Hon Jim Anderton

Member of Parliament for Wigram
Progressive Leader

20 November 2009 Media Speech

Opening the new Rodger Wright Centre

I am very happy to be here today to witness this blessing, and the opening of the new Rodger Wright premises.

It’s normal practice at a house-warming to bring a present or flowers, and I’m sorry I’ve come empty handed. But giving the wrong present at an opening can be worse than giving nothing at all.

I heard of a new school that opened recently, and a supporter wanted to send flowers for the occasion. The flowers arrived and the staff read the card; it said ‘Rest in Peace.’ The supporter was furious, and he phoned the florist to complain.

After he’d told the florist of the obvious mistake and how angry he was, the florist said: ‘Sir, I’m really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should imagine this; somewhere there is a funeral taking place today, and they have flowers with a note saying, ‘Congratulations on your new location.’

I was pleased to be able to launch the free-to-users, one-for-one Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) in 2004, and it’s wonderful today to know it has made the difference we knew it would.

Most people know that I am strongly anti-drugs. To some, it still seems like a contradiction to be anti-drugs, but to have funded a free needle exchange service to drug users.

But anyone who has watched a loved one use drugs knows that the fear that they are sharing needles is almost as bad as the fear that they are taking dangerous drugs.
You are always anxious that someone you love will not just suffer the after effects of drug use, but that they may pick up HIV or Hepatitis C from sharing needles.

The NEP has very positive results to show. New Zealand has the lowest number of people with the H.I.V. virus in the world, there has been a marked reduction in those with Hepatitis C, and visits to the Accident and Emergency department in Christchurch have declined by 30 per cent for drug using related incidents.

It was the evidence that drove me to introduce the free ‘needle-exchange programme’.
Back in 2002 when I was the minister responsible for drug policy, I received an independent review which told me that the needle exchange programme saved lives, and back then, it was saving $35 million in treatment costs since it had been established.
It would be saving even more today.

The report told me that the programme back then had prevented twenty deaths from AIDS, and reduced by more than 2000 the cases of Hepatitis C and HIV.

When you get a report like that in government, you sit up and take notice.

The report also came up with some strong recommendations. One was a recommendation to remove a legal anomaly around the possession of needles and syringes.

As a result of this report, I took a Bill to parliament in 2004, changing the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Bill did other things too, like bringing in much tougher rules controlling methamphetamines.

It also recommended a law change regarding the possession of needles. The amendment I brought in at the time was a technical one that reversed the onus of proof on a person found with needles in their possession. It was meant to make the needle exchange programme work better.

Tony Ryall - then an opposition MP - called it “political correctness by a liberal Government.”

He’s now the Minister of Health, and has responsibility for the needle exchange programme. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was sneering about political correctness as a reflex action, rather than because he is genuinely misguided.

But there you have some insight into the battle you have to face if you want to do the right thing to minimise the harm caused by drug use.

Just because an idea is good, and just because it works, doesn’t mean we can take for granted that it will be supported.

We later introduced the one-for-one programme that made needles available freely. I made (and succeeded with) a budget bid for $4 million dollars to fund the programme and I did it as part of the coalition agreement that the Progressive Party had with Labour at the time – for which my Labour colleagues here today deserve thanks for their support.

There were people who sneered at that as liberal political correctness. I can tell you from personal experience that there aren’t many votes in being wise or liberal about drug abuse.

But it was the right thing to do.

I am proud to have contributed to it. I am proud to have played a part in saving many lives.
I am also pleased we have saved many millions of dollars in treatment costs that our heath system would otherwise have incurred.
Most of all I would like to congratulate the people here today who have made such an effort to make this programme a success. And these new premises are evidence of the work you have done.

As a politician, I know that to make a difference to peoples’ lives, more often than not, means going the extra mile. I thank you for your commitment.

I wish we didn’t need this programme. I wish we didn’t have drug use causing the harm it does, wrecking the lives of many people, and wrecking many communities. But it does happen. It will keep happening.

And if we care about vulnerable victims then our responsibility is to reduce the harm to them as much as we can. The needle exchange programme does just that and I continue to support it for that reason.

ENDS