Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to address the points made by the Hon Tim Macindoe with regard to the fact that we seem to be speaking at cross-purposes a lot of the time when we do address this issue. I also wanted to speak to his point around how I got quite elevated the last time that we were debating this and I wanted to acknowledge that because I did. I didn't intend to come into Parliament to be an advocate for drug law reform. I managed to fall down this rabbit-hole by virtue of investigating and looking at the evidence—actually primarily off the back of medicinal cannabis and falling further and further into the research—of the injustices and inequities that are perpetuated by the war on drugs.I believe that the sparring match that occurred the verbal sparring match between myself and the Hon Tim Macindoe was largely around his—and I don't mean to but for lack of a better term I put this out there—accusation that I didn't care about the loss of life. I understand that that may not have been his intention but that was the way that I had perceived what he was stating and the reason that I got so elevated in response is because I take this deeply seriously. I have had numerous debates with people who are at the front lines and at the coalface of dealing with this crisis—notably a number of people in the police service those who are in Housing First and those who provide addiction mental health support services—and all of them are saying that something has to be done differently.I work with Lifewise which is one of the two youth housing providers in Auckland for about three hours every Monday. They have raised that whilst the coroner's figures approximate that about 50-odd people have died as a result of consuming synthetic cannabis in the past year those figures are probably higher because as the coroner's reports demonstrate the demographics who are largely consuming these synthetics are homeless and jobless and don't have people to care for them. To the Hon Tim Macindoe's point around the police and how this was something that the police may actually want I just wanted to refer him to page five of the Justice Committee's report because the New Zealand Police Association did submit on this legislation and they asked for a difference or a change in approach. I'll quote from the select committee report stating The New Zealand Police Association argued that substance use and crime are often linked due to the high cost of a drug habit fed by a criminal marketplace. While the association supports the intent to target suppliers it argues that the bill is not supported by evidence that increasing penalties will deter them." That's the Police Association. They also stated that "The association supports an holistic approach to [dealing with] the problem."The police themselves who are at the front lines are saying that increasing penalties will not deter suppliers and all of the evidence and research that we have accumulated from jurisdictions across the world for decades has proved that. We had all UN member States in 1998 signing up to the war on drugs. We said that if we continued to ratchet up penalties we would have a drug-free world by 2008. But instead by virtue of cracking down on all people involved in the trade we have ended up with a proliferation of harm. Substances have got more dangerous and that's actually what we saw and what Kevin Hague a former Green MP warned of when we took away the temporary licences that were put in the first version of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 by way of a 2014 amendment in response again to a moral panic. If we want to reduce harm we have to take the issue out of the darkness and put it in the light and we have to—we absolutely have to—treat drugs as a health issue. We have to walk the talk on that. To Tim Macindoe's point about how we seem to be speaking at cross-purposes I think that's something we can all agree on. I think fundamentally all of us in this House actually agree on the point that we do not want to be criminalising the people who are addicted to these substances. But unfortunately at present this is what this piece of legislation does because it does not recognise nor demarcate that often the people who end up using these substances because they become addicted end up actually getting involved in what can otherwise be termed a pyramid scheme. They become suppliers themselves to help feed their own habit and in turn they end up cutting substances and making them more dangerous.Nicola Willis: No it doesn't.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Nicola Willis that is what all of the evidence shows and I can send that through to you. I would love for you to speak to the evidence to any evidence at all that increasing penalties—I would like to hear from either the member in charge of the bill Simeon Brown or any National Party members that increasing penalties will have any impact on drug harm because all of the evidence demonstrates the contrary.So that brings me to the three Supplementary Order Papers in my name. I think that they're incredibly valuable for sake of debate on particularly this point about reducing drug harm which is this proposed premise of the piece of legislation that the member Simeon Brown has brought before us today. The first Supplementary Order Paper 159 I would like to think that the National Party would support given the position that they have put forward that they don't want to criminalise users because this amendment removes the criminal offence of possession of personal psychoactive substances by deleting section 71. I would love to hear from the member in charge in follow-up to the question that I earlier posed: if the member does support a genuine health-based approach for people who are using and addicted to these substances then will the member support Supplementary Order Paper 159 in my name?The other two Supplementary Order Papers 160 and 161 are kind of two sides of the same coin. Supplementary Order Paper 160 changes clause 4 to provide that the sentence is a maximum of eight years imprisonment only if an individual has been convicted also of illegal manufacture and importation because I believe that's the heart of what the member and the National Party are attempting to get to with this legislation. The very name and title of the legislation as it was put forward is Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. The arguments that are being put forward are around targeting the supply chain. So surely my Supplementary Order Paper 160 should be something that is genuinely considered by the member and by the National Party votes.So on the flip side of that is Supplementary Order Paper 161 also in my name and it requires the court to consider a lack of involvement in manufacture or importation of psychoactive substances as a mitigating factor for the purposes of sentencing. That's something I think it's really important to drive home and to make clear to those who are listening in the gallery tonight or indeed at home potentially on Parliament TV or otherwise. Most people are unaware of how the sentencing process works and that is at the core of this member's bill around increasing the penalty from two years to eight years. The member in charge of this bill has progressed the argument multiple times that this simply allows judges or courts more discretion when they are looking at sentencing somebody. What we are providing for in these Supplementary Order Papers are a number of named explicit mitigating or aggravating factors in sentencing somebody for a crime.So to make it clear to those who are listening the sentencing process is the first step when you go before a court. You are found guilty or not guilty. Sentencing is a process that occurs after that and it's actually how we end up with a whole bunch of strange oddities in our law—for example the way that two people can end up being found guilty of the same crime but one person can end up with home detention and another can end up going to prison. So those sentencing factors come in the form of aggravating and mitigating factors and I touched on a number of those mitigating factors in Supplementary Order Paper 162 in the name of Kiritapu Allan in my earlier contribution. These mitigating factors around considering whether somebody has been involved in the manufacture or importation of these psychoactive substances I think really go to the heart of what it is that Simeon Brown the member in charge of this legislation is progressing tonight.So if I can summarise the questions that I have—primarily the first question that I want answered by the member in charge Simeon Brown are firstly does the National Party support treating those who use or are addicted to drugs with a therapeutic approach? If so will the member consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 159 in my name? But I would really like to have that first part of the question answered. The second is: will the member consider Supplementary Order Papers 160 and 161?"