Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare—a pleasure to rise to speak in this House for the first time since the Parliament has been formed again subsequent to the election. I am incredibly stoked as well that this is the first piece of legislation that I get to speak on because it is something that I have spent a few years getting down into the detail of. It is also something which I think Mr Deputy Speaker I could tell based on your disapproving looks earlier kind of makes my blood boil particularly because of the misinformation the seeds of doubt and the real false equivalence that the National Party Opposition right now are attempting to provide and the way that they are trying to say that there is equal evidence on both sides of this argument. That is simply a falsity. I implore any of those National Party MPs to go and look at this research—to genuinely look at this research—and to tell me that there are countries that have been made less safe by the imposition of legal drug-testing services.What this all actually kind of reminds me of—I remember being quite young—Hon Simon Bridges: She still is.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —and watching a film which was quite popular in its day—thank you Simon Bridges. In that film—it was a 2004 movie—there's this coach. His name was Coach Carr. Hon Simon Bridges: What's it called?CHLÖE SWARBRICK: It's called Mean Girls Simon Bridges. In that film this coach goes on to say and I quote Don't have sex because you will get pregnant and you will die." That is effectively the same kind of abstinence-based insane approach that is being advocated for by the National Party and Simon Bridges stands up and goes "Why is everybody looking at us like we're dinosaurs?" Well it might be because they are light years behind where the research and public opinion is on this issue because if Mr Simon Bridges wants to talk about that he can refer to the recent opinion polling which shows that approximately 80 percent of New Zealanders are behind this. The reason for that is because New Zealanders—parents—want their kids to make the right decisions. We all want our kids we all want our younger siblings to make the right decisions. But when you pack them up and you send them off to their first summer festival you want to be sure that if they do engage in risky behaviour—if they do make a mistake—they are as safe as possible.Of course this amendment to section 12 of the Misuse of Drugs Act is not going to be a silver bullet to solving all of the drug issues in this country because you're going to have to repeal and replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to do that. I would note here speaking across the aisle to my colleagues in the Labour Party that two Labour Ministers in the last term of Government received reports—both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Health with the Minister of Health receiving He Ara Oranga—saying that we need to decriminalise substances. Turuki! Turuki! the Safe and Effective Justice Programme Advisory Group review went even further recommending legalisation of all substances to regulate those substances. I note that there's an ACT Party member who's booing behind me—so much for consistency of libertarian ideology.Anyway the way that section 12 of the Misuse of Drugs Act works right now—to make it really clear to the National Party who I'm not sure have actually read this bill section 12 in the Misuse of Drugs Act makes it illegal to knowingly provide a place for people to consume substances. Arguably tonnes and tonnes unknowable amounts—the majority of bar owners of club owners and of festival organisers in this country—are currently in violation of this law. I have spoken behind the scenes to many of those organisers who have been terrified at the prospect of enabling NGOs like KnowYourStuffNZ on to their premises into their festivals because they would therefore be accepting the premise that they are knowingly having people consuming substances at their festivals at their venues at the places and spaces that they organise. But those same festival organisers those same club owners say to me—and I'm sure if the National Party sought to speak to them would say—that they are utterly terrified of having a young person die in a place and a space that they organised. Because this isn't tiddlywinks. This is reality. New South Wales experienced over a dozen young people dying in the past year. The New South Wales chief coroner recommended drug-checking services as a way to ensure that these kinds of needless deaths do not happen in the future. But still the National Party would prefer to stick their heads in the sand. I also just really want to leave a wero a challenge on the table for the next speaker from the National Party because right now what they seem to be doing is drumming up as much as possible false equivalence between "Well I've got research you've got research so you know it's all kind of—we've all got research". It's not quite the same thing. On top of that—Hon Simon Bridges: You haven't given us any research. She hasn't given us any research.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: If you'd like some research there's domestic Simon Bridges. I'd recommend you go to knowyourstuff.nz. There you'll find about six years' worth of research from an NGO. Hon Simon Bridges: Give me something from a university now.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: From Fiona Hutton—Dr Fiona Hutton. I'm not going to engage with you because you are barraging me and refusing to engage in the substance. But the point that I was getting to is that the National Party here have sought to place false equivalence after false equivalence as the merchants of doubt that they are. On top of that they have also sought to somehow invoke the Portugal model as something that maybe they might like us to look at. But last year or the year before when we were passing through those changes to section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act in response to the synthetic crisis which got so out of hand as a response to the last National Party Government's approach that it was a matter of personal responsibility they didn't want to see the decriminalisation of substances. Hon Simon Bridges: We've had three leaders since then—lay off. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So I'm not quite sure where they sit on this but none the less Simon Bridges I would refer you actually to a programme that was instigated by the former National Government. It's called Te Ara Oranga and it runs by virtue of a collaboration between Northland District Health Board and police. There if you speak to people on the ground you will find that there is effectively a decriminalisation of methamphetamine. That has massively improved people's lives because people are no longer being thrown in jail cells but provided with wraparound support. The other thing that I would say is if the National Party really genuinely want to engage in the research as they continue to say that they do they had the opportunity to do so approximately three years ago when in collaboration with the New Zealand Drug Foundation I presented to Parliament the architect of Portugal's model to decriminalise substances which they now invoke as a matter of something that's working well—or at the very least better than the infrastructure that they left us to inherit. I would also say that there is an opportunity to do so—to collaborate to meaningfully engage in that research—should they choose to look at it. But we are not going to continue to pretend that there is this false equivalence here.The final thing is what kind of approach do the National Party want? Because we've tried the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. These drugs are illegal folks. People are already taking them. People are going to continue to take them. They're already illegal. Are you going to make them more illegal? Because if you'd like to—Simeon Brown: You've given up.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: No Simeon Brown. In fact what you'll find we've done is taken a far more common-sense approach because you do not get rid of something by pushing it further into the shadows and making it more harmful. I'd refer you here to the speech of Kevin Hague a former Green MP when the former National Government was passing the psychoactive substances legislation. He said at that point in time that pushing these substances underground would result in deaths and further harm and in fact it did. This is what happens when you continue to neglect the responsibility of these halls of power. So what do the National Party want to do? Do they want to go so far as I don't know Portugal—no actually they've already mentioned Portugal—as Singapore? As Singapore down the other end of the spectrum—Singapore which invokes the death penalty? Because in Singapore you know some of those "hard on drugs" kinds of approaches that they're talking about are invoked. But what Singapore has is some of the most questionable statistics on drug use in the entire world based out of the UN. So what exactly does the National Party want to do? Because you've got the Portugal approach over here you've got Singapore over here and somewhere in the middle is what's being proposed in this legislation. I do not endorse people having car crashes but if they're going to crash I want them wearing a seatbelt. I do not endorse people taking drugs but if they are going to do so I want them to be as safe as possible.The final thing that I would just say is that I'd highly recommend that some of these National Party MPs who are currently yelling actually go and visit the KnowYourStuffNZ tents at some of these festivals—as I know actually some in their ranks have because some in their ranks do believe that this should pass; they just don't have the courage to step forward and say so. If they do so what they'll find—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think that might be out of order making that accusation. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I apologise—I withdraw and apologise Mr Deputy Speaker. "The integrity"—is that within—all right. I would hope that they have the convictions—that they would feel strongly enough—thank you Mr Deputy Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. Before I call David Seymour I just want to make a ruling about the interjections coming from the same side of the House. I didn't interrupt the Hon Simon Bridges when Chlöe Swarbrick was interrupting him and I didn't interrupt Chlöe Swarbrick when the Hon Simon Bridges was doing the same. Now I'm going to call David Seymour and I'm going to warn members close by: don't be caught coming through that member's microphone."