Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair. As we're debating this bill clause by clause I want to address some of the questions which have been raised in regard to my bill which is the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill.My comments are brief. The bill is entitled with exactly what it does. What it does is in the title: it increases the penalty for supply and distribution. That's exactly what it does in terms of amending section 70 which has offences relating to psychoactive substances that are not approved products. These include (1) A person commits an offence if the person without reasonable excuse—(a) sells or supplies a psychoactive substance that is not an approved product … (b) offers to sell or supply a psychoactive substance that is not an approved product … (c) possesses a psychoactive substance that is not an approved product with the intent to sell …". So the title of the bill is exactly what the bill does by changing the maximum sentence which can be given to someone who is found guilty of supplying a synthetic drug. So I reject the claims that this is in fact something which is undermining the purpose of the Psychoactive Substances Act. I would draw the Minister's attention to the "Purpose" section of the Psychoactive Substances Act—or the principles in section 4 which include in section 4(d): "a psychoactive [product] that poses more than a low risk of harm to individuals who use the product should be prohibited:". So the Psychoactive Substances Act does two things. Yes it creates a regulated market for those who can prove that their drugs are of low risk and secondly what it does is it says that all other psychoactive substances which are not proved to be of low risk should be prohibited.So I reject what the Ministers both the Hon David Clark and the Hon Stuart Nash have suggested because this bill is doing two things. My bill is simply addressing those who are found guilty of supplying synthetic drugs in the community and increasing the penalty because we have seen the increased harm—both Ministers have spoken about it. The Hon Mark Mitchell has spoken about the increased harm that we are seeing in the community.And the reality is that we have a mismatch here: we have a maximum two-year sentence for supplying drugs which are causing huge amounts of deaths in New Zealand; and what we have is if you go to the Misuse of Drugs Act a class C drug is attributed with eight years. So there is a clear mismatch which needs to be done here. The Government has already indicated that they're seeking to increase the penalty for some of these substances to potentially class A drugs which attribute a 20-year maximum sentence. So I think the question here is how do we want to address this? My bill catches all of these non-approved drugs and says let's put in place a penalty regime which then allows the courts to determine what the penalty should be in the individual instances rather than letting the Minister have to go through a process of constantly scheduling under the Misuse of Drugs Act which is a year-long process to do that. So the title's very clear. The bill does exactly what the title says and I commend the title to the House."