in New Zealand so the bill appears to be again a solution looking for a problem. I think there's three main points that illustrate this. Firstly Newshub reported that in one particular workplace last year despite hundreds of workers being tested only one person was found to have produced or used fake urine to provide a sample—one. Secondly it looks as if there haven't been any employment cases in New Zealand relating to this particular issue. Thirdly I think that it's also important to note that where a worker who has legitimately been tested has been found to use a synthetic urine product they can already be justifiably dismissed in the workplace.So no one is saying that the genuine impairment that results from drug and alcohol use in the workplace isn't important or that that impairment isn't of concern but relying on drug tests as a means by which to uncover this impairment and relying on drug tests which are ropey at best as a means by which to expose this type of impairment just simply isn't very robust. As my colleague who has just taken her seat has said it's often also not very fair. So let's be clear: drug testing at work mainly exists as a pretty hit-and-miss method of deterrent which this bill is now seeking to prop up instead of looking at actual ways—actual genuine ways—of minimising drug impairment in the workplace.Thinking about drug testing in general we know that most testing doesn't test for a large number of drugs. We know that most workplace testing in New Zealand the threshold for a positive test for the drugs that they do actually test for is so low that the mere presence of any drug regardless of how it might or might not impact on impairment or workplace performance would be considered a breach and that that actually has real consequences to real life people.We also know that drugs vary greatly in the time that they remain detectable in a person's system. Cannabis for instance can be detected weeks after use and long after any impairment or long after any impairment that involves consideration of workplace performance has worn off. Actually if the member who's sponsoring this bill wanted to improve health and safety at work as he's claimed quite vigorously from his seat then this bill wouldn't actually be the vehicle for it.I think we can all agree that we certainly don't want to see other more dangerous methods of circumventing testing like detoxification kits or people consuming huge amounts of water to flush out the system start creeping into the testing system. Ultimately there are other really accessible methods of actually faking urine samples like simply just using a clean sample from someone else. So bearing these things in mind as I said drug testing I believe remains quite a ropey methodology quite a ropey tool to combat impairment. We'd have certainly on this side of the House I think it fair to say preferred to have seen some more focus on policy and more focus on training and empowering employees rather than these threats of punitive measures.So we oppose this bill both from a workplace relations perspective and also from a health perspective. The scale of the problem the bill seeks to solve has barely been demonstrated. The administrative resources to set up a regime to manage an issue we barely know the scale of just doesn't make any sense. The efficacy of drug testing currently in use by employers is itself very debateable.So in short there are much better ways to keep our workplaces safe happy and productive. There are many many more ways that we should be advancing this and much more aspirational ways that we should be conceiving of this issue. In and of itself this bill is punitive difficult to enforce unlikely to address the real underlying problems and likely to exacerbate other important problems as well. So for these very reasons we do not support this bill to progress further and I do not commend this bill to the House.