Cosgrove Clayton: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5978] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building Issues) 
: 
 I just want to take a short call. Firstly I thank Shane Ardern and John Hayes for their contributions. I especially thank Mr Ardern whom I know better—he knows a bipartisan moment when he sees one. 
I just want to address some of the usual political bile that was heaped upon the Sports Anti-Doping Bill by the member for Otago. She again tried to play politics with a bill that I think is pretty straightforward and pretty bipartisan as exhibited by her more mature colleagues Mr Ardern and Mr Hayes. She tried to say that on the one hand the Government was promoting this bill yet on the other hand it was doing nothing about a substance called benzylpiperazine and party pills. Somehow Ms Dean has become the Joan of Arc of this cause. I say to Ms Dean that before she was nothing but an embryonic twinkle in the eyes of her voters before the last election my good self and other colleagues who have experienced the scourge of benzylpiperazine in their electorates were on to this issue. About a week before the election a person called Mr Terry Brown from my electorate opened one of these scurrilous shops and a petition was then launched. I note that Ms Dean came to the battle a couple of days late when the war was won and tried to bayonet a few wounded grab a few political headlines and move on. 
She asked what the Government has done about benzylpiperazine so I will tell her. The Government has acted quite logically. We have a Minister called Mr Anderton as the chair of the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy. He rated the drug R18 he killed off any advertising opportunities for the drug and he then assembled a medical experts committee to examine the substance. That medical experts committee—[ 
Interruption 
] I think Sandra Goudie and Ms Dean are on benzylpiperazine given the nature of their interjections. As he said in talking to the bill the medical experts committee will do a simple thing. It will act logically. It has conducted studies that once released I am advised will be informative studies far in advance of any medical studies known done or executed in the world. When these studies are released we will know more about benzylpiperazine than anybody else. Then as Mr Anderton has said if the members of the medical experts committee—those who have medical degrees and are charged with making these recommendations unlike Ms Dean who must be on benzylpiperazine—recommend that it should be banned and I hope they do he will ban it. 
The way to deal with substances and drugs that flow across our border is not simply to have a gut reaction. Although the drugs may be despicable on the face of it and I grant members that benzylpiperazine is exceptionally despicable it is logical to get the medical experts—those with a science background and a degree in medicine who know something about this subject—to examine those substances and make a recommendation. As I have said once this is done if the recommendation is to ban they will be banned. Ms Dean has turned this debate unlike her colleagues Mr Ardern and Mr Hayes—who made bipartisan sound logical and calm contributions to this debate because this is good legislation— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Don’t trivialise drugs. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well Ms Dean made a speech that was more about waving political pamphlets and slogans than actually dealing with the issue. She knows that the Government has a medical experts committee examining this. She knows that others were fighting this war far in advance of when she bounced into this House to grab a silly headline. She knows that myself and other colleagues are working with accident and emergency medical specialists like Dr Paul Gee and others who see kids who are full of the stuff being carried into Christchurch Hospital on gurneys. She knows Mr Anderton’s view and the rest. 
Unlike the National Party we act logically and we put up logical bills in the House like this one. All the squawking from the bantam hens over there—and particularly the orange one in the corner of the Chamber who could not even get a point of order right; that shows how many brains she has—will not make up for the fact that two contributions from National Party members to this debate were bipartisan and sound and one contribution from Ms Dean was silly and juvenile although not addictive. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Sandra Goudie.