Williamson Maurice: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21485] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 It has been my experience in this Parliament that one can often get a better picture of legislation and what is intended if one comes to it completely fresh and has not been part of the process. I am happy to say that I have not been part of the process so it was interesting to sit down this morning and freshly read the commentary back from the select committee to read what the issues are and then to make some determination about where I think I certainly would want to stand and hopefully my party would want to stand. 
What struck me very quickly with this was that although the National Party strongly supports the original Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) the party has some very serious concerns about how far one extends the regulatory process to allow the inclusion on the list of banned substances. I can tell members of this House having been here for 18 years that I have had very strong views on something as an initial instinct and then after having been through a very elongated select committee process with public submissions and hearing from a number of officials and not just the one official who may have been getting in one’s ear from one department that the solution has been not quite as simple as it first looked; what finally emerges from the parliamentary process might look quite different and in many cases one’s original instincts have been wrong. 
For that reason I would very very much not like to support a regime that looks about to be put in place here especially with Jim Anderton’s Supplementary Order Paper that will allow a Minister through Order in Council to start adding things to controlled lists and to banned substances lists just at a whim. 
I accept that there is some awful stuff out there. Nobody could want anything that P stands for to be in any way able to be sold including all the precursors—the ingredients that are used to make P. They have all got to be somehow controlled to stop the dreadful process going on. But I have to say that one can soon slip off the straight and narrow with that thinking because there are some party pills and herbal pills around and so on. Now that sounds awful—party pills and things that make people feel better or give them a slight high. But in many cases a lot of those things do not do any more damage than a couple of glasses of wine. They sound like they are addictive and that they are like heroin or cocaine but in fact they are not as serious as that. 
So one immediately comes to a conclusion that there is a whole continuum from things that are almost no damage at all. Maybe they do not do much but the kids think they make them feel good. I remember at Matamata College one of the highs we used to get was putting an Aspro into a glass of Coca Cola and drinking it. That was supposed to give one a high. Well we all pretended we got high but I understand that it makes no difference whatsoever. At the other extreme there are things like the heroins and the cocaines that one wants to ban. 
I see the Regulations Review Committee making a very very good series of recommendations here. We must not give to a particular Minister—not just this Minister but any other Minister—some draconian powers to start getting in and banning stuff that is probably no more insidious or no more addictive than maybe alcohol or tobacco. We should not be allowing the bureaucrats to develop a wish list at a whim and be able to bang that through some form of a regulatory process without the proper scrutiny. 
I think ACT said the right words in its minority report. It said we need a proper legislative process to safeguard against some form of ad hoc hysteria. ACT’s minority report stated: “Regulations Review Committee warnings regarding amendment to primary legislation by Order in Council subject to affirmative resolution have been largely ignored.” I think that is right when I look back at the points that the National Party included in its minority report. It stated: “We are mindful of the Regulations Review Committee’s statement that—the affirmative resolution procedure should not proliferate the affirmative resolution procedure should only be used in limited and exceptional circumstances any extension to the affirmative resolution procedure on the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 should only be permitted where it is: a necessary adjustment to altering the schedules of controlled drugs; essential in order to achieve the purpose of the Act in dealing with the serious risk of emerging drug threats.” 
I have to tell the Minister that I am sure that when a new drug called “Q” arrives on the scene—the next one on from P whenever it arrives— 
Hon Member 
: It is here already. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well if it is here already and “Q” is known to be a really serious addictive damaging drug like P is I am sure this Parliament would want to almost—no I think it would be unanimously—race to pass some legislation but again with a proper process of consideration so that we did not suddenly ban “Q”. It is for that reason that the National Party will be voting against this.