Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. New Zealand First won't be supporting the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill any further through the House even though we did support it through up until this point and I'll get into the reasons why we did that in a second. I think firstly when anyone is speaking on this bill we've got to be very careful about what this bill is actually aiming to do understanding what it's aiming to do and who this bill is targeting. I stand by all of my comments in all my previous speeches through the stages of this bill. One of the major reasons why New Zealand First supported it up until this point was that first of all there was no other option on the table at that point in time. The second was that this bill only targets the dealers and the suppliers. New Zealand First knew—and we have taken that even further and helped develop the Government bill—that we needed to come down hard on the manufacturers and suppliers and dealers of this synthetic poison. In no way shape or form would New Zealand First have supported this bill if it was in any way shape or form targeting the vulnerable users and those that were addicted to this substance. So although this debate does obviously make people passionate about it—and it should because people are dying and we've heard from Simeon Brown that recently we've lost 80 people to this—I can say with some certainty that most if not all of those people that did die weren't the dealers and manufacturers of the poison; they were the users and the vulnerable people that were addicted. The people that were manufacturing and selling and peddling this stuff were the ones that didn't care one iota about what was in it didn't care one iota about the people that were taking it and those that were suffering from it—not only those people that were taking it but their families as well. So that's why New Zealand First was supporting it.The reason why we're no longer supporting it is because—and I am pretty certain from listening to both the National Party members so far but especially the author of this bill Simeon Brown that they know that the Government bill and the Government pathway that we're taking makes this bill that we're talking about irrelevant; it makes it absolutely irrelevant and it's very baseless. All this bill does is change one number from the original bill which was 2 years" to "8 years" which is a class C equivalent for dealers and manufacturers: prison sentence eight years. With New Zealand First Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 23 we increase it to be more like a class B drug which is a 14-year sentence. So it only ever changes the penalty that can be—not mandatorily—dished out to a supplier and manufacturer if the judge so decides.So if we've got a really big problem—and we do and Simeon Brown has said that we've got a big problem with psychoactive substances—one little change in a number is not going to change the issue. It's not going to change in its entirety the problem with psychoactive substances their manufacturing and the people who are dealing this stuff. It just won't do it and he's admitted that. He said in his speech tonight that this isn't the perfect bill and this isn't a silver bullet and it needs to be developed. He also acknowledged the fact that there needs to be a health-based approach for the users of these drugs of these poisons. The very fact that he's acknowledged that means that there is something inherently wrong with the very Act that he's tweaking. We need to have a different approach with the entirety of the problem of psychoactive substances if the Act itself doesn't work and that's what the Government has tabled.The pathway that the Government wants to go down is—and this is why we're supporting and helped to develop the Government bill—increased penalties for the drug dealers and the manufacturers and the peddlers of psychoactive substances. This is the main reason why it makes this bill that we're talking about right now irrelevant. First of all it takes the two most deadly strains that have killed these people that we're talking about and it doesn't take them from two to eight years which is what Simeon Brown's bill did originally and it doesn't take it from two to 14 years which is what New Zealand First's SOP 23 made it; it takes it to life in prison.We've heard from Maggie Barry and from Simeon Brown about the importance of the penalties to act as deterrents for those people who are manufacturing this poison. We have listened. We understand that. New Zealand First supports that concept. That's why we have supported the Government bill and pathway to increase the penalties for suppliers and manufacturers. It quite literally makes Simeon Brown's bill irrelevant. Not only that but all of the new—Chris Penk: When did that one pass?DARROCH BALL: —I'll get to that in a second—substances that come across will automatically be put into a class C1  which is eight years in prison which is the exact same amount that the original bill from Simeon Brown wanted to create. It quite literally makes it irrelevant.Now we had a comment from Chris Penk about "When did it pass? When did it pass?" and we had comments from Simeon Brown about wanting to have the Government bill put through under urgency. I mean how many lectures have we had from that side of the House about us putting through bills under urgency and not putting it through the proper process and not avoiding the consequences that should've been avoided in the first place? The Minister said it himself in his speech; he said it needs to go through the proper process to ensure that we iron out all of the potential problems that would be in there. It is the most responsible thing to do with this legislation.If we are going to do this and solve a very complicated problem first of all it's not going to be solved by a little tweak taking it from two years to eight years. First of all that's not going to happen—it won't work. But if we are going to do this responsibly then we have to go through the proper process. If we do it we've got to do it once; we've got to do it right. That's what this Government is doing. We understand the impact and the issues that this poison creates for our society. That's why we understand that it's not a one-dimensional approach that we need to take to try and tackle this. Yes we do need to have increased penalties for the dealers and suppliers and manufacturers but we also have to have a better approach when we are dealing with those that are vulnerable that are addicted to this substance and who are suffering.New Zealand First understands the intent of Simeon Brown and his bill and we supported it up until this point when there was nothing else on the table that would even look like dealing with the problem. But we do now—this Government has a solution. It's a solution that makes this bill irrelevant and that's why we won't be supporting it any further."