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

The title of this bill, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill, is fairly obvious. But one does wonder whether an entirely appropriate alternative would be the “Labour Government (Let’s Delay Another Technical Bill Until It’s Too Late) Bill”. We know that the raison d’être behind this bill—the 79,000 notified toxic substances—has been around for a very long time. The Labour Government has known about the issue for many years and has simply done nothing. This is a classic case of Labour Government irresponsibility.

The point is, indeed, that the Environmental Risk Management Authority itself has been saying that it will be impossible to transfer all those substances by the due date of June 2006. Here we have the Labour Government bringing in this technical bill, under urgency, 24 hours before it packs up for the end of the year—a desperate Government whose members are saying there is very little on the agenda—when it does not even carry out the thorough checks that it should do on this sort of technical bill, and ensure that, indeed, the aspects of transference can be carried out within the requirements that it itself set down. I challenge the Minister to stand up and tell the Committee that all those substances will be transferred by June 2006. I guarantee the answer is no. Over there we have the member for Otaki, and I know that he must be very worried about his seat—the farmers have certainly rejected him. Can he too take a call and give us an assurance that, indeed, these toxic substances will all have been registered and transferred by June 2006? I do not think so. Here they are, bringing in, under urgency, a bill that is impossible actually to carry out technically, when they should have literally done it years ago.

The second alternative title of this bill, perhaps, could be “Labour Government (Reduction of Compliance Costs of Transfer of Hazardous Substances) Bill”, but really we do not know whether there will be any reduction in compliance costs.

We just heard a bit of a tirade from New Zealand First. We are not sure just where New Zealand First members are. It seems as though they are thoroughly and completely entrenched on the side of the Government.

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: Oh no, no.

Oh, the member is protesting. Well, what about the Minister of Foreign Affairs? Where is he? Which side of the fence is he on these days? Clearly, the Rotorua speech belies anything that any common-sense New Zealander knows. He said “no baubles, no LTDs”, but when that party gets the possibility to have them it takes them, and goes across to Labour.

But the point I am really making is this: do we really know whether this bill will achieve a reduction in compliance costs? Has the Labour Government put any provisions in place to ensure the efficacy of the bill? I do not see them anywhere whatsoever. The rhetoric is, yes, $2 million will be saved in the transference, and, yes, this has been accepted by industry as a good thing. But do we know that it is actually going to happen? Are there any monitoring mechanisms? No, there are not. I believe that, once again, there has been a dereliction of the detail of a bill by a somewhat desperate and pathetic Labour Government.

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: Ha, ha!

I see the member from Northland laughing away. He was the one who said there were no toxic accidents up in Northland. Well, I say to Dover Samuels there are plenty of toxic accidents up in Northland. Maybe he is one of the living examples of them!

The third possible title for this bill is “Labour Government (Transfer of 70,000 Toxic Substances with No Review or Time Limitation) Bill”. I think that is a very serious issue. It was brought up by the leader of the Green Party, Jeanette Fitzsimons, and also by the very thorough submission of the Sustainability Council.

Mr Chairman—[Interruption]

💬 Hon Member: Tēnā koe!

Tēnā koe—or tēnā koutou! Get it right if you are going to use Māori language, please!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, no. Do not bring the Chairman into it.

I would like to speak to the title of this bill. The purpose of the bill is to improve the workability of the provisions around hazardous substances such as paint, petrol, sprays, and all manner of chemicals within the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. With the recent explosions at the Bunsfield Oil Terminal near London, it is imperative that we have robust legislation to deal with hazardous substances and, indeed, new organisms that come into this country. If we look back at the accident that happened in Kaikōura when rat poison went into the ocean, we see that it is imperative that we have controls on hazardous substances. There is no argument there.

There is, however, a fine line between controls and over-regulation, with its effect on innovation and growth in this country. Right now New Zealand has one of the worst balance of trade deficits in history, and we still sit under halfway down the list of OECD countries in terms of individual, per capita economic wealth. If we are indeed going to grow that position, we must continue to introduce bills of this nature, which reduce compliance costs and help innovation, to help to grow this country. Anything we can do as a nation to reduce bureaucracy and help business to export and to grow should be a key focus. I believe that this bill will help to do that. Anything we can do to reduce regulation should be a priority for this Government. I also believe that this bill will have an impact on that.

In talking to this point of reduced regulation, I just want to bring to the Committee an example of regulation at the moment, outside this bill. It is a company called Goodtime Foods, in Napier. It is a small to medium sized enterprise with a strong domestic market, and champing at the bit to get into the international market. It has potential orders of products that would triple the size of its business, but is faced with totally unreasonable regulations that prohibit the growth of its business. In one instance, the bakery is expected to comply with the same wash-down regulations as a slaughterhouse. This company has flour on the floor and on its conveyer belts. That regulation is absolutely nuts. In another instance it was necessary to build an entirely new corridor so that a trolley of raw meat could be pushed down one corridor, and one of cooked meat down another corridor. The compliance costs—the actual costs of this company getting an export licence—were absolutely ludicrous.

If we are serious in this country about growing our per capita income, and about growing the nation, we need to focus on legislation that will actually reduce compliance costs and make it easier for our nation’s businesses to export goods and to achieve wider economic growth. It is points such as that that I hope this bill is addressing, to actually reduce compliance costs for our businesses overall, and allow them to grow on a wider basis. At all times we must remember that New Zealand is a microeconomy catering to many different economies of a much larger nature. Removing barriers to innovation and to sustainable economic growth are critical to driving this country forward. National supports this bill on that basis, and hopes it will go some way to reducing the bureaucracy around hazardous substances and, in fact, new organisms.

In particular I support, firstly, the provision of a new approval mechanism, known as the group standards, which I spoke to earlier in the Committee stage. Secondly, and also important, I support the adoption of international standards for exposure of chemicals, so that we do not have to assess each pesticide ourselves as it comes into the country, which again creates major costs. These seem to me to be common-sense measures. To follow on from New Zealand First’s tirade about the introduction of the Act in 1996, that did, in fact, tidy up three or four Acts that had become intertwined.

I would like to take a brief call on the title and commencement. I do not have any particular great issues with the title that is here—the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. But because we have had a number of modifications to this bill over time, it occurs to me that probably we should have just started numbering them: the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill (No 1), (No 2), and (No 3), or whatever. Because I will make this prediction: this will not be the last time that this House debates amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I see the Hon Brian Donnelly smiling, I think in agreement, about that. He did make the point that this was a National bill. Before New Zealand First was a twinkle in the eye of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, this bill went through the House—

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: In 1996 we had two members in.

It was still a twinkle in those days. Let me say there was a high degree of unanimity about the need for hazardous substances and new organisms legislation. Not only that, a special select committee was set up to deal with the legislation, and it sat mostly on Fridays to deal with this separately. So to say that all the errors in this one are due to National is an extension of reality, when in fact there was a great degree of unanimity about the process by which the original bill became an Act.

As we reflect—we are getting near the closing of the Committee stage on this bill—I think we are kind of locked into some problematic situations. Consumers and our international markets have a standard of assurance that is getting higher and higher and higher. The implications of this is complexity in cost at our end. [Interruption] Someone called out: “How do you undo that?”—I do not know. Somehow or other, we need to get together in the same way that we had unanimity about doing this and be able to provide that assurance without the ongoing cost.

I reflected on an earlier trip to the European Union. There could be coming for us as a nation a passport for each animal slaughtered and exported, with a required diary of every intervention, animal health procedure, and every chemical applied. The whole thing is coming towards us. We say that assurance is important—and we are kind of dead at selling our products if we do not have it—but I think we need to take stock a little bit and apply our very capable minds to finding a process where we can give assurance and engage in the process without this ongoing complexity and this ongoing cost.

I am amused and fascinated that in Part 1, the section that I do not think anyone spoke on, the Chief of Defence Force—[Interruption] The member covered the Chief of Defence Force, did he? I am sorry, I do not want to repeat what the honourable member might have said. Again, it is an example of how complex it is getting. The Chief of Defence Force has to ensure methods of controlling any hazardous substance he might have, of handling any weapon of mass destruction anywhere in the world that could come into New Zealand, yet we have to have a process label. I wonder whether the terrorists or the rebels who might impose this somewhere in the world are operating under the same set of rules. I have to suggest that they are not, but again it says that this is getting complex and is getting almost nonsensical in some elements.

But if we fall away from it and say we are not there, then we get an opportunity for any kind of non-tariff barrier to come up and ask what our process on this is and say that no, they are not taking our product. We are locked in the horns of a very, very difficult dilemma. Yes, we need the protection; yes, we need the assurance; but at some stage we will have to address the problem, which is becoming more and more complex.

Let me give members another example. When patients went into a hospital they used to have a couple of pages to fill out before an operation, and now they have 24—about what happens to their organs, what happens with liability, and there is a whole range of things. Again, this is symptomatic of the complex assurance nature of the things we are involved in. The House has to address the issue of ongoing cost and complexity, while retaining assurance.

I would like to make one or two points in reference to the comments that have been made. First, Mr Eric Roy claimed that when the 1996 bill—under Simon Upton and the previous National Government—went through, New Zealand First was just a twinkle in Winston Peters’ eye. In fact, New Zealand First had as many members at that particular time as ACT now has.

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: Not very many.

No, there were not very many at that particular time. It was under first past the post. It had two members. I would like to remind the Committee that half of New Zealand First at that time now sits amongst the National Party. He was probably the member who was looking at Simon Upton’s bill at that particular time. He never really was one who did his homework very well. Therefore, he probably let some of the things through that we now have to fix up with this legislation.

Paul Hutchison did make a point, and it is a point that I will affirm. He made the point that this legislative programme has been too slow. I think that is correct. I believe that we are dealing with some very important matters here. A programme has been set out, and the fact that we have had to put through Supplementary Order Papers purely and simply to comply with the law is really a symptom of bad management under the previous administration and the previous Minister. I think I made that point earlier, and I confirm what Paul Hutchison said. The process has not been managed in a timely fashion or in a fashion that gives priority to the safety of New Zealanders under the original agreement and framework. I hope that any further legislation that comes forward on this matter and on these issues will be advanced in a much more timely fashion than this legislation has been advanced. Almost everything that the National members have said in this debate has been balderdash, with the exception of that one particular point regarding the need for timely advancement of this legislation.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Third Reading