Roy Heather: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
Roy Heather: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21238] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I stand to speak to the second reading of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3). For a variety of reasons ACT New Zealand is opposing the passage of the bill as reported back from the Health Committee. We would have liked to be in a position to support the bill for the contribution that it could make to the control of the possession and supply of dangerous drugs and in particular of the methamphetamine drugs using ephedrine and pseudoephedrine bases. Other members have highlighted the dangerous nature of those drugs and the effects that they have on people’s lives. Certainly we would have liked to be able to support the bill for that reason. Parts 1 and 2 of this bill are the relevant parts here. 
But we have before us today a very untidy piece of legislation. Supplementary Order Paper 298 in the name of the Hon Jim Anderton came to the select committee so that it could undergo the submission process. Of course that was right and proper and it is what should happen with regard to all legislation. Unfortunately we now have that Supplementary Order Paper tacked on to the end of the very sensible Parts 1 and 2 as Part 3 of the bill. Parts 1 and 2 are about the control possession and supply of dangerous drugs and Part 3 is about drugs of a very different nature—at the moment benzylpiperazine-related drugs. The other problem with that Supplementary Order Paper was that it came to the select committee with a blank schedule. Just about every member of the committee was very unhappy with the fact that a schedule with absolutely nothing on it was to be attached to legislation with no guidance as to what may go on that schedule. In the interim the benzylpiperazine family of drugs has been added to schedule 4 of the bill. 
It was interesting to hear members of the various parties—and I think everyone who has spoken so far has done so—stand up and say how terrible it is that those party pills are on the market and available and say that their regulation needs to happen. Interestingly when I wrote a letter to the select committee in September 2002 soon after being elected to Parliament highlighting the fact that benzylpiperazine-based drugs were being sold to minors in Star Marts and service stations around the country there was absolutely no concern from a single member of that committee—neither from Dianne Yates who was on the committee at the time and who has stood up now and told us what terrible things those drugs are for Hamilton youth nor from anybody else. Many of those committee members have now moved on to other committees but none of them were in support of my concern. My letter was sent to the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs—just as a formality really to pacify me—and it too wrote back stating that it had absolutely no concern about the drugs. The whole concern was dismissed completely out of hand. Two and a half years down the track we are suddenly very concerned about these substances although I suppose it is better late than never. My concern about them is that they are available to minors and the regulation that will be applied to them in that regard will in fact be a good thing. But this legislation is not the right place for that and for that reason ACT will oppose the bill. 
We also oppose the widespread and proliferating use of Orders in Council through the affirmative resolution process. When bills come before the select committee we often have submissions from the Regulations Review Committee which usually gives very sensible and sound advice. That was certainly the case with regard to this bill. Committee members noted that they were unhappy about the use of the affirmative resolution process and warned that that should not proliferate. I am in complete agreement with them on that point. They noted that the affirmative resolution procedure allows a truncated legislative process but considered that that had considerable drawbacks. In particular the procedure allows significant matters of policy and principle to be dealt with in delegated legislation as opposed to primary legislation where they felt those things would be much better dealt with. The process also allows only a limited time for select committee scrutiny. One of the beauties as I have often said in this House of our select committee process is that as we go through the submission process the public have a great opportunity to come before the committee and submit and we hear a wide range of views as a result of having that thorough scrutiny. The Regulations Review Committee said that it was worried that a truncation of the system would lead to insignificant access for the public to be consulted or insufficient time for substantial consideration of policy rationale—and I certainly agree with those comments. 
The Regulations Review Committee also considered that there should be compelling reasons for applying the affirmative resolution process when primary legislation was being amended in respect of serious offences. It noted that the affirmative resolution process is justifiable in only limited and exceptional circumstances including those where there is a need for expeditious change or where significant matters of health and safety are at issue. The Order in Council process using the affirmative resolution process certainly does not qualify in this case when my highlighting the matter to the select committee in 2002 did not actually come to anything for 2½ years. That is hardly an urgent matter requiring expeditious treatment. At the end of the day to my great consternation the Regulations Review Committee’s advice has been largely ignored in this instance and ACT New Zealand would like to voice its vigorous disapproval of that. 
One thing that the bill does do by having the benzylpiperazine-based products—the herbal highs the party pills or whatever one wants to call them—in the same legislation as the more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamines is to promote draconian powers in relation to substances such as the benzylpiperazine-based products which at the moment anyway appear to be little more insidious or addictive than alcohol nicotine or the many other harmful but not necessarily catastrophic substances. This bill has not weighed the costs properly against the benefits. The normal process of legislative change is a safeguard to ad hoc hysteria and is one of the reasons that we have a very thorough parliamentary process. 
With regard to new section 4(1AA) inserted by clause 5 of the bill ACT finds it bizarre that people’s liberties will be able to be removed by ministerial decree although all the machinery of Parliament will be needed to reduce regulation. So things can be put on a schedule at the whim of a Minister yet in order to have anything removed from a schedule someone will have to go through the slow laborious process of Parliament. That is absolutely bizarre and ridiculous and if anything it should have been around the other way. The provision was of course intended to pacify the United Future party in relation to its concerns about cannabis—nothing more nothing less. ACT New Zealand contends that the proper parliamentary scrutiny for all this legislation should be gone through and that the Regulations Review Committee’s concerns about the Order in Council process should have been taken much more seriously and weighed more heavily. 
ACT is opposing this bill because it is very untidy very messy legislation. It was rushed through the select committee. There was a lot of pressure on the committee particularly to add Part 3 when many members favoured having Parts 1 and 2 stand apart. ACT New Zealand would have supported the bill had it remained that way; Part 3 should have been looked at completely separately. The policy work should have been done on it. The officials were under a great deal of pressure to move quickly in order to have Part 3 ready in time to join Parts 1 and 2. That has been totally inappropriate and for those reasons ACT New Zealand will oppose this bill.