Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Thank you Mr Speaker. National opposes this bill which legalises the testing of illicit drugs—mainly ecstasy or E or as it's chemically known MDMA. I want to make two initial points. I accept—and I heard the groan from the other side—that National's against the zeitgeist of most of our press and this Parliament. We're on the unfashionable side of the debate—which is something given that Andrew Little is on the other side. I also acknowledge that those for this always say we have to be evidence led and focused on harm reduction. They go on to say that in opposing this National is ideological and not evidence led. Well my view is that on the evidence the opposite is true. Indeed that's the main reason for my personal opposition to this bill.I acknowledge there will be conflicting evidence from different countries and even within them but there is clear evidence that use and harm will increase through pill testing. At the very least I say it's clear that harm won't reduce and there won't be more people saved—that is doing less harm. And that's even before we get to the message this bill sends to our young. Use will go up. Personally I would have thought that's obvious given that the bill allows you to get an all clear—and the Minister said it himself: tell the parents that it's safe—on your pills. But it's also backed by clear evidence. While the statistics are poor and equivocal in parts of Europe in the United Kingdom actually the statistics are very good and pretty clear in my view. The Loop is an organisation which pill tests in the UK and began expanding its work in 2013 with Government approval. Over that time ecstasy use has gone from 1.2 percent of the population of England and Wales in 2013 to 1.7 percent by 2017 and 2018. That's a significant increase and the best evidence I'm aware of that since testing use can go up; it doesn't go down.What's more: when the use goes up the harm goes up. You might think that at least as testing went up and up in the UK harm would decrease. In fact deaths increased in the same period from 43 to 92. That isn't harm reduction; it's quite the opposite Andrew Little. Why is that? Because it turns out pill testing legalised by Government gives confidence—false confidence. Tests don't make ecstasy safe even if they give an all-clear for impurities or contaminants that the tests detect.In addition those same impurities are not what causes the harm or in the worst cases death. The impurities aren't the really harmful bit. Actually Andrew Little the ecstasy is. In a recent study of 392 ecstasy deaths in Australia between 2001 and 2016 no deaths were from impurities or contaminants in pills. No deaths were from other drugs that went alongside the ecstasy pills. The deaths in Australia were all from the ecstasy itself or the ecstasy plus other drugs consumed at the party alongside the ecstasy—alcohol cocaine or others of course—creating a toxic synergy.In other words this study indicates that the pill testing had zero protective effect. Those hundreds of people died from the ecstasy. Chlöe Swarbrick: It's not legal in Australia Simon.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I believe use and harm will go up. The member opposite over there says that it was not legal. That doesn't change the fact that it wasn't the contaminants; it was the ecstasy scientifically. This bill proposes a pill test that doesn't go to what's killing young people in Australia in the United Kingdom around the world and in New Zealand. Chlöe Swarbrick: What did the chief coroner of New South Wales say?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: But even if members point—and I ask the member who's barracking to do so—to other studies and this becomes a battle of surveys and studies and reports it's heroic to say use and harm will go down if more people take more ecstasy. Good luck with that! I want to make two other significant points. Why are we rushing this bill when serious drug harm reduction initiatives haven't been done? In the last term the Government did in my view—and I ask the members opposite to challenge me on this—incredibly little towards serious drug harm reduction. Chlöe Swarbrick: It's because you stood in the way.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Where was the drug-driving testing? We were in support of that. Nick Smith and I begged the Prime Minister in this House and other places to get on with it—actually from the very start of the Parliament. It's now drugs on our roads that are the single biggest killer more so than alcohol by a long way. The technology is up to date and we can test for MDMA. Well that hasn't passed. I haven't seen anything in months and months and months.Next to nothing has been done by the Government regarding the number of beds counsellor services rehabilitation and treatment that is required for drug abuse in this country. I know in Tauranga in my electorate which I'm privileged to represent what a huge problem—what a crisis—it is. I say to the other side actually it's a plague on both our houses. We didn't do enough but that side didn't in the last term either.Even if you disagree with me on the evidence regarding the use and harm of ecstasy rushing this bill is wrong. It puts the cart before the horse—the harms before the treatments if you like. Surely we shouldn't be doing this if we haven't geared up our health and social and police services to deal with the impacts.The second thing I want to say is that this bill is part of a wider agenda by the Government to decriminalise illicit drugs. It's soft thinking by a Government that's soft on drugs. A majority of New Zealanders—as my friends on this side of the House said to Andrew Little you didn't seem to want to acknowledge this point—voted against the legalisation of cannabis very recently. I know Chlöe Swarbrick for example wants to disregard the will of the people. Well we can't on the election—we're not Donald Trump—and I ask that she doesn't actually on that very important referendum where a majority said they didn't want to see the legalisation of cannabis. My view Chlöe Swarbrick is that they feel even more strongly about harder illicit drugs—certainly methamphetamine but also when they think about it ecstasy which is a class A drug at the top of our criminal calendar because it is viewed rightly by the scientists by this Parliament and by the courts as a much more serious drug than cannabis. In short most Kiwis when they think it all through don't want to go soft on drugs. But that's the agenda. Last term we saw the law change upping the discretion in my view—and I know the other side disagrees with this—mandating police around New Zealand to stop prosecuting for any illicit drug—cannabis cocaine methamphetamine. That's what that law through the misuse of drugs amendment did. For a few points of meth now outside a school you will no longer be charged. If you say I'm wrong on the other side you find me one case—just one case—since that law passed.Last week in the suburb both Jan Tinetti and I lived in the community has complained to both of us about meth dealing in cars outside homes by schoolkids. The police view is actually the identical view to one of their senior Ministers Andrew Little. Their view was: we can't arrest our way out of this—that is we're not going to do anything. So if you can't beat it join it effectively. Well I don't think that's the view of the majority of New Zealanders when they think about these issues. I don't think it should be the view of the majority of this Parliament either. This sort of law change at haste will be regretted by New Zealand at its leisure over the long term. I note as its first law this is the message the Government's sending. It's giving a false confidence a message that it's OK on illicit hard drugs. Like I say it's the wrong message to our young. Drug use will go up. More harm will tragically be done along the way to young New Zealanders. I'll be opposing this bill every step of the way.