Cannabis debate may be revived
Green MP Chlo¨e Swarbrick is looking to get other parties on board a cross-party bill to decriminalise cannabis, allowing it to skip the members’ ballot and head straight to Parliament.
She could do this by using a new rule that allows 61 nonexecutive MPs – MPs who are not ministers or undersecretaries – to push a bill straight on to the order paper, bypassing the traditional lucky-dip ballot, where proposed laws can languish for years.
But it is not yet clear whether Labour – or National – would back such a bill so soon after a referendum on cannabis legalisation was narrowly lost.
Cannabis legalisation would have seen the Government allow the drug to be sold openly in legal stores, while decriminalisation would just remove the criminal penalty for possession.
A new poll last week showed a 69 per cent majority for either legalisation or decriminalisation.
In light of the poll, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said his Labour Party would treat the matter as a conscience issue, meaning Labour’s 65 MPs could vote freely on it. He said he would vote for such a bill but it was not on the
Government’s work programme.
Any bill can pass with the support of 61 MPs. Since Labour has 65 MPs and the Greens have 10, this opens up a potential path for decriminalisation passing into law – if 51 Labour MPs back it alongside all 10 Green MPs.
But this would still require a new member’s bill to be pulled from the ‘‘biscuit tin of a democracy’’ – the lucky-dip members ballot, which has in the past seen same-sex marriage legalised and prisoner voting banned, among other things. Some bills languish in the tin for years, never being pulled out and considered by Parliament.
Swarbrick told Stuff she was hoping other parties could be convinced to sign on to co-sponsor a bill and back it to skip this process and go straight to the House. This could happen under a new process that allows a member’s bill to skip the ballot and go straight on to the order paper, if 61 non-executive MPs sign on to support it.
She would need the support of MPs from all parties to skip the ballot, as Labour and the Greens only have 47 non-executive MPs, well below the 61-mark. Even with ACT’s 10 and the Ma¯ori Party’s two, two National MPs would still be needed – and it would be hard to guarantee the support of every Labour MP.