Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This debate marks another step in delivering the Government’s hazardous substances strategy to improve the workability of the hazardous substances provisions of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The strategy does three things. First, it improves the way the provisions work for business; secondly, it improves the way they work for the Government; and, thirdly, it improves the way they work for the environment, and the health and safety of all of our people.

The strategy was designed to achieve these sometimes competing objectives. It is able to do so largely because of the way in which it came about. It was conceived, developed, and refined in partnership with industry. We shared our ideas and we had more ideas to bring together. It was the inclusiveness of the process that enabled the strategy to deliver on sometimes conflicting objectives. This bill is a key deliverable in that strategy. Its primary functions are to introduce a new approval mechanism, known as a group standard, to add regional councils as hazardous substances and new organisms enforcement agencies that may enforce the Act, to increase the ability to set practical exposure limits that protect people and the environment, and to improve the workability of rapid assessment and reassessment, and several other provisions including those for exempt laboratories.

Through these functions, this bill will reduce costs to both the Government and industry; most important, reduce barriers to innovation; and better protect the environment and the health and safety of people in our communities.

The new group standard mechanism is the major contributor to realising those benefits. Group standards will reduce costs by reducing the number of applications that businesses need to make to the Environmental Risk Management Authority, and by providing simpler prescriptive alternatives to the technical controls and regulations. Group standards will also reduce the Government cost to transfer approximately 110,000 notified toxic substances to the full hazardous substances and new organisms regime by 1 July 2006, the statutory end of the transition period.

Group standards will also be able to be made for wastes and manufactured articles that have hazardous properties that exceed hazardous substances and new organisms regime thresholds. Applying group standards to those wastes or articles will reduce risk to people and the environment associated with storage, transport, and through to disposal. Group standards have become an important tool for implementing the New Zealand waste strategy.

The bill was referred to the Education and Science Committee on 22 February this year. The committee received 26 submissions and thoroughly considered the bill. The committee has reported back to the House, recommending that the bill be passed with the amendments shown. I thank the chairman and the committee for their timely work on this bill.

Submitters generally expressed support for the measures in the bill. Strong support was given for the new group standard mechanism, for the involvement of regional councils in hazardous substances and new organisms regime enforcement, and for other measures that improve the workability of the legislation. The select committee has made a number of changes as a result of submissions received. I draw the attention of members to some of those changes.

The change to clause 6 ensures that the register of exposure limits is able to record the parts of a substance for which the exposure limits can be set. The change to clause 9 clarifies when the rapid assessment provision can apply—that is, to a substance with lesser hazardous properties than any substance already approved. The change to clause 10 adds reference to the storing of a substance to the provision for containment approval that is used for substances formulated, packaged, and labelled as for export only.

The change to clause 14 clarifies that a modified reassessment can only change an approval, not revoke an approval—to revoke an approval would require a full reassessment. Changes to clause 20 clarify the operation of the new group standard mechanism. The first change spells out each of the four situations in which a group standard can apply. The term “product” is defined to ensure that wastes and manufactured articles to be managed under group standards exceed the hazardous substance thresholds. Another change ensures that a proposed group standard will be notified and accessible to the public, that public input will be sought, and that full consultation will take place.

Changes to section 96F and section 96G, inserted by Part 2, clarify the effect and applicability of group standards—that a group standard creates an approval for the substances in the group, and that a group standard transfers substances out of the traditional provisions and into the main part of the hazardous substances and new organisms regime.

Other changes to the provisions regarding the group standards mechanism provide improved clarity, such as the re-evaluation of the controls applying to a substance that is already approved in the light of new data or information.

The amendments have tightened and improved the bill, and I commend the Education and Science Committee for its work. I will move further amendments when the House moves into Committee on this bill. The first of these amendments will remove a legal circularity that prevents New Zealand from meeting its obligations under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which includes polychlorinated biphenyl. I will also move amendments that further clarify the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s consultation obligations around group standards, and provide consistency around the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s powers to incorporate materials by reference in group standards and notices of transfer.

Some submitters argued the line that if it is good for business, it must be bad for the environment. This bill is not about environment versus economy. This bill is good for the environment and for the economy. It is very good for the people of this country. It represents a significant step in protecting the environment and improving the living standards of all New Zealanders. It will help us to reap the advantages of using hazardous substances without suffering their potentially adverse effects. It does that by managing the risks those substances present to us. This bill enables us to safely manage risks from a great many hazardous substances that have gone unmanaged before, and in a much more efficient and appropriate way. The bill significantly improves the workability of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. It is good for business, the Government, New Zealanders, and the environment. I am delighted to commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill—a very technical bill but a very necessary one. I would like to congratulate the Hon David Benson-Pope on the very animated and lively way he spoke about this bill. Essentially, the bill is absolutely needed for the transference of 70,000 notified toxic substances on to the register under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to take place. If that did not happen, they would be out there, unregistered and of considerable worry. The registration must occur before June 2006.

I notice that the explanatory note of the first reading copy of the bill states that it offers to reduce costs to businesses and the Government, and to reduce barriers to innovation, whilst not compromising appropriate management of risks. It is very interesting to hear that come from the Labour Government, which is absolutely infamous for increasing the compliance costs of small business and New Zealanders generally. After all, have there not been 42 tax increases in the last 6 years? I am sure Mr Cosgrove could confirm that for us. There have been 42 increases in tax in the last 6 years, by this Labour Government. It is absolutely phenomenal. If we think of the Resource Management Act, we know that the added compliance costs and obstructions that this Labour Government has imposed on New Zealanders trying to get on with business is also absolutely phenomenal.

When we come to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, Federated Farmers were certainly very careful to present a well-formulated paper on the huge costs imposed on New Zealand farmers by this Act. They brought out a considerably well-researched paper called Compliance Costs of the HSNO Act in September last year. They say that the total set-up cost for compliance with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is calculated to be nearly $105 million. That averages $2,230 per farm in set-up costs, but it does not include any ongoing costs from 2007 onwards. Heaven knows what the costs will be from then on! They go on to say that the average set-up costs imposed on the arable sector are over $3,000 per farm. That is a huge amount of money, given that our farmers are competing with farmers in Europe, who are so heavily subsidised.

Some of the regulatory impositions that this Labour Government has imposed in relation to the new organisms part of this bill are sheer larceny in terms of the very important primary sector in New Zealand. I think particularly of the transgenic cow experiment that AgResearch tried to carry out at Ruakura. AgResearch had to spend $500,000 just to put in the consent application, and it was then challenged in the High Court. It is not only that; I think more recently of the Auckland medical school’s experiment with transgenic sheep to produce a potential cure for Huntington’s chorea. The medical school said it could not carry it out as it would cost too much and take too long, because of Labour’s regulations.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.