Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Speaker. Members of the public who have followed this debate as this bill has been rushed through the House by the Government in recent weeks will know that the National Party is utterly and implacably opposed to it. There is very little that I can agree with in what we have just heard from the Minister of Justice but he did at least acknowledge towards the end that the Opposition has some procedural concerns. Well that speech was riddled with platitudes and euphemisms and procedural concerns" just doesn't underline in any way how strongly opposed we are to this bill.He spoke of level playing fields. Well I can assure him and members of the Government and their coalition partners that this bill does not deliver a level playing field in the very important aspects of our democracy that will be decided at the same time.Hon Shane Jones: Don't exaggerate!Hon TIM MACINDOE: Hon Shane Jones says that I am exaggerating. I take it therefore that he is happy to go into an election having a referendum on marijuana. I'm sure that he as a member from Northland is very keen to see marijuana liberally dispensed and in a very liberal regime in his area.Hon Shane Jones: That's a big call!Hon TIM MACINDOE: It is a big call Mr Jones. In other words the point I'm making is that you as a member from Northland you as an iwi representative in this Parliament ought to be defending your people ought to be speaking up and saying how concerned you are—Hon Shane Jones: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I understand this is a spirited debate but I should not be misrepresented and the member needs to come back to the content of the bill which is not about how Shane Jones might cast his vote.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Speaking to the point of order—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't need any help thank you. First of all I'd make the point that I decide what's relevant or not. Secondly I'd refer you—I don't have the exact Standing Order but there's one that relates to interjections which you do at your own risk. I listened very carefully to the retort. Any member who has the floor is entitled to respond to an interjection and he did just that.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I appreciate that. The Minister of Justice also spoke of the fact that this is a Government that believes in openness and transparency. Well this bill and the referendum—or "referenda"—framework that it seeks to initiate is the exact opposite of openness and transparency because any member of the public ought to be able to go through the process next year of listening to a public debate clearly understanding exactly what it is that they have to decide on two very important referenda questions now that we have been given and to know that the Parliament played the important role that it has always played in the past in setting those questions.So what is it that is most obnoxious? It is the fact that in all of our constitutional history all previous referenda in this country have been decided by a mechanism which puts Parliament front and centre in the decision making in designing the framework in designing the wording of the referendum question—but not this time and not this Government. For the first time ever we have a Government that has decided to use its executive power to take away the very important constitutional responsibilities of the Parliament to determine the question.So as a result can any member of the Parliament tell me right now what the cannabis question will be? Silence. This time next year we would assume the general election and the referenda will both be over. We will know the results. We will probably be looking at the formation of a new Government and a new Parliament and yet here we are that close to that important democratic obligation that we all have as New Zealanders to make important decisions and not one member of the parties opposite can even tell us what one of the most important questions will be. Well as I said in my reply to the interjection a few moments ago the questions that we will have to decide on the future regime for cannabis for recreational purposes in this country is of huge significance to every community the length and breadth of this country but particularly in some of our more deprived areas where cannabis and other drugs are wreaking havoc and doing enormous damage.We in the National Party believe that Parliament ought to have been given its constitutional right and responsibility to determine the questions. We ought to know exactly what those questions are now. We do know what the question will be on the euthanasia bill although it is to my considerable regret that the question we are being asked will not reflect the nature of the issue—but that's another matter.Coming back to this one it is simply wrong that this bill that we are being asked to consider at its third reading this afternoon transfers the decision on the topics and wording of referenda at next year's general election from Parliament to Cabinet. That has never happened before. Since 1853 every referendum that has ever been held in conjunction with a general election has been determined by the Parliament. I recall being on the other side of the House three or four years ago when we were dealing with the flag referendum question and the outrage that was being fired at us from this side of the House over process and yet what we were doing then was having a very thorough debate in the Parliament so that the Parliament as a whole would determine the question. The utter hypocrisy of that situation was that National Labour and the Greens had all gone into the previous general election promising to hold that referendum and yet for cynical reasons of their own the Labour Party and the Green Party then completely reversed their particular position and decided to try to adopt some moral high ground—I don't know how you can do that when you're going against your own party policy—and then to say that somehow the flag referendum issue was a John Key vanity project. I think that's a huge blot on their record and yet that was the way it was.In this particular issue we have additional hypocrisy because the bill is time limited. We have a Government that's saying "We'll make this work for ourselves we'll use it for our own convenience but in case there's a change of Government next year we won't allow it to carry on. We'll revert to the way things have always been since 1853." Well if they were right from 1853 to 2018 and they're right again from 2020 for the foreseeable future they are right now. This Government—it isn't too late—should say "OK we'll go back and we'll do the thing properly." because the Parliament ought to be having a debate right now on what the wording of that cannabis question will be.I'm sure that some of my colleagues who will follow me in this debate will explore that particular matter in greater detail because as I say this is of huge significance to communities the length and breadth of this country. It isn't just something that's on the periphery. Drugs and the recreational use of drugs are doing enormous damage and we ought as a Parliament to be able to frame a question that the Parliament can then take to the people and say "Here it is—here are the issues you need to consider. Here's the public information campaign. Listen to the experts consider all the evidence and come to a considered decision." Well this bill takes that important opportunity away from the public of New Zealand as a result of which New Zealanders don't know now and probably won't for some time exactly what they're voting for because even if they make a particular decision they can't even be sure that it will be binding. It will then presumably go to a select committee after we have a referendum result and then it could change. Well that is an insult to the voters of New Zealand. That is an outrage constitutionally.The National Party is simply arguing for a consistent and principled approach. We are arguing that our important democratic and constitutional traditions should be respected and upheld. It's very well-known that the wording of a question in a referendum can influence the outcome the decision and sometimes in a most unfair way. I mentioned a moment ago that I have great concerns about the euthanasia bill and referendum for that reason; I believe it is misnamed. We need to know in the cannabis question exactly what it is that New Zealanders are going to be asked to deal with.We've also got the fact that now we've got two very controversial topics being held in conjunction with a general election and that in itself may well distort the outcome may well take away from New Zealanders the ability to focus on the important issues that the election should be decided upon or equally may mean that they give inadequate attention to the questions that they need to determine via the two referenda that we are going to be deciding.The Prime Minister said that it will be a binding referendum for the public and the justice Minister said we have a commitment that it is binding yet neither of them seem to have any idea what a binding referendum actually is. So again we have an example of the senior members of this executive saying one thing to the public but actually doing something quite different. For the Minister of Justice to describe that as openness and transparency is absolute nonsense. He talked about a spirit of fairness. Well there is no spirit of fairness in this particular measure. There certainly isn't in the way that they have rushed this bill through the House. So National remains utterly opposed to this. It's an outrage constitutionally. The Government should not pass this bill even at this late stage."