SpeechDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Chair. I didn't think that I'd ever see the day that a former National Party Minister of Police disagrees with the Police Association and disagrees with the police themselves. We've got the National Party wanting to delete all of clause 6 in this bill. Here's what the Police Association say about one of those parts in clause 6: The association supports [that clause] which reconfirms the public interest test and adds as a relevant matter consideration as to whether a health-centred or therapeutic approach would be more beneficial". The Police Association supports the clause or part thereof that the National Party wants to get rid of. The police themselves—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Which paragraph?DARROCH BALL: Paragraph number 18 of the Police Association submission. Then the police themselves their submission on the bill: "The intent of clause 6"—which is the clause that the National Party want to get rid of—"affirms the existing approach to police prosecutorial discretion emphasises that consideration of a health-centred or therapeutic approach is a relevant part of the public interest test under the Solicitor-General's guidelines." All it is doing is reaffirming what the police already do. The police know and support that clause because it just reaffirms what they do. The Police Association supports that part of the clause.Now that points to one of two things: that the National Party is ignoring what the Police Association is saying and ignoring what the police are saying or—which I suspect is the case—they've lost their way. The National Party has an identity crisis personified by their leader. Nevertheless they have lost their roots—right? The National Party want to stand up here—and Simeon Brown tried to do it in the previous speech that he's given; I'll address that in a second—and say that they are tough on crime that they are tough on drugs and that they back the police 100 percent but they don't fulfil what their intent is with what they're saying when the Police Association and the police themselves disagree with what they're saying.I want to move on to Simeon Brown and what his contribution was—a brief contribution tonight. I put up with a lot of things but what I can't put up with is the continued faux outrage from Simeon Brown about New Zealand First not supporting his bill and about his bill addressing the issue of synthetic cannabis and how his bill would've solved all of the issues that this society and country is facing in regards to synthetic cannabis. Can I just say a couple of things. Firstly all that Simeon Brown's bill was doing was moving the maximum penalty from two years to eight years in prison. That's all that that member's bill was doing to address the complex issues of synthetic cannabis and the problems that it was causing and the 80-plus deaths that it was causing.Now the other thing that he said was that it would've happened speedier. Well on the one hand you've got the National Party this afternoon talking about the processes of democracy and the House going through the select committee process in a fast manner or truncated manner and yet they get up there and want to have his bill and his third reading of the bill and the bill under his name go through in such a quick manner that it will solve all of the problems. That's not how it works. We do this once and we do it right. We go through a democratic process we listen to the experts and we come up with a piece of legislation that will deal with the multiple issues that synthetic cannabis brings to this country.We do that in a couple of ways. We come down hard on the dealers we come down hard on the manufacturers we come down hard on the peddlers of this poison but we also deal with those who are suffering from the addiction of this poison. We allow the police the affirmed discretion that they already use and they have used under concurrent Governments—Simeon Brown: Why the change?DARROCH BALL: Oh so that member agrees now? Does that member agree now that it's just affirming what the police are doing? That member agrees that this legislation is just affirming what the police already have?What bringing psychoactive substances into the Misuse of Drugs Act also does that Simeon Brown seems to have forgotten is it increases the ability and the powers of the police and others like customs for search and surveillance—something which the current Psychoactive Substances Act does not do something which Simeon Brown's member's bill would not have done. It increases the penalties. This is the ironic thing: this bill that we're talking about this amendment bill increases the penalties for the suppliers and manufacturers of psychoactive substances into a class A which is life in prison. Simeon Brown's original bill was only going to go to eight years. There is no logic in them not supporting this bill.What I'd like to say is that the Labour Party and New Zealand First Party had multiple discussions about this bill and we've come up with a bill that deals with the multiple layers of issues that the Misuse of Drugs Act needed to be brought into line with and we've done that with clause 6. But it also clarifies to a very good level in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Minister of Health is bringing in Supplementary Order Paper 288 what the intent is of clause 6 of this bill which is to give the police the discretion that they already have and the ability to use their discretion which benefits in the public interest. We need to understand that: that the arguments from the National Party have all been about this bill allowing de facto decriminalisation. That cannot be the case when they see this SOP and how it is written and the detail in this SOP where it gives the police that discretion when it is in the public interest. How can it be decriminalisation if there is a prosecution available for the police and they would use that and they would prosecute if it was in the public interest? New Zealand First supports this bill we support the SOP that the Minister has put forward and we don't support the SOP that Paula Bennett has put forward SOP 291. Thank you Madam Chair."