Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill

I was grateful, as I am sure other members were, for that little bout of true confessions towards the end of the previous speaker’s speech. It answered a number of questions that we have long pondered about, and I was grateful to him for his candour.

More seriously, turning to the bill, one of the difficulties we have in looking at this measure is that it is impossible to consider it without considering the next bill on the Order Paper, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. It would have been appropriate to have one debate where we could have dealt with the whole range of issues, rather than two somewhat staccato and artificial debates where we will go over the same material twice.

💬 Hon Marian Hobbs: But we will in the select committee. I expect so.

That may well be so, and I expect it will be the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that will have the privilege of dealing with both of those bills.

The other observation I want to make is that there is an irony in this debate occurring at this time. The House was in a flurry yesterday, and indeed, during question time today, about the way in which we consider international treaties and conventions. One might have been tempted to draw the conclusion that apart from anything else going on in the world at the moment, this was really one of the most critical issues facing the country. If that is the case, I observe the level of interest in this debate where we are doing precisely what various people have been arguing we ought to do as a matter of routine. I say that with no disrespect to the Minister, who gave his introductory speech in a moderately perfunctory way about the provisions of the Rotterdam convention, the Stockholm convention, the Waigani convention, the Basel convention, and various others in such a sense that implied we all knew intimately every last detail of them, and we are pretending that we do.

What we will do is send those measures to a select committee where they will be considered. There is clearly no objection to them. In fact, the select committee has already reported that the Government ought to proceed with the measures. But this is the sort of regime we would get into if we routinely considered every international treaty and agreement that came before the House. We would salve our consciences that we were doing a good and noble job. The people who are listening to this debate, who are observing it, would simply scratch their heads and ask: “What are they wasting their time on now?”.

None the less, these are important issues and I am not minimising their significance in any way. However, they are extremely technical matters that do need careful consideration, and that has been given by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee earlier and also by our officials and representatives overseas, in terms of the negotiations that have taken place leading to the finalisation of these agreements. So what we have in the House is the rubber stamp, in effect, and I say that in the most positive sense. This is the ending of the process, rather than the commencement of it in terms of some profound consideration of our international treaty-making responsibilities.

Having said that, issues will be raised by the specific provisions of each of those conventions, which two groups will want to have an interest in: firstly, the domestic parties that might be affected by the provisions; and secondly, there will also be groups that will have an interest in terms of, shall I say, the legal issues in terms of compliance and other things that may well flow from this in the domestic environment. I am not minimising the relevance of select committee consideration. I am simply making the observation that there is an irony, given our high-blown moral integrity about the need for careful consideration of international treaties, and the way in which we are giving effect to it by this debate this afternoon.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: We’re changing the law here.

We certainly are changing the law. We are recognising that changes to New Zealand law are required in relation to those international agreements. My point though, is somewhat ironic. [Interruption] I am sure it would be, but then I would not have expected anything different. But given those people who argue that every single agreement and treaty ought to come before Parliament and be ratified in this way, I would have thought those same people might be here taking a vigorous part in the debate this afternoon, and I observe no more than that.

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee expects to have these bills referred to it. As chair of that committee, my intention would be that we would consider them in tandem because the measures do flow one from the other. This bill takes a broad overview in terms of the three or four agreements that are mentioned. The subsequent bill, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill, specifically deals with provisions relating to the Stockholm convention that the earlier speaker referred to. These matters are not controversial. I do not imagine that they will arouse a huge degree of public lather. However, there will be matters that people will want to consider as part of them. That will be appropriate, and I hope we are able to deal with them relatively quickly, and get them back to the House and passed before too long.

New Zealand First will support the forwarding of this legislation to the select committee. However, I do take the point raised by the previous speaker, and I am confident that I will be followed in this debate by Keith Locke, who will speak at great length on the international treaties contained in this legislation. He will tell the House how important it is for us to consider all treaties legislation and will take his full 10 minutes to explain each one of those particular conventions, which most of us have very little idea of whatsoever.

However, looking at this from an analytical viewpoint, we have before us a bill that is 18 pages long. The first 12 pages are an introduction. I am just trying to understand this legislation. The first page tells us nothing, and the second and third pages are all interpretation. By the time we get to the fourth page we discover that all the bill does is state that it entitles the Government to do things by way of Order in Council. It does not tell us anything else about what is in the bill. I am trying to find out what it is we are sending to the select committee, but this bill does not tell us. All it states is that the Government can do all sorts of things by Order in Council.

I have a great dislike of things being done by Order in Council. It goes against anyone’s legal training. It goes against anyone’s support for parliamentary democracy that we leave things to be done by some bureaucrat somewhere, who puts a piece of paper under a Minister’s nose and says: “This is fine. Nothing controversial here.” The Minister sends it on, and then we have a long debate on it in the House when something does go wrong. This bill does not tell us anything, and I will not waste the time of the House on it any further. I wish the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee good luck, and perhaps when the bill comes back we will all know something more about it.

Like Mr Dunne, I rise with intense enthusiasm. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in what is necessarily a narrow but technical issue and an important piece of legislation. This bill has been introduced to enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. Together with certain amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, it will also enable the ratification of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. New Zealand signed the Rotterdam convention on 11 September 1998. This convention requires information to be exchanged between parties about trade and hazardous chemicals before any trade takes place. Once parties are informed of the potential trade, and their attention is drawn to any related health or environmental risks, they may consent to importation with or without conditions, or not consent to the trade at all.

The convention currently lists 31 chemicals and pesticides for which all parties must notify import requirements. Its scope extends to controlling exports and notifying an international secretariat of all additional chemicals currently banned or severely restricted at the national level, which in New Zealand amounts to approximately 100 substances. I reiterate the point made by my colleague the Hon John Tamihere, in whose name the bill sits, that the costs to the economy of the measures that arise from export controls are expected to be nil, based on the current absence of exports. New Zealand signed the Stockholm convention on 23 May 2001. This convention seeks to protect human health and the environment by banning the production, use, or trial, of certain persistent organic pollutants. These persistent organic pollutants are highly toxic. These pollutants can accumulate—

💬 Rodney Hide: Has there been research about that?

And when I say that I talk of persistent organic pollutants, I must say that I do not refer to the ACT party, although the description may well be apt. These pollutants can accumulate in living tissues and pose a threat to the quality of food, particularly meat products—in which I know Mr Hide has a high degree of interest.

Again the costs to the economy are expected to be nil, based on current use and trade, whereas, as for the Rotterdam convention, we will need to have the controls in place in case there should be such exports in the future. I commend the Minister’s management of this bill. I acknowledge Mr Dunne’s points about the level of enthusiasm with which the House deals with legislation like this. I look forward to Mr Ardern’s contribution, which, as always, will be highly valued, and expert, and I commend the bill to the House.

I was amused that in the closing comments from Mr Clayton Cosgrove he wanted to congratulate the Minister on the management of this legislation. I refer him to the explanatory note of this bill we are to consider, and ask him to read it very carefully. The House should take note. It says that the enactment of this bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. By my calculations September 2002 was about a good 6 months ago, and the enactment of this legislation will enable the Government to do something 6 months ago. If that is what Mr Clayton Cosgrove says is great management of legislation, I say it is a truly Houdini act.

I do, though, want to make a serious contribution, not because I am an expert on any of those conventions, but I have spent a great deal of time, both as a Minister, and chair of the legislation on hazardous substances, on these issues. First, I want to say that National welcomes an international approach to the regulatory environment for chemicals. One of the shocks I had in the process of addressing some of these issues was to find out just how many different chemicals are used, and pivotal to the New Zealand economy. Under that new hazardous substances and new organisms legislation we already have over 48,000 different chemicals registered. The idea that we as a country of 4 million people can have a rigorous system to ensure that they are not a danger to the health and safety of our population is simply not correct. In a global economy we need to take a global approach.

The second reason we need that sort of global approach is that our air and our sea, particularly, are truly global resources. If one country does it, fine; if others do it poorly, then we all pay the price.

Some of the motivation behind the conventions that we seek to ratify through this Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill is around the concern of dumping dangerous chemicals, and ratbag regimes. There have been a large number of tragedies where First World countries with dangerous chemicals, and that are keen for cash, have sold them off to ratbag regimes, and they have been stored, and have been a danger to both the populations and to the environment of those countries. So the core value behind this bill and those conventions is to say that we need to have some rules about that. For instance, in my own area at Mapua and Nelson we had a large number of chemicals stored, and it would have been very easy to put them on a boat and ship them off to some ratbag regime, where they would present a danger to someone else’s health. While that might be financially advantageous for New Zealand and for that company, it would certainly be to the world’s detriment. That is why we have these sorts of conventions, and New Zealand should be part of those.

I also have a challenge for the Government. Huge compliance costs are associated with the labelling of chemicals. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, there was the report on the end of the trial on the international labelling regime. It just makes such common sense, when a country is using a particular chemical, that the world community—Europe, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada—actually adopt a common labelling regime, rather than every single country developing its own rules. There has been a good international standard developed, and I urge the Government to adopt that as quickly as possible, because it makes good sense.

There are legitimate issues around these two bills that we are debating this afternoon, with regard to compliance costs. That will be one of the issues that National members will be looking to. In meeting those environmental objectives, quite properly, we will be making sure that as well as taking account of health and safety issues, New Zealand companies are taking a responsible approach to the use of such chemicals in a way that minimises the cost for business, because that makes sense for our country.

National will support the introduction of this bill. We will be asking a series of questions at the select committee about its operation. We do have some concerns about the broadness of the export controls that may be required to do it, but the principle behind the bill and those conventions is sound.

I am pleased to rise in support of this bill, as was stated when our Minister introduced the bill just a short while ago. This bill is related to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has also closely examined the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions. I am pleased that this bill is progressing through the House, and I support it.

Once again Jill Pettis has made an erudite and insightful contribution to a debate—

💬 Jill Pettis: At least I win my seat.

—and I was thanking her for that contribution. I should point out that the ACT party will be voting to send these two bills that work together to the select committee—

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: How many of them?

Seven of them will be voting today. But I want to pick up on a point that Clayton Cosgrove raised in saying that the Minister, the Hon John Tamihere, had done such a fine job in managing this bill’s process. My colleague on this side of the House, Dr Nick Smith, queried that. I think that John Tamihere might have done a great job, because here is the point: we are passing this bill so that we can ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. It is now February 2003, and I have to hand it to John Tamihere—if he pulled all that off. So, here is my first question for the Minister. Did we sign those conventions in September 2002?

💬 Hon Paul Swain: We ask the questions.

Well, I will ask Jill Pettis. Did the Government sign those conventions in 2002? Did it ratify them? Here is Marian Hobbs to tell us.

💬 Hon Marian Hobbs: I have just come into the House.

We did not ratify them in 2002, so when are we going to ratify them?

💬 Hon Marian Hobbs: As soon as we have the bill passed.

Ah! [Interruption] No, no. This is an important point, because when a Minister brings a bill to the House and says: “We have to pass this so we can ratify two conventions in September 2002.”, members on this side of the House say: “Say that again?”. We think that that is toying with the House, because clearly the reason is wrong. The Minister for the Environment has now explained that the management of Mr Tamihere has not been all that it might have been, or all that Mr Clayton Cosgrove has cracked it up to be. [Interruption] She did not say that; I am saying that. She said that we failed to ratify the conventions back in September 2002. That was what the Minister said, was it not? We failed to ratify them in 2002 because this legislation had not been passed. But Mr Clayton Cosgrove got up there—typical of Labour’s spin—and said that Mr John Tamihere had done a great job. But by their own purpose for this bill, he actually failed.

So now we hear, and I am getting the picture now, that we are busy passing this legislation because we failed to ratify in September last year. Did anyone hear the Minister explain that, in his introductory speech? Here again are the Opposition members doing their job—calling this Government to account. I ask the honourable member John Tamihere whether he read this introduction where it says “the purpose”.

💬 Hon John Tamihere: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is the member yielding?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No, I do not think the member is yielding at all. That is not a point of order.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it might be helpful, and I seek leave, for the Minister to give an explanation about the date and timing as set out in the explanatory note. I think it would be helpful for the bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The Minister can seek leave on his own behalf if he so wishes; other members cannot do it for him.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave for the Government to provide an explanation.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No. I call the honourable member Rodney Hide.

I appreciate the Speaker pointing out that if the Minister, who failed to explain these dates in his introductory speech, wanted to explain it to this House, he does not need me to yield; all he needs to do is to seek leave and explain it. So when I have finished my speech, the Minister can stand up and make this correction. But I do make the point: it is trifling with the House to come down here and say that we have to pass this bill so that we can ratify something that clearly we could not have ratified because the bill was not passed at that time. I ask the Minister whether he had read that before his speech today. There is silence. We know that the reason there is silence is that he had not read it. He had not bothered to read the reason we are passing this jolly bill so that he could explain it to the House. He came along with the stuff that his officials fed to him, and expects everyone else to go along with that.

They clearly wrote that speech before September 2002, expecting that the Minister would have had it done. They are rummaging around there because the Government does not know what bill it is going to pass, and they pulled out the speech they had prepared for the Minister. He walked down and gave that speech, and it is clearly at least 6 months out of date. I say to the Minister that if he is to succeed, he had better get a bit more up to date than that.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: He’s more successful than you.

I understand from Mr Cosgrove, who also read his speech and was talking about these conventions, and all the rest of it—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the member explain it?

I ask Mr Clayton Cosgrove whether he could explain why the Government is passing the bill now, when it was meant to ratify something in September last year. I think the answer is no. Mr Cosgrove is sitting here, having been fed the same notes from the officials. He got up and explained this, then said a curious thing. He said that it was to stop these toxic chemicals. We do have an issue with organochlorines, which this bill deals with, because they are persistent in the environment, but I ask Mr Clayton Cosgrove why he thinks they are toxic. Why does he think that organochlorines are toxic, and what are they toxic to? There is complete silence. That member gets up in the House, talks about these chemicals, and says that they are toxic, and when I ask him what they are toxic to, he cannot explain. So now we have, already, on the first reading of this bill, a failure by the Government to make the most obvious points, which are all on the first page of the explanatory note.

I point out to Government members that the concern we have with these chemicals is their persistence in the environment, not their toxicity. The Greens understand that. The ACT party understands that. I expect the Government to do a bit better job.

My final question—and I am so pleased that John Tamihere has indicated a willingness to seek leave to give the explanation he failed to give in his first reading speech—is: given that the Government did not ratify the conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, when is it intending to ratify these conventions?

Bill read a first time.

I move, That the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193, 196(1)(b), and 196(1)(c), and that the committee be instructed to report back to this House by 8 May 2003.

Motion agreed to.