Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Prior to coming to Parliament some years ago I had a broadcasting business—a television production company—and a really good strong partnership in that with my business partner who very sadly got into meth and within six months had committed suicide. So I bring that to the debate this evening as the context from which I speak and also as someone who like the Green Party member has had has seen the impacts of methamphetamine within my own family situation.So this is a balance and a consideration that I take very seriously about whether allowing this bill to go through is on balance going to be more beneficial than harmful. I have to say that on reflection I think it does produce good public interest with no great risk of harm—but with some caveats around that as my colleague Dr Ayesha Verrall has said.So the benefits are obviously the mitigation of the cold and flu symptoms that people feel. There's also the access to treatment—because on this side of the House we're mindful that GP visits cost money; that can be a barrier to getting treatment and even getting prescriptions can be a barrier. So in that regard we see having access to this medication is a really good thing. But we do have issues with the process. In my view there has been a bit of an executive overreach once again just through the truncated process that's occurred. But more sinister perhaps is that I think the National Government has shown quite a casual and cavalier attitude to the methamphetamine issue generally through the way they have approached this process—and I'll speak to that soon.For a start around process it is unusual for a Minister to make these kinds of decisions that Medsafe a group of experts would normally make: to declassify or reclassify a medication. The Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac) did appear before the Health Committee and we asked him questions on this quite closely and he basically admitted that it was a political decision to reclassify. He also said that the original decision to classify it as prescription-only was political as well.What concerned me—and it was interesting that the Minister quoted our dissenting opinion in the select committee report as being what he took to be flattery—the reason that we extended the commentary on his contribution was because he said to us it was better to focus on evidence that was available rather than to try and get more evidence about impacted communities. I think that's a really worrying attitude towards the meth problem. I think it does bring to bear some of the concerns raised by Te Pāti Māori about the most marginalised; the most vulnerable communities some of whom did have time to put in submissions—very thoughtful submissions and very clearly set out submissions—about the devastating impact on their communities to their own lives from some of them. Also the fact that drug addicts are not rational that addiction is not a rational thing and we are only hazarding a guess when we apply a kind of rational cost-benefit analysis to whether meth is cheaper from the border or whether people will produce it.The other element to this was that we included comments where the Minister had said that shopping around did not work—the shopping-around registers that were used in Australia didn't work—but he was going to keep an eye on this over this winter. Well I'm not sure how the Minister can keep an eye on whether organised crime is shopping around for pseudoephedrine if the registers are not there—it simply cannot be done. So I'm not sure what other intel he has on that but I'd be really interested to see what process he is going to use to keep an eye on the shopping-around question.As has been mentioned the select committee process was truncated. The health policy development process appeared to be truncated and that concerns me because we have the appearance of a democratic kind of process—whether it's gone to select committee—but submitters only had a week or so to submit. The questions that we asked were probably deeper I think than the officials had expected us to ask; they had to go away and come back. When we asked them closely about the numbers of pharmacists they had consulted we were told it was fewer than 10. Again further questioning made us aware that the particular focus group—they couldn't even say how many fewer than 10 people there were in that group so it could have been only one or two pharmacists where the consultation was relying on that as being the voice of pharmacy. To me that is just inadequate and it shows the kind of time pressures that they were under from their Minister.I really did appreciate the thoughtful submissions from submitters particularly the New Zealand Drug Foundation who do such an excellent job to provide evidence-based and very clearly set out rationale for their thinking. They did support this bill which has helped to sway my opinion in favour of supporting it but equally we did hear from people who had experienced meth in their lives as well and they did have an impact on us.So the mitigations they suggested around Te Ara Oranga the rehabilitation programmes being extended are really important. We heard from the Drug Foundation that close to 50 percent of those who are incarcerated on meth-related charges have an ADHD diagnosis. I would add to the calls from my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall that not only do we need to make treatment easier for ADHD we certainly need to make diagnosis cheaper and more easily available. It's currently only through a psychiatrist—very expensive—or long waiting times in the public health system. So we don't know what the true figure is of those incarcerations and the role that ADHD plays not only in meth use and purchase but also in crime generally.I think there are issues around the IT that we're being told is being developed that will help us to monitor some of the risks around this. We have no timing on that and that is why we as a select committee have said that we plan to follow up with the Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora on this. We expect to receive an update on how they're progressing with the implementation of a monitoring system by the end of this year. I'd just really like that recorded in Hansard because I for one will be making sure that we do get some information from them.But I think the real issue here is seeing the truncated process and the quite casual way that the concerns of impacted communities have been dealt with by the Minister and some members opposite that we're not really looking at the real issue of what is this National Government doing to address meth. It's interesting that the Minister of Customs has just spoken to address her real concerns and yet her ministry right now is going through voluntary redundancies. There are 1200 Customs staff throughout New Zealand and the New Zealand Public Service Association has said that this redundancy process these cuts to that public service are hamstringing Customs' ability to keep harmful drugs out of New Zealand. So what are they doing about that? In an environment of 6.5 percent cuts and the same to policing what are they doing?I would just follow that up with some words that were read in this House in 2009 where a member of this House said 'P' is a seriously addictive viciously destructive drug. It's hugely damaging to those who take it and the people who share their lives. It comes hand in hand with violence. It allows gangs and organized crime to flourish. It entices young people into criminal careers. P hurts not just users and their families but also law-abiding New Zealanders who suffer from the crime it creates." Those words were from the Rt Hon John Key the then Prime Minister.We've heard from the Minister of Customs tonight that that problem has ballooned. We have heard that this Government wants to make cold and drug medication available. That's great; we support that but our question to this National-led Government is: what are you doing about the real issue of meth so that it isn't coming in cheaper so that young people aren't getting into meth so that it isn't affecting all of our communities including my own down in Taieri and so that parties like the Māori Party are concerned to even allow the pseudoephedrine change to go through? We are not seeing leadership on the meth issue we are not seeing leadership on drugs we are not seeing the changes that we need to make sure that the gangs are disempowered. That is the real question before this House tonight but having said that I will support this bill."