Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I used to think before I came to this place that this is where we would debate issues and their substance with evidence and really thrash it out and when it comes to drug policy—all drug policy—I've been really let down by that hope. I actually want to allude to some of the first reading speeches that we heard from National Party MPs. Matt Doocey was one of them. He got up and said The National Party back evidence-based approaches to drug harm reduction." I said at that point in time and it was recorded in Hansard that I will be raising that with the National Party every opportunity that I get because what we have here in this proposed legislation which will go through its third reading tonight is a response to a substance which can cause harm. So substances whether they be alcohol or cannabis or tobacco we can recognise them from a health approach and say "Well this substance obviously when ingested by the consumer has X Y Z impacts." When it comes to tobacco we're seeing approximately 13 New Zealanders die every single day from smoking or from second-hand smoking. So we have to say that substance very obviously can cause harm.We then have to ask the question well how do we go about reducing that harm with a legislative framework that incorporates public health—not just the health-based approach but the public health approach which contemplates the communities that people are living in the resources that they have access to to wean off of their addiction and all of those other really critical surrounding circumstances that are necessary to deal with that issue. I think as all of us in this place can probably acknowledge criminal prohibition of substances has never got rid of those substances which is why it is so important that we have those alternatives like for example in this legislation the likes of vaping which others have acknowledged doesn't come without its own harms and we're starting to see a proliferation of those harms.So I just really wanted to address that point and also to speak to those Supplementary Order Papers and those ostensible solutions that were waved around by Dr Shane Reti. I've got a lot of respect for and have collaborated with Dr Shane Reti on a number of things including the likes of the medicinal cannabis legislation which went through this House a few years ago now but as we've very thoroughly canvassed in the committee of the whole House stage—and it's available out there for anybody who's listening along at home who does want to go and look at this stuff—those proposals those Supplementary Order Papers largely were unworkable and they did not do what they said on the tin.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Sorry to interrupt the member but we are in the third reading and any matters dealt with in the committee are now in the past. So I'll ask the member to address what is in the bill post committee of the whole House stage at its third reading.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: All right OK. So yeah moving forward then we had throughout the process of this legislation obviously as reflected throughout the debate that others have raised with regard to the contributions of Dr Reti that actually within the director-general requirements in this legislation there is the opportunity to do precisely those things that he was speaking to around for example consideration of proximity of vaping shops and the concentration of them.But let's come back to the core point the core issue the kaupapa that it is that we are debating tonight that is of course the third reading of this legislation which does contain a range of novel measures to try and tackle that really hard core that final kind of part of New Zealand that is still struggling with getting off of their addiction to tobacco because as we heard from the many submitters at the Health Committee tobacco perhaps unlike most other drugs—alcohol for example—is a substance that most of its users want to stop using quite actively. What we know is that there are obviously measures which it's interesting to hear and I'm glad to hear the likes of the National Party agree with as well—that denicotinisation will go a long way towards reducing the attractiveness and the addictiveness and basically not satiating that addiction that people have to tobacco and therefore helping them to get off of it.I also just wanted to note as I haven't been able to say so fulsomely at other points throughout this debate at each reading that we really do need to shout out to the officials here because they were phenomenal. I noted at the end of the committee of the whole House stage—not alluding to that Madam Speaker but at the end of that stage we were left with some presentations from other members in this House that the officials hadn't done their job. The officials did their job very diligently and they were phenomenal for the members who did turn up and did engage in that process. So I want to thank the Minister and the Health Committee very diligently chaired by Dr Tangi Utikere because throughout that process of collaboration both with the Minister prior to the legislation coming to the House and through the Health Committee some really core things that were critical to the Greens were progressed in this legislation and reflected throughout it.The most important thing is that we didn't end up picking up on particularly those really problematic kind of consequences of a criminal prohibition approach to substances like we've seen for example under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This legislation does not create a new criminal framework; it creates a new kind of course of civil fines that are available for people. I think as we actually discussed quite robustly inside of my caucus it is really important to note that in certain circumstances where we do see that people you know at the more structurally marginalised end of our communities who receive these fines they can end up escalating effectively into criminal charges if they are not paid. But importantly again this legislation and the new regime does not target those users; it is very much targeted on sale and supply.Importantly as well we do have the containment of—and this is something which we achieved through the select committee—a review a review that will be really important for reviewing the efficacy of some of these particularly novel measures. There is of course also the capacity inside of this legislation for the likes of growing your own if somebody does want to go out of their way to go through the process of growing and processing their own tobacco for some reason.The thing that excites me the most personally in having really gone through the weeds of this legislation is the testing regime and the licensing regime around kind of approved products and approved retailers particularly the testing regime for vaping. We know that there are a number of products out there that are not what they say they are so that approved process for products is going to be really important.But just in my final few minutes I did want to note that there is of course more to do which I think all of us in this House have also noted. To that effect back on the hobby horse of the cigarette filters cigarette filters as reflected in the Health Committee report they do not reduce the harm of smoking tobacco. They are a faux harm cessation device and all they have basically done is serve to make people think that the product that they're consuming is safer but all they do in reality is make the product more palatable in turn being littered all across our cities and flowing out into our moana. I was out actually with Sustainable Coastlines just yesterday and we were picking up just for 20 minutes some litter around the Wynyard Quarter area in Auckland Central and in that 20 minutes we found dozens and dozens of these cigarette filters which are terrible for the fishies.The other thing is of course vaping. All of us have said we want to do more on vaping so what does that actually look like because again as we've noted there is in the regulatory powers for the Director-General of Health the ability to set for example the likes of as Matt Doocey was putting forward proximity requirements or rather not having dense proximity of vaping outlets. But I think it sounded like we had some form of consensus in the House to look towards perhaps phasing out disposable vapes because disposable vapes tend to be cheaper they tend to be a lot easier for our young people to get hold of as a result of also being cheaper but they also tend to fool people into thinking that they're not starting an addiction and they also tend to explode in our rubbish tips and landfills—so once again a massive environmental hobby horse for us in the Greens.I also think and I've said as much to the Minister that it is really critical that we're not just seeing this legislation pass as it is but also again as canvassed in other readings that there is some serious resourcing that is given to particularly the cessation programmes that are already doing phenomenal mahi out there in our communities particularly as we heard at select committee for our Māori and particularly our Pasifika organisations who are doing this work on the ground.Just finally I want to thank all of the submitters and all of the advocates and Tiger and her mum. We read out Tiger's contribution to the Health Committee in the House obviously during the second reading of this bill and what we had at Health Committee was some incredible young people some incredible tamariki and rangatahi the likes of the HashTags as well who are making the case for a healthier future. Our young people want this the people who are currently addicted want this our communities want this and we have the opportunity to achieve it albeit with some novel measures that are going to require constant updating reviewing and resourcing. All we in the Greens ask for is some logical consistency when it comes to drug harm reduction."