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

This is a very complex bill. It contains a large number of amendments, is highly technical, and is very much a procedural matter. I was unfortunate not to be in the House for the first reading, or part of the Education and Science Committee, so I will not stand here and pretend I can talk at length about the details. But I have had the opportunity to read the bill, and I would like to highlight a couple of thoughts from the side.

Like any Act, the legislation is open to interpretation. I agree with the exposure limits set around the environmental exposure limits, the tolerable exposure limits, and the workplace exposure limits. I also agree with the type and nature of the group standards that will enable the Environmental Risk Management Authority to manage the risks. These set conditions will actually help manage them.

But I would like everyone in the House to know that this is just another compliance cost. It was interesting to find that a Federated Farmers survey in 2004 projected that the cost to farmers of this legislation would be $100 million. That is what it will cost to transfer the agrichemicals—the herbicides, the insecticides, and the fungicides—across to this legislation. The cost to the arable farmers of this country is estimated to be $3,000 per year per farmer. For pastoral farmers—and I see that Mr Bennett, a pastoral farmer from the Waikato, is in the House today—the cost to their sector is estimated to be $2,000 per year per farmer. So this legislation will have significant costs across the board for our primary industries. Although we all know that our primary industries are the backbone of this country, we tend to forget that a little bit in the House. We in the primary industries get walloped by large taxes and by compliance costs that flow through from this House.

Another cost will be the certification costs to be an approved handler. Actually, to assess whether the candidates comply with the legislation is another cost. I am pleased to see that the Environmental Risk Management Authority is acknowledging that many of the people who handle these chemicals on a day-to-day basis are skilled in doing that, and that the authority will look at reducing the time involved in training. It is my understanding that farmers who deal with these chemicals on an ongoing basis—many on a daily basis—will not be required to sit a full-day course. I believe that is positive. They will still need to be certified. But I am conscious of the grandfathers out there spraying their tomatoes in their gardens, and the grandmothers spraying aphids in their rose gardens. I would not like to see their having to go through all this compliance in order to be certified to handle these chemicals.

On the plus side, I was pleased to read that those who handle veterinary medicines—as many, many farmers do on a daily basis—do not need to be approved handlers. Thank goodness for that. Many, many farmers—the backbone of this country—drench their stock on a quarterly basis, and some even more often.

In closing, I want to touch on some of the comments made by my colleagues last evening. I agree with Dr Nick Smith that we have to work more closely with Australia and get a common agreement. Also, I am mindful of the comments made by Brian Donnelly of New Zealand First last evening when he talked about it being tougher for the fly-by-nighters to be able to import toxic substances into this country. I am extremely supportive of that. Mr Hutchison, who has just joined me here on my left, also talked about the safety of the whole environment in relation to toxic substances, and I agree with what he said. I will be supporting these amendments, but I am also mindful of the costs. The primary industries are getting walloped by costs, and I am fearful that this is just another compliance cost going forward.

The Green Party will not be supporting this amendment bill, not because we are opposed to the concept of group standards, which are actually quite a sensible way to proceed—contrary to what the previous speaker just said, this amendment does actually reduce costs and compliance for users of hazardous chemicals—but because it is the final closing of a window of opportunity to make the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act work in the way it was originally intended.

I want to give the House a wee bit of history, because there may not be many people here whose memories go back quite so far. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act came out of considerable concern in the late 1980s and early 1990s that our system for managing hazardous substances was a mess. We had a raft of overlapping and inconsistent legislation, such as the Pesticides Act, the Toxic Substances Act, the Dangerous Goods Act, and numerous others, that imposed a sloppy, inconsistent, and not comprehensive regime on the management of hazardous substances. The Act was a very good idea. One of the things that led to that perception was the work I did in 1984 for the Auckland Regional Council on the management of hazardous activities in the Auckland region that showed up some of these legislative imperfections.

Be that as it may, the legislation was drafted to bring all hazardous substances under one umbrella, and to provide a process whereby substances that were already approved could be transferred across to the new legislation with new sets of conditions that brought them into the modern world, that were consistent with international practice, and that discovered and got rid of environmental risks in the process. That is exactly what has not happened, because the process since the Act was brought in has been for hazardous substances simply to be transferred from their old legislation across to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act without any major review of whether they should be registered at all, and with very little review of the conditions under which they should be registered.

What makes this worse is that this actually creates a right in perpetuity to use a particular substance, no matter what science might show in the future about its appropriateness, no matter what public opinion might be in the future about its appropriateness, and no matter what new chemicals might be found that would do a better job for less environmental cost. The problem is that once this regime is complete—once the substances are transferred and are under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act—the substances cannot be reviewed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority except at huge cost to the public purse. This Act is supposed to parallel the Resource Management Act, which gives planning permission for certain actions that affect the environment. But under the Resource Management Act the maximum length of time that one can have a consent is 35 years. Under this Act it is forever. Once a person obtains permission to use, say DDT—it is not used any longer—it is forever, and the only way that can be changed is totally at the cost of the public purse. I do not think Michael Cullen realises the costs to the Crown that are being imposed by this regime.

There was an opportunity here, and this was put to the Education and Science Committee and to the Minister for the Environment—I put it to the Minister myself—to provide that if there is not time for the Environmental Risk Management Authority to review properly all the substances that are in transition, then they should be given short-term registration under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and a review provided at the expense of the applicants. They could be given 10 years, and after that time the authority could at its discretion roll over the consent, or it could decide that it is one that needs to be looked at, and needs to go through a review at the expense of the applicant. That has not happened, despite all the arguments that were put to the Minister and to the select committee.

That means that one of two things will happen. One is that old chemicals that are no longer appropriate, without the conditions that are appropriate in the modern world, without international best practice, will continue to be registered and used here in preference to the new ones coming on the market internationally, because new ones coming on the market internationally will have to be registered, at the cost of the applicant, whereas the old ones just carry on regardless. New Zealand is a small market. We cannot expect innovative chemicals that might have lower environmental costs but do the same job to be registered here if the applicants have to pay, but they do not have to pay for a reassessment of the old, out-of-date chemicals. So this measure will stifle innovation, and will increase risk to the environment.

The alternative is that the Environmental Risk Management Authority will conduct a number of reassessments at a cost to the Crown of probably something in the order of $1 million every time it happens, because it is a public process, and it is not funded to do that. So either there will be some big Budget bids from the authority, which will make Michael Cullen blanch, in order to review a number of these chemicals, which the authority already knows ought to be reviewed, and which the authority already knows are under unsuitable conditions or should be deregistered—either there will be that cost to the Crown—or the risk to the environment will continue. There could have been an easy remedy in this bill: the consents could have been time limited.

We also have this absurd contradiction where the Ministry for the Environment has advised the Minister that this bill has got to get through before Christmas because there is a time limit in the Act that everything has to be transferred by July next year. The legislation needs to go through so that the Environmental Risk Management Authority can do them in groups, because it cannot meet that deadline otherwise. And we have advice from the Environmental Risk Management Authority that the deadline cannot be met, anyway. In its briefing to the incoming Minister it said that the July deadline will have to be extended. So if the July deadline has to be extended, why are we rushing this bill through before Christmas, and why are we not having a good look at giving time-limited consents rather than perpetual property rights to pollute?

I note that the Supplementary Order Paper that we have picked up this morning does not actually extend the time limit from July next year, so I am wondering whether we will get a second Supplementary Order Paper to do that, or whether the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s advice that it cannot do it by July is being disregarded—in which case, what kind of mess are we going to be in? There is going to be even less scrutiny as the authority transfers all these substances across in huge haste without any proper look at the conditions under which they are registered.

We are talking here about the sorts of substances that cause long-term human illness, that cause long-term environmental harm, if they are not used properly and if people are exposed to them when they should not be. It is always a Faustian bargain where humans use dangerous chemicals for useful purposes, but how much environmental risk does one accept in doing that? Obviously, this regime aims to make sure that the most lethal substances are not registered at all, that the most environmentally appropriate ones for the purpose are registered, and that the set of conditions under which they are registered gives one maximum protection for the environment. This measure is not going to do that. This means that the old Pesticides Act, the old Toxic Substances Act, and the old Hazardous Goods Act live on in disguise under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, because substances have been transferred to the new legislation with the conditions set under the old legislation, and we do not really have a new, comprehensive, modern regime for hazardous substances, at all.

I stand today considering the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill within the context of kaupapa and tikanga Māori. As the caretakers of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, we have the responsibility to care for and to actively protect the environment, which includes our whānau, and the flora and fauna that clothes this land of ours. It is a question of values and of preferences, and it is a question of what we are willing to pay to ensure that this country we call Aotearoa maintains its ability to be clean and green.

The aim of the bill is to improve the workability of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and it includes specific proposals to address enforcement and regulation of tolerable exposure limits and environmental exposure limits, and groups various substances together. These are issues of prime importance to us in our commitment towards ensuring genuine progress for the management and care of the environment. In this regard we have been supportive of the concept of a genuine progress index, which is current in both the international scene and in initiatives being considered by a number of local authorities.

The genuine progress indicator distinguishes between positive contributions to progress, ensuring that toxins and hazardous substances are strictly tested and regulated, and negative activity—the polluting of our land, our waterways, and our people. What has it cost this country in terms of the health, or is it the ill-health, of the land, the waterways, and the people? Would it not be more cost-effective to ensure that in regard to pollution and the use of toxins, the effect of which is not clearly known, there is thorough testing before availability for widespread use? Do I need to remind anyone in this House of what happened on the night of 2 December 1984 to the hundreds and thousands of people who were devastated as a result of the activities of the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, Central India? It is over 20 years since tank 610 spewed out a deadly cocktail of methyl isocynate and 23 other chemicals manifest in a cloud of poisonous gas. Those injured by the gas are indistinguishable from those who escaped. Their lungs and immune systems suffered, but apart from eye problems such as cataracts they received few visible injuries, unlike the victims of other disasters such as those caused by thalidomide or Agent Orange.

Government officials say that around 6,600 died from the effects of the gas, and 350,000 were injured. But local pressure groups put the death toll at 16,000 and say that up to 600,000 people were injured. Powerful commercial interests ensured that those workers were denied justice. In many cases throughout the world we have seen just how those with interests in the chemical and toxic industry, who in my view should have been prosecuted for the hundreds of thousands of people whom they have maimed, have been protected.

We do not have to look very far here at home to see the evidence of other tragic examples. In the Waiariki electorate Sawmill Workers Against Poisons have led the charge against those responsible for the chemicals that workers handled throughout their sawmill careers from the 1960s to the 1980s. The worst chemical of the lot, pentachlorophenol, or “PCP”, was used to prevent sap stain, a fungal infection in freshly sawn timber, from the 1960s right through to 1988. It was absorbed through the skin of many workers, affecting various systems in the body. The dioxins in pentachlorophenol are toxic, causing health problems from severe skin rashes to liver damage and possible cancer. The members of Sawmill Workers Against Poisons say that they have been exposed to 48 chemicals throughout their working lives.

The Māori Party will stand, and continue to stand, strong, until we can see action to address the inexplicable cancers, ulcers, and other health conditions suffered by those who work the forestry and sawmill sites contaminated by pentachlorophenol. This could be immediate and simple, such as providing full, free, and regular medical check-ups for ex - sawmill workers from the Whakatāne, Kawerau, Kinleith, and Waipā sawmills and their families.

As the member for Te Tai Hauauru, I am also painfully aware of the need for urgent action to address the adverse health effects such as cancers and birth deformities reported from Taranaki residents living near the Ivon Watkins-Dow, now Dow AgroSciences, chemical plant in Paritutu. It is an outrage that the last Government report into cancer rates in New Plymouth released just 2 days ago by the Ministry of Health failed to follow a robust process to ensure that any findings as to what happened in Paritutu would have any integrity. This report released 2 days ago, sadly, does not do that.

Last September a report released by the same ministry confirmed that the Ivon Watkins-Dow plant at Paritutu was one of the largest historical polluters in New Zealand. The ministry chose to ignore the recommendations that for any study about Paritutu to be valid one would have to identify the actual residents who were exposed and track them down. Instead the study adopted a scatter-gun approach towards testing anyone in New Plymouth. A responsible approach would have tracked down the families who were exposed at key periods in the 1970s. Many of these families have now shifted away but the impact of their compromised health will remain, and of course many have died.

Here we are today talking about the approvals and enforcement required to ensure that hazardous substances and new organisms undergo rigorous and consistent assessment prior to entry into New Zealand, something that the management of Ivon Watkins-Dow plant failed to do. My constituents have repeatedly asked the Government to take seriously the health problems that have resulted from dioxin contamination, including birth defects, behavioural problems, diabetes, and a strong association between exposure to dioxin, and cancer risk. We are talking about a period of 30 years of neglect. Perhaps, as Ross Wilson, the President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, has previously suggested, it might be time to introduce a corporate manslaughter provision in our criminal law so that offenders can be held to account. How many lives have been lost?

Sadly, corporates, which are not socially responsible entities, have a reputation of denying any responsibility for products that they may use to increase what they refer to as the return to the shareholder. The shareholder must be our society and its citizens, not just those who invested in a corporate entity.

We still have issues with the bill, including the basis of the groupings for group standards. The rationale for having group standards is so that we can save $2 million. It would be of great interest to the Māori Party if this Parliament were able to be briefed using the Land Transport New Zealand’s “value of a statistical life” calculation about the real benefits—the genuine progress—that we can expect from this new measure. This calculation estimated that each suicide cost a total of $2,931,250. That is the statistical value of one life. When one considers the number of lives that have been lost or seriously affected as a result of what happened at Paritutu and Whakatāne, the impact of Agent Orange on Viet Nam vets, the impact on those naval personnel involved in supporting the British atmospheric tests at Christmas and Malden Islands during Operation Grapple, and on all their descendants and families, $2 million is a minuscule amount to be saving.

These communities deserve to have effective health-care in recognition of the disastrous impact of the corporate manslaughter that they have endured and which many Governments have turned a blind eye to. This country must never allow to ever occur again such damage to its citizens, to its land, or to its environment, whether by accident or design. To this end, we live in hope that socially responsible behaviour will be encouraged by this bill; that people will not knowingly attempt to import products that they know are hazardous substances, which put the health of the citizens and the environment at risk.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Parts 1, 4, 4A, 5, and 6 of principal Act