Kerekere ElizabethDr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai. I rise to speak on behalf of my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick who has guided this bill through the Health Committee and also co-founded the Cross-Party Mental Health and Addictions Wellbeing Group here in Parliament. We consider this creates a very very good framework for drug checking and we congratulate the Government on progressing this work.So the Greens have a long illustrious whakapapa on improving and trying to improve the laws around drugs and substance abuse including to legalise cannabis for medicinal and recreational use and improving the Government's synthetic response. This included obtaining funding for community-based treatment including the safe after-hours space Haven in Auckland Central—a collaboration between Lifewise and Odyssey. We consider legalising drug checking supports a health-based harm-reduction approach to drug use. The Greens campaigned on this in 2018 which included presenting a 6000-strong petition to the House.So this omnibus bill as we've heard amends the part of the Misuse of Drugs Act where it's illegal to knowingly provide a location where people are consuming substances. So it enables drug-checking services to operate with the legal certainty to give and receive drugs from a drug-checking service. It does this by allowing the Director-General of Health to allow certain providers to be gazetted to operate these drug-checking services. They cannot be prosecuted and it enables them to maintain the privacy of those who they check—this is quite a core part.Importantly not only is it events-based but it can be static one-off events and in vehicles. As summer nears and the people of Tai Rāwhiti are wondering whether Rhythm and Vines is going to go ahead and we're going to be inundated with predominantly young people from around the country safety is a really key issue and the use of drugs of course massively increases over that time. So we see that this bill will allow that legal drug-checking at these summer events and then into pride weeks pride parties O-Weeks and a range of things that are happening.We want to do a shout-out to KnowYourStuff NZ and the NZ Drug Foundation. They've worked with the Greens and I'm sure other parties as well over the years. Their research shows us that consistently people will change their drug behaviours and be less risky when they know what is in the substance that they have. Green policy commits us to supporting measures that enhance people's capacity for informed choice which is what this drug checking does.Since this is predominantly focused on young people I point to Mana Taiohi the Te Tiriti o Waitangi - based principles of youth development. One of those principles states and I quote being empowered by rich and diverse mātauranga informs both young people and people who work with young people towards personal growth. Young people actively participate in making meaning of information and are supported to holistically make positive choices for them and their whānau." This is the core of the bill I feel—making sure that these predominately young people make good choices based on good information without getting judged or penalised.What this bill probably doesn't recognise is that its application to some of these summer events—largely ticketed events—could be criticised as focusing on recreational middle-class and predominantly Pākehā drug use rather than the more problematic drug issues that some of the people in this House have raised which disproportionately affects lower-income communities of colour. Dealing with drugs we think should be a health education housing and social issue with solutions based on evidence and with the insight of local communities.We think this is clearly reinforced by the Government's own commissioned reviews. He Ara Oranga recommended decriminalising users and Turuki! Turuki! the Safe and Effective Justice Programme Advisory Group review went even further and said legally regulating certain substances. For now though Māori are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement for personal drug use and they're criminalised from a young age. We would hope to see that the compassionate non-judgmental nature of this bill is applied wherever drugs are available and especially to young people regardless of where they come from and whether they can afford to buy those festival tickets. Along with the complete restructure of our health and mental health systems we look forward to an overhaul of the Misuse of Drugs Act. In the meantime this is good progress and we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora."