Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

In doing so, I want to just remind the House of what the simple but effective intent of this bill is, and it is to amend the Litter Act, that was first passed in this House back in the 1970s and has been amended a couple of times but not substantially rewritten, so that district councils around the countryside can increase the maximum infringement fine payable for littering from, what I consider to be, a measly $400 to a new maximum of $1,000.

This bill is not of itself a silver bullet in terms of providing answers to litter and litter issues around the nation, but it is intended to be something of an additional tool that can be used by councils to get over some of the challenges that they have in terms of administering the current infringement process and making it worth their while, whilst at the same time ensuring that litterers actually get a very clear message that littering is not acceptable behaviour and that, where they are caught, infringement notices will and can be issued and that those notices will have a maximum penalty of up to $1,000. Now, what this bill doesn’t do is provide that the maximum should be the minimum. So councils would, under this legislation if it’s passed by the House, eventually be able to move within a range of dollar values up to that $1,000 maximum.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the members of the Environment Committee that have recommended in their report back to this House that the bill be passed with a couple of amendments. One of the amendments suggested from the select committee is that clause 4 be removed and that clause 5 and a new clause 6 be inserted to change and improve the clarity of the principal Act without altering the legal effect of the Act. Those are amendments that I support. I want to thank members who diligently paid attention to the submitters. I want to thank and acknowledge the chair of the committee, Dr Deborah Russell, who surely must be, as this Government enters the second half of its term, ready for promotion to Cabinet.

The committee received 13 submissions on the bill and we heard only three oral submissions. Five councils made written submissions and all were in support, although I did notice that the submission from the Hamilton council actually was in blank, and I guess that was not meant to be a littering matter but it was duly noted that the Hamilton council’s submission was in blank and we took that to be in support. The majority of the individual submissions were in support, with several calling for the penalty that is being nominated actually to be higher. There were a couple of submissions that were opposed. One supported the general intent of the bill but thought that the increase would not be effective, and another thought that the proposed fine maximum was out of proportion with other littering offences.

So why is an infringement regime useful in terms of councils being able to sort out their litter issues? Well, quite simply, it is because the other option is to proceed through a long, detailed, expensive, and legalistic court process for littering. That option applies and is available to councils, both regional and district, in order to perform their role in trying to control litter bugs and littering around their regions. But, as I say, it’s expensive, it’s time-consuming, it’s legalistic, it involves lawyers and courts, and it may not necessarily always be the best use of our judicial system’s court time.

An infringement process actually is very effective. It’s quick, it’s efficient, and it works. Ironically, at the same time that this bill was before the Environment Committee another bill going through the select committee process relating to setting up an infringement fine notice regime for the conservation rangers in the Department of Conservation (DOC) was also going through the committee. It’s interesting to note that some of the arguments that were used in favour of DOC officers and rangers being able to operate an infringement fine process were exactly contrary to the arguments that were being used by officials and others in terms of this piece of legislation, and just as a layperson looking at lawyers trying to justify things I found that quite fascinating.

So here we have what is essentially a test for this Government. It’s a test of their commitment to actions rather than just mere words, and the commitment that I seek from them will be to support this bill, not because it intends to be a magic wand and a silver bullet that solves all our waste issues or all our litter issues, but because it sends a clear message of support from this Parliament to the district councils around the countryside who are trying to fight a battle against litter and litter bugs. I think that as a Parliament we should be supporting those efforts and we should be actually sending a strong, clear, decisive message to not only councils that we support their work in this area but also to the people who choose to litter. This is a test of the Government’s commitment—of the coalition Government’s commitment—to the environment, to their often quoted words about reducing waste and litter, and minimising waste and stuff that goes to landfill, and it’s a test of their commitment to the slogans and campaigning rhetoric that they have used in past campaigns.

So this is about making words real and making actions count. One of the questions is where do the Greens sit on this? I had an interesting exchange of text communications with Minister Sage, as that party’s representative, and as a result of that initially they seemed to be in support. There was a bit of a haggling about the prices, and now it seems that they are opposed to this. So that speaks volumes about their commitment to the environment and their commitment to supporting regional and district councils.

I want to just highlight one of the examples that occurred in my electorate over the summer period. As the member of Parliament for Coromandel, nothing really irritates me as much as driving around or walking around my electorate and seeing the amount of litter that is literally on the side of roads, in drains, in cavities, and what have you. It’s a problem that is exacerbated during the summer period when we get literally hundreds of thousands of extra visitors.

💬 SPEAKER: “Litteraly!”

Yes, literally—good pun, Mr Speaker. I hasten to add, I don’t want to draw you into the debate. But the Thames-Coromandel District Council tries its best and they work very hard. There was a case in January of this year, and some members will be aware of this. An eagle-eyed resident of the Thames Coast spotted a tourist defecating around the rocks on the beautiful Thames Coast, and this good citizen—I’ve taken the liberty of not providing a particularly large photograph of this, but here was the photograph that accompanied the infringement fine. But the maximum fine—the maximum fine—the infringement notice that the council could impose on this awful situation, which regrettably happens far too often around the beautiful Coromandel, was the existing maximum, which is $400. I don’t think that’s enough. I don’t think that’s nearly enough in terms of sending a message to people who not only litter with paper and cigarette butts and what have you, but choose to litter with human waste. I don’t think that sends nearly a strong enough message to people or to councils about the tools that are available to them to work in this area.

As I said, this is a test of this coalition Government’s commitment to the environment, to their support for regional and district councils, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing whether they support this legislation through to the committee stage of the whole House, or whether in fact they choose to reject the support of councils and reject the attack on litter and litter bugs.

I commend this bill to the House and I thank the committee for its work. I’m keen to see what the Government has to say.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I wish to begin by thanking the members of the Environment Committee for their work on this bill. It was one on which we enjoyed hearing the submissions and I think all my colleagues on the committee worked together well on this bill. I’d also like to thank the officials who did the work on this bill, particularly the newish policy analyst for whom this was the first bill that she had worked on and presented to a select committee, so she did very well.

There was a story on the Titirangi Facebook page a few days ago. It was actually posted by a neighbour of mine—literally a neighbour, the next house over, outside the bus stop. She had found a fish crate full of rotting fish heads dumped outside their place. I think someone must’ve come up from—it would have been from French Bay or from Titirangi Beach and discarded the fish heads right outside her place. It stunk. She did the hard work and got rid of the rotten fish heads. She said they were crawling with maggots. I think it was a fairly revolting process for her, possibly almost as revolting as the picture which Mr Simpson just introduced into the House. So littering is a problem.

I want to continue with some stories on this. I go for a regular Monday walk in the mornings. Sometimes it’s leafleting, as one does when one is involved in politics, but mostly it’s down to French Bay and some of the beautiful waterways around in my electorate. But just this Monday morning when I went off walking down by the French Bay yacht club, [shows photos] I came across this bag, stuffed full of—I think it was old clothes, just dumped there by the French Bay public lands down there, and just a few metres from it these two rubbish sacks, again, stuffed full of clothes. I mean, what puzzled me is that someone had clearly gone to the effort of putting these clothes into bags, but then they couldn’t find the proper place to dispose of them, so they just dumped them in my neighbourhood.

A final story, and this one comes from the Taranaki Daily News, where it was published the other day, is talking about why one Taranaki woman is collecting 10,000 cigarette butts. She raises the point that actually cigarette butts are the biggest cause of litter. They’re the biggest source of litter and she says they’re worse than plastic in many ways because they are so incredibly toxic. So she’s collecting 10,000 of them to make a point and to ask people to do better.

What all these stories show is that littering is a problem and it’s something that people actually mind about, that we actually want to do something about, hence this bill, which has come back from the Environment Committee with a number of tidy-up changes in it. The department took the opportunity to just introduce some minor changes and to suggest them to us, so we did that. But the substantive change is the one that would increase the infringement fee for littering from $400 dollars to $1,000. That’s a substantial change in the fee. So the question is: is it appropriate? We need to think about that quite carefully.

There’s something quite important in the Litter Act—because this bill amends the Litter Act, and in particular in the Litter Act one of the issues there is exactly how one gets caught in the act of littering and therefore might attract a fine. As it turns out, local authorities can appoint enforcement officers and enforcement officers can issue fines up to that level, at the moment, of $400, based on the local authority’s own rules. They can do it summarily to prevent the deposit or attempted deposit of litter in any public place. What that means is that the enforcement officer needs to see the act of littering actually taking place. They need to be there, right there and then. So all those cigarette butts tossed aside idly—no fine can be issued unless the enforcement officer is right there, then and there, to impose the fine. That’s probably the case with cigarette butts because it’s very hard to identify them. But they can also impose a fine if they’ve got good reason to believe that the deposit or attempted deposit of litter has been made by a particular person. In that case, an officer would need to have some way of identifying the person who had actually dumped the litter. In other words, it’s a fairly immediate sort of activity. The enforcement officer really needs to be there or to have some pretty good evidence, and, of course, that’s simply not the case with a lot of litter. Those McDonald’s wrappers—they don’t actually have names on them. The cigarette butts don’t have names on them, and, generally, that kind of littering doesn’t get reported—unruly tourists aside, or Mr Simpson’s friends in the Coromandel.

So there’s a real problem with littering. It’s not the level of the fine, necessarily. The problem is having enough enforcement officers. The problem is actually enforcing the fine. I think this is a point that was brought up in some of the submissions against the bill. Mr Speaker, as I think you might know, I’m an habitué of Twitter. I rather enjoy engaging on Twitter with various people, and, of course, I know various people through Twitter. Last night, there was a bit of a discussion about the law going on, and a friend of mine, Liam Hehir, who I think is probably known to various members on the opposite side of the House, had an interesting tweet. He said—because it was a conversation which Graeme Edgeler had entered—“If you mention the law in a tweet, then it summons Graeme. Now you have to try to trick him into saying his name backwards.”—that would be to get rid of him.

Well, we mentioned something about the law and fines and the like in this House, and public law, and then Graeme came along. Graeme Edgeler was one of the submitters who came and talked to us in the select committee about this particular bill, and he raised some real concerns. He said that one of the reasons that he was opposed to this bill was that the fine was out of all proportion. He identified the problem with actually catching someone in the act of littering, and then he said that the fine proposed—up to $1,000—was out of all proportion to the maximum fines suggested for other offences. He said that, actually, the maximum infringement fee of $400 was already in line with other infringement fees for things like speeding or drink-driving, and substantially higher than the fines imposed for parking infringements. So there’s a real issue of parity floating through this bill. Is it reasonable to have a fine of $1,000 for littering?

Interestingly, the department was unhappy with that as well and did a bit of analysis, and they said that, really, if we were going to keep this fine in reasonable proportion, then based on inflation rates, the fine level might be lifted up to, say, $500, but not $1,000—but not $1,000. It’s too much. On this side of the House, we are persuaded by that view, and that is the reason as to why we will be opposing this bill.

Now, we have been told that this particular bill is a test of the Government’s commitment to a clean environment. I’ll tell you what’s a sign of our commitment to a clean environment, and that will be the climate change legislation that comes in front of us. Our commitment to conservation is shown in the $76 million we’ve just added to the Department of Conservation’s funding. Our commitment to conservation is showing we want to do the real work, not the trivia of increasing fines. We are not interested in punishing people, we are not interested in making people subject to the silliest of infringement offences, and we are not interested in whacking huge fines on just for the sake of it. We are interested in proportionality and fairness. That’s what we’re about on this side of the House. So I invite the opposite side of the House, I invite the Opposition, to have a little think about that number—to have a little think and, perhaps, a little discussion with us. But when the number remains at $1,000, we cannot in good conscience support this bill. I oppose this bill.

Before I call Todd Muller, I am going to ask Mr Simpson not to wave that picture around again. Thank you.

Well, well, well. For the last 10 minutes—well, actually, no, not for the last 10 minutes; for eight minutes of the last 10 minutes, Deborah Russell tried her “I’m going to be reasonable” and then, in the last 120 seconds, the oxygen changed and suddenly we just went “poof” and something else appeared in front of our screens.

Now, what I find absolutely remarkable, as I begin my comments on the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill, second reading, is when you listen to the conversation that, at least for the first eight minutes, we were blessed with, Deborah Russell was stepping through the various examples that she finds in her electorate of rubbish, of litter, of community concern, and of frustration. She then talked to the select committee process that we had, where we had the city councils—five of them—speak strongly in favour of the fact that they needed more teeth in terms of the infringement penalty that’s at stake. But then, right at the last minute, she then says, “But you know what, $1,000 is too much, and I’m convinced by some academic who made a pitch right at the end of the submission.” Well, I’m sorry, you’re either for the environment or you’re not, Deborah. You’re either for actually listening to your community or not. You can’t give a speech for eight minutes talking about the size of the problem, talking about the fact that your community want action, and talking about the fact that from a Government perspective you listen, and then finally, at the last hurdle, say, “I’m sorry, but we think $1,000 is too much.”

Well, that’s a fail from my perspective. It’s a complete fail, because if you actually look—which I’m sure you did, because we had to pore through the detail of this legislation—you would see that, actually, what is proposed by my learned colleague from the Coromandel is not a minimum and maximum of a thousand dollars but a regime that is graduated up to a thousand dollars, depending on the judgments that we would hope would sit in the city councils. It’s not that we have come up with this change out of thin air and suggested that, actually, let’s push this on to a reluctant community; let’s push this on to a reluctant council. This is not a minimum thousand dollars; this is giving them the opportunity to graduate up to that if the severity of the litter meets that fee.

When you look at the various pictures—and I’m sure, even though I can’t draw you into the debate, Mr Speaker, you’ll be delighted that I’m the first speaker without a picture—that have been provided thus far, you can see the need for a graduated response, because one of those pictures that Deborah Russell showed was litter of a smaller amount. One of the pictures seemed to be slightly more confronting, and, of course, Mr Simpson takes the cake in terms of an example of littering that was at the defecation end of the scale.

The whole point here is that we’re providing the opportunity for our territorial authorities to be able to apply a regime, which none of us have said that we have a major problem with, that has the ability to scale up to a thousand-dollar fine. Every one of us knows that this stuff is challenging—well, I would hope so. We haven’t yet heard from New Zealand First; I’m very much looking forward to their contribution on litter. That will be very insightful—an autobiography, perhaps. And I’m particularly looking forward to the Green Party. It makes me think, on the basis that we have a sense here that their contribution may well be one of rejecting this small but meaningful change—it makes me reflect on that little saying that on small hinges, large doors swing, because this—

💬 Darroch Ball: Oh.

Well, yes, quite good, isn’t it, Darroch Ball? Let me just repeat that for you: on small hinges, large doors swing. At one breath, people will say, “Oh, look, the National Party”—or Scott Simpson, a fine member for Coromandel, reflecting his community’s concerns. Maximum litter up to $400—lifting that to up to a thousand dollars. Look, it’s not a massive change in the context of the environmental issues that we reflect on in this House, but it is a symbol of intent. It is a symbol of saying, well, actually, we hear the community concern and we’re going to do something.

But I suspect very shortly we’re going to hear, as we’ve just heard from the Labour Party—that when push comes to shove, they’re just all rhetoric; they won’t actually do anything. We’re going to hear very similar from the Green Party, where they will talk about the importance of dealing and prioritising our environment. They will talk, no doubt, about the challenges that our urban environment but also rural—but particularly the built environment—has with respect to litter pressure. When there is an opportunity right now, right here today, to make a statement, to make a small step in the right direction that is aligned with their philosophy, they will say no, largely out of spite, because they cannot be seen to be supporting Scott Simpson from Coromandel, even if it’s the right thing to do, even if it is a small step in the right direction, because, actually, you know, we would rather be ideological on a position like this as opposed to practical. Here is an opportunity to make a difference—a small difference, but a difference none the less—and they will turn down the opportunity, because it’s much better to get very, very high-ambition speeches, but when the opportunity is put in front of them to actually make a difference right here, they will turn the opportunity down.

What a shame that is, because, as we have seen, this is supported by our territorial authorities, local government. They came to the Environment Committee and said, “Actually, on balance, this is a good step forward.” We acknowledge that they didn’t say, “Look, there are no issues around managing litter.” They said they were supportive and they want it to happen. The Labour Party might know somebody by the name of Phil Goff. He is very supportive—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: He’s independent, apparently.

Yeah, apparently he is independent—yes. So that mayor has signalled that he is quite comfortable with this direction and supports it; four other councils do. So I just ask the members opposite to reflect on how small-minded they are with respect to this response. The argument that we just heard, that, actually, you know, from a sort of academic perspective, this isn’t parity, I have debunked. It is up to a thousand; it’s not a minimum of a thousand. This is a small signal to assist in changing the behaviour.

I just want to reinforce how disappointed my community will be on this—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: And mine.

And yours, yes. I’ve mentioned yours a couple of times; it’s time to talk about mine. In Papamoa—fantastic part of the community; you should all come. I know, Kiri, you occasionally drive through on your way through to the East Coast. But Papamoa—fantastic community, beautiful beaches—[Bell rung] That felt like it had just a little half a second too long, that bell. Didn’t you feel that, listening? But anyway, when we walk along Papamoa Beach—and I have been with my community for litter clean-up sessions. We have been there—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Oh, god.

No, it’s not, you know—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Hard-working local member.

I was, yes, and I’ve got the pictures to prove it. We did a whole morning cleaning up, I took two out of my three children—and you know how that works. Well, it did spread the load, to be fair. But what the three of us decided—my two children and myself—when we finished the morning’s work cleaning up the litter was: why do people do this? There’s got to be a way of making people who do this pay. In fact, my youngest daughter said to me “Why is it that all this stuff’s there?” as we walked through the dunes and cleaned up Papamoa on behalf of the wider community—and there’s a huge community effort; it wasn’t just the Muller family doing this. When your young children turn to you and say, “Why do people do this, Dad? Why isn’t there greater penalty? What is the impact, Dad, if people drop this here?” I said that, clearly, the people who do this don’t value their surrounding environment like we do and so many other people do, and the families of Papamoa do. But I also believe, as part of that answer, we should say that we had the opportunity to make it slightly more painful for those who do this bad stuff in our community to actually pay the price. I think—in fact, I know—that the people of Papamoa Beach who are listening to this will be very disappointed in the New Zealand First, Labour, and Greens failure to actually do something in the space of environment this afternoon. Thank you.

Before I call Clare Curran, I will remind Mr Muller that when he refers to members from the other side, he doesn’t just use their first names. That was why he got a slightly longer bell immediately after.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. “Actions speak louder than words” and “commitment to the environment”—those were two phrases I heard from over there. Wasn’t that the party that put up big billboards over the summer period about wanting more massive highways, putting more trucks and cars on the road, and, basically, running down KiwiRail and converting their locomotives to diesel? Is that “actions speak louder than words” and “commitment to the environment”? I could go on for 10 minutes about that, but I won’t because I actually want to say some positive things.

One of the things that I wondered whether Mr Muller has thought about is actually asking his local council—and Mr Simpson, as well—as to whether they’ve thought about putting out more bins in their community, as being a useful way of encouraging behaviour change and education, and that that is actually the direction that we as a nation are being encouraged to go in.

This is a rather small, strange bill, I describe it as. I didn’t sit on the Environment Committee for the whole of it, but I came in at the end and I listened to some of the submissions, I looked at what the departmental report had to say, and I know it was taken seriously. I hope the member acknowledges that the bill was taken seriously, and there were some serious submissions to it, but, ultimately, increasing fines is not necessarily going to change behaviour—it will not stop littering. We were advised against a thousand-dollar fine because it’s disproportionate to the infringement offence, and I’ll talk more about that in a minute. We were—because, you know, we’re reasonable on this side of the House and we’re a very reasonable Government that listens—prepared to consider a $500 fine, which was considered to be in line with inflation and official advice, but that was unacceptable to the member sitting over there.

Most importantly—and this is where we go back to the actions speak louder than words and commitment to the environment—is that this Government has a plan and is enacting its plan and is actually doing a lot more about the bigger picture, whereas for that side of the House, apparently raising the fine to $1,000 is going to somehow change the world and solve the problems of our environment.

I would like to mention, actually, some items in the Government’s plan, and I want to refer to the Minister Eugenie Sage, actually—associate environment Minister—and her waste minimisation work programme, which has been outlined and which goes much, much wider to this. Before I do that, I just want to mention a couple of statistics which are useful to know, and that is that in New Zealand, 84 percent of waste that could become litter is actually disposed of in the correct way. So it’s useful to inject facts into the debate. Of course, we can do better, and this is where the waste minimisation plan is geared to. It’s actually looking at how it can do that in a meaningful way and affect the biggest impact, rather than raising the fine to $1,000 when there aren’t enough enforcers, which the member Deborah Russell referred to in her speech. So it’s actually making a meaningful change.

We’ve got a 16 percent litter rate, so what the Government is looking at doing is expanding the waste disposal levy. New Zealand has currently got 420 known landfills. The levy only applies to 11 percent of them, so there’s a lot of work to be done there. We are undertaking a consultation with the public about the levy expansion. I’m not sure whether the Opposition is actually aware of this work and have actually looked into it, but looking at the levy expansion and the potential increases next year, the levy currently generates around $30 million annually. Half of that goes to councils to help them fund their waste minimisation activities, and the balance goes into the Waste Minimisation Fund and its grants scheme, which is about helping progressive businesses and community organisations to reduce waste. If we actually expand that away from the 11 percent, isn’t that going to make a big difference? Yes, it’s going to make a big difference. Is raising an infringement fee to $1,000 going to make a big difference when you haven’t got the enforcers, when it doesn’t fit into a bigger picture? No, it’s not.

The second and long-overdue task is to improve dramatically the data and information available on waste. We lack a full national picture of what’s going into landfills. Now, why is that? It’s because the previous Government did nothing about that. We don’t know. So where was your commitment to the environment? And your actions speak louder than words. That’s what I would like to know.

I also want to refer to, and I know that Deborah Russell referred to, Graeme Edgeler’s submission. I actually want to elaborate on what she said, because while I describe him as being the prince of pedantry—and I make no apology about that, Graeme—he made a very good submission, and he makes very good points, and I want to let you know what those points were in case the member Scott Simpson didn’t pay attention when he was giving his submission. He says that “Littering is both a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, and an infringement offence, punishable by the imposition of an infringement fee.” That dual approach is relatively common with a range of regulatory offences, and more serious breaches can be prosecuted in the courts as criminal offences—resulting in a conviction, potentially, and a criminal record—while less serious breaches can be dealt with using infringement fees, which are like parking tickets or speeding tickets and don’t result in criminal records.

This bill proposes amending the level of the infringement—the lower level. So it’s recognised as dealing with low-level littering and not with more serious dumping. More serious littering would be prosecuted rather than dealt with by the infringement notice. So if there are concerns about dumping and more serious examples of littering, then amendments to the maximum fine for littering, which is, you know, around $20,000, $30,000 for dangerous refuse—then don’t change the infringement fee; that would be more appropriate. There are other pieces of legislation that that gets dealt with under.

He makes the point that littering is bad, but a possible $1,000 infringement fee is out of all proportion with the offence, especially when we recall we are concerned with the type of low-level littering commonly subject to infringement fees. It’s useful to compare to other infringement offences such as speeding, where the fee is set at $630. I just got a speeding ticket—it was a bit less than that, so clearly I wasn’t going that fast. But the point he is making is that it’s disproportionate.

Is the member clearly saying to the House that he believes that a disproportionate fee of $1,000, in a regime where it’s clearly being said to us by councils that it’s a complex issue, that they find it hard to actually enforce the infringement side of it, is actually going to make a difference? Isn’t it more important to be looking at a bigger picture of the whole of the waste minimisation and making your interventions where it’s actually going to matter, working with councils to look at how they can encourage behaviour change, and ensuring that you are taking a holistic approach to this? Actions do speak louder than words. A commitment to the environment is important, and it’s this side of the House that’s focused on that, rather than the petty approach being taken by the National Party.

It’s not often that two speakers from the same party get to follow each other on speaking on such an important bill, and so I would like to take the opportunity, which I haven’t had up until this point, and say that I agree wholeheartedly with the previous speaker, the Hon Clare Curran. That’s not something I’ve been able to say, and it’s not something that I can say tonight when I think about the contributions—the two contributions—thus far, as sincere as I’m sure they were, on this, the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill.

The issue is the principle that raising a fine will stop the behaviour you wish to halt. It’s not going to work. In all the examples we’ve heard tonight of littering in the Coromandel and littering in Papamoa and, dear I say, even littering in the great electorate of New Lynn—how many of those perpetrators were seen and fined? None. So there is no evidence to suggest that the current fine system works, and there’s no evidence to suggest that increasing it to some arbitrary figure of $1,000 is going to work as well. That’s, essentially, what this bill, as proposed by the Hon Scott Simpson, suggests.

Us on this House—we oppose this bill because we believe it is unnecessary. It’s not going to be effective, and it’s not actually going to go towards anywhere which we all want to see—we all want to see less littering. If you were to look at the examples that were raised by Dr Deborah Russell in speeding and drink driving, they were used because, often, if you commit those two acts, then you will end up with a fine less than what’s being proposed in this bill. Now, dear I say that the reason us in this House do not drink drive and most people in this country do not drink drive has got nothing to do with the fine, but it’s got everything to do with the potential shame that would be attached to that, the loss of wages that could be attached to losing your licence, or a much more serious nature of actually causing a serious harm to somebody else or your own. It’s got nothing to do with the fine.

I would argue that it is much more effective, if we want to stop littering, to actually look at changing the culture around littering. Why do people litter? Trying to understand this—and there’s a list of Government initiatives that are going around on this that I am looking forward to outlining in the remainder of my speech. I went to Taiwan last year—it was a marvellous trip to a marvellous place—and the one thing I noticed was that there were no rubbish bins. None. I couldn’t find any. There was someone on the delegation that enjoys the odd cigarette, and that person couldn’t find anywhere to put their cigarette butt. So what that shows is that there is a culture over there that you simply do not litter. You take your rubbish with you and you dispose of it at home. Nowhere to be seen was there a rubbish bin. Now, the same cannot be said in this country. In fact—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The time has come to leave—it’s kai time. It’s time to leave the chair.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The issue, of course, is when you get on a roll and you start a speech and it stops for the dinner break, you lose your momentum—and, of course, you might also have a different audience. We all know that there are more people that watch Parliament TV after dinner than before, so I thought perhaps a little recap of what I said earlier might be the way to go.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): There are Standing Orders, Mr McAnulty, around repetition.

Ha! Well, it was worth a crack. But, essentially, the arguments were that this is a bad idea and we won’t be supporting it. The reasons behind that are quite clear, because arbitrarily lifting a fine from $400 to $1,000 is going to do nothing, particularly when at the moment the system of imposing those fines hardly really exists. As my colleague, Dr Deborah Russell, mentioned in her contribution, in order for someone to be fined for littering they, essentially, need to be witnessed in the act. They can go back if they can prove that it was someone that was littering—so perhaps they may have thrown in a power bill amongst the bag of rubbish or something like that. But, essentially, the Litter Act 1979, which the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill seeks to amend, is really targeting those small-scale litterers: your cigarette butts, your lolly wrappers, and your McDonalds’ packages etc. And so what we are arguing on the side of the House is that we are certainly not suggesting that the intention behind this bill was not sincere—I’m sure it was. But we view this as a rather pointless change, because, ultimately, if we are going to reach the objective that we all want to see where less people litter—ideally, no people littering—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Fewer people.

Fewer. Fewer. I’d like to acknowledge my colleague, the Hon Ruth Dyson. Never say “less” in front of Ruth Dyson when you mean “fewer” because she will point it out.

I was thinking about my recent trip to Taiwan, and I just started talking about that before the dinner break. What struck me in Taiwan was that this is an island with 23-odd million people, and I can honestly tell you the whole time that I was there I didn’t see one single piece of rubbish. It’s quite remarkable for a city so condensed that they have that many people in such a relatively small area and I didn’t see one single piece of rubbish, and just as interesting is that I also didn’t see a single rubbish bin. So I started talking about that before the dinner break, and I actually thought to myself, while I was having a feed, “I wonder why that was? Maybe it’s because they’ve got a really strong fine system in place. Maybe the Hon Scott Simpson was on to something.” I’ve got seven minutes of my speech left; it’s not too late to correct the record. If I was wrong, I wouldn’t be too ashamed to say so.

It turns out that they do not. The fine in Taiwan for littering is the equivalent of NZ$40—$40. But what they’ve done is they’ve created this culture where people just do not litter. Taiwan—I’ve since found out, in the last hour and a half—was colloquially known as “Garbage Island”. It’s quite incredible—“Garbage Island”. And yet what they’ve done is they’ve imposed a system, which this Government is arguing would be a much better approach than the one that’s suggested in this bill, where they make it easy for people to recycle and they make it easy for people to dispose of their rubbish, and they’ve created this culture. If we were to compare that to what’s proposed here of simply suggesting that increasing the fine from $400 to $1,000 is going to be effective in stopping people from littering, then I believe that is a mistaken concept.

You couldn’t compare that to Singapore. I read a news report where one resident got fined NZ$21,500 for throwing a cigarette butt out the bus window. We probably wouldn’t litter if the fine was $21,500, but of course we’d still have to be found out. We’d still have to be found out, wouldn’t we? I suppose that’s the point. In Singapore they have this fine system, but they also have the people there to witness the act and impose the fine. And this argument that we can just chuck an arbitrary figure out and hope that it’s going to be successful, this side of the House clearly argues that it is not.

I note that there are some figures here that the vast majority of people in this country do not litter. We all know that. It’s around at 84 percent. And I think it’s actually because even though we do have a fine system in this country—I think people here in this House if they saw someone littering in front of them, they’d probably say, “Excuse me, would you mind picking that up?”, or words to that effect.

💬 Hon Members: That’s right.

That’s right, because we do take pride in this country—not everybody, but most of us do. I guess if you consider the arguments that were given by some of the submitters, and also, most certainly, the feedback that was given by the department when the Environment Committee were considering this, they made it very clear indeed that they did not recommend increasing the fine to up to $1,000—

💬 Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Killing an ant with a sledgehammer.

Thank you, Priyanca Radhakrishnan. I appreciate that. “Killing an ant with a sledgehammer,” she says—an utterly pointless exercise. On that I do agree.

So if we were to consider what the Ministry for the Environment advised the select committee, they said that there are no bigger issues with enforcement that $1,000 is not going to be a deterrent, because, ultimately, that’s what a fine system is for: it’s to stop and deter a particular behaviour, and $1,000, for those in this country that do litter, is not going to stop them littering. What we would argue on this side of the House that is going to be much more effective is the initiatives that the Government is investing in in terms of littering projects. Non-regulatory tools to reduce litter—I know that there’s a lot of pride in the keep New Zealand green and Keep New Zealand Beautiful campaign. I remember that from when I was much younger, as a child.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Last week.

“Last week” has been the quip from my left, which isn’t bad, because I am the youngest person in the Labour Party caucus, so I take some pride in that.

The fact is that if we just think back to 10 years ago and the amount that we all recycled—

I apologise to the member. I call Erica Stanford.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m very happy to make a contribution to my colleague, Scott Simpson’s, member’s bill, the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill. Can I be the first right here tonight in this House to nominate Clare Curran for mayor of Auckland. John Tamihere—I thought he was a nice bloke, but we need a heavy hitter. We need someone with ideas, someone with vision, someone who can think outside the square. When Clare Curran got up tonight earlier and said, “Have the council thought about putting out more litter bins?”, I just thought, “On your bike, Tamihere. This woman’s got answers.” I thought you were on to something. Then she followed that up with “Maybe we just need some more enforcement officers.”—another gem. There will be mayors and councillors around the country, perhaps from Waipā, from Hamilton, from Ashburton, or from Auckland, who came to submit on this bill, who’ll be smacking their heads thinking, “Why on Earth didn’t we think of that? This woman is a genius.” Despite what Kieran McAnulty just got up and said about his trip to Taiwan, where we don’t need any rubbish bins at all—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Those two really should get together and have a wee chat.

And then her other gem: the Waste Minimisation Fund, which she lauded as a wonderful scheme, shortly after, by the way, she attacked us for not being good environmentalists, forgetting that that was actually something that the National Government set up. But more importantly her great idea is to tax those people more, who do the right thing in disposing of their rubbish, and at the same time arguing against a bill that wants to properly punish those people who literally dump their rubbish—in fact, literally dump on the beaches, as Scott Simpson pointed out earlier tonight—tax good behaviour more, and fine bad behaviour less. I can see why they made her a Minister—all the best ideas.

She then went on to spend a large proportion of her speech on who has the best commitment to the environment, as if this was some argument for voting down a bill that would increase fines for littering. “We are doing some other stuff in conservation.”—she said—“This Government has a plan. We’ve got all the big ideas. It’s about the big picture stuff.” And yet how are those cameras on fishing boats coming along? How are those national parks coming along? How are those marine reserves coming along? How about the 15 percent decrease in the environment budget and doing nothing for fresh water—how about those? That’s all big-picture stuff. They can’t even bring themselves to vote for a little bill that does a lot. What they fail to understand is that this bill is a small part of a wider plan. We’re not saying it is the magic bullet. Some academic might think that $1,000 is out of proportion, but it is not the minimum. It’s a sliding scale. Councils around the country want this increase. They came to the select committee and they put in written submissions because they want this increase.

Now, Hamilton City Council, in their submission, is a really good example of this. The Hamilton City Council employs 19 staff who have duties for litter control. They developed a litter enforcement management policy, which outlines the process for these infringements as well as the council’s resolution as to how they should be applied. Now, like most other councils, they have a stepped, sliding scale for infringements, starting at $100 for something like a cigarette butt or a takeaway container or a drink container—anything under a litre—then 200 bucks for 1 to 20 litres of rubbish like a disposable nappy or a bag of household rubbish, or something like what Deborah Russell held up earlier; $300 for something like a sofa; and $400 for dangerous litter of any quality in any place. The Hamilton City Council have a real and increasing problem. They told us a story of the 3 tonnes of rubbish they pulled out of an open drain recently. It cost them $1,200 just to dispose of it, let alone all the other costs.

The Hamilton City Council put to our select committee that if we were to increase the fine to $1,000, like they want, they would be able to develop a new sliding scale that better reflects the severity of the littering activity. We are not, on this side of the House, arguing that if you flick a cigarette butt out of your car window, you get a $1,000 fine—like it sounds like they believe. It is a sliding scale, like most councils have in place. Of course, this council still have the ability to prosecute for really bad behaviour, but this allows them a better bridge in between the infringement system and a prosecution.

The Thames-Coromandel District Council also wrote a submission in support of the bill, noting that $400 does not reasonably cover the costs of enforcement and removal. They were very supportive of the fine. As I say, it gives them more of a bridge between prosecution and infringement. We know of—and we heard earlier from Scott Simpson—the terrible problem that we have on the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula that’s often highlighted by the hard-working local MP, Mr Scott Simpson. The Waipā District Council wrote a submission, as well, also—again—in support of having an increased fine to $1,000 and they were calling for the further ability of councils to add rubbish removal fines on top of the fine without having to go to court. So they actually want more, because it costs them so much money to remove the rubbish and for the enforcement officer’s time.

The Ashburton District Council wrote to our select committee in support of the bill. These are the people who work under the Act and they enforce the Act. Again, they supported the bill. They supported having a sliding scale infringement structure to reflect the amount and quality of the litter dump, similar to that of the Hamilton City Council.

The last council I want to mention in this contribution is our largest city council—the Auckland Council—who, in the year 2017-18, investigated 1,644 complaints of littering and illegal dumping of rubbish. Again, it is an increasing problem. The Auckland Council submission was interesting to me and I think we should take note of it, because while they agreed that they wanted to be able to use an increase in a fine, they also gave us some other ideas, and while they were out of the scope of the bill, I think we should take heed. They did talk about the difficulty of the evidence being able to be gathered, and they asked us to consider in the future using a different level of evidence required for some kinds of dumping like a cigarette butt or a Coke can, compared to, say, a trailer-load of commercial waste. That was an idea they had.

They also put to us that maybe—at the moment, it’s very difficult for them, even if they have a registration plate that’s been called in. If someone chucks something out of a car window, it is difficult for them to be able to figure out who was driving the car and who actually did it, and they argued that we should perhaps in the future consider just fining the owner of the vehicle, regardless, to try and change behaviour. They put some good ideas to us, and we will take those into consideration. But, overall, all of these councils agreed that an infringement system with a higher infringement at the top end was the best way to go, and these are the guys on the ground. These are the people who are enforcing the law.

When I was a kid growing up, we had a really bad litter problem. I remember it, driving along the roads, and it was similar to now, where you see rubbish along the side of the road. We had a hugely successful behaviour change campaign that many of us have fond memories of. It’s worth noting at this point that this is in line with, in 2017, the National Government announcing $300 million to stop littering—the “Do the right thing” initiative, which was aimed at educating people. The then Minister Mr Nick Smith announced it at our Bluegreens forum. The Auckland Council also pointed out that a holistic approach to education was going to be part of the solution as well, along with an increased fine.

The argument put up by those on the other side of the House is that it’s just all out of proportion. I would argue that $1,000 for serious, large, and/or dangerous littering that doesn’t quite meet the prosecution level, on a sliding scale, is absolutely in line with the public’s expectation. Maybe not some academic, but the country has had enough of people treating our countryside like a dump. Whether it’s Deborah Russell’s fishy neighbours or the people that Scott Simpson has had photographed on our beaches, we have had it, and $1,000 for serious offending is a better bridge of that gap between a low fine and a prosecution. It is a small but vital part of the puzzle that every council who came to us and that we have spoken to wants, and for Clare Curran to call this bill petty, it shows how horribly out of touch this Government are with public sentiment.

We have had it with roadside littering. We have had it with litter in our waterways—

💬 Hon Eugenie Sage: Why didn’t you do something about it, then?

—that we have to go and clean up. We are—oh, you. “Why don’t you do something about it?”, says Minister Sage. Well, we are waiting on this side of the House for any legislation to do with litter. Have we had anything? Nothing at all. That Minister should concentrate on perhaps bringing something to the House, along with something to do with the Kermadec marine sanctuary or maybe cameras on fishing boats. No—big silence from that side of the room, because they are doing nothing. This greenest Government ever are a horrible failure.

It’s a little bill that has a big heart and it will make a big difference that the councils want. This petty Government—this greenest Government ever—cannot bring themselves to vote for it for purely idealistic reasons, and that sucks.

Before I call the member to take the next call, I just want to remind members that they are to use the correct titles when they are referring to members. There were two members referred to in that last speech which have an honourable title before their name, and I know that the Speaker earlier today was commenting on that point. So I just want to remind people of respectful titles, please.

I nominate Erica Stanford for Mayor of Auckland. She could stand on an “Increasing fines” platform, or something like “I’ll do a fine job.” You do need to work on your impersonation skills—she needs to work on her impersonation skills—but that’s just a thought to put out there. I know the right are looking for a candidate. I know there are some issues there, and I appreciate that.

It’s an honour to talk about this bill. I’d like to begin by acknowledging Dr Deborah Russell, the chair of the Environment Committee. I’d like to acknowledge the members on the committee, who have shepherded this bill to this point. I’d like to acknowledge all of those who submitted on this bill.

New Zealanders care about litter—they care a lot about litter. As a Government, we get a lot of letters coming in saying “We’re concerned about litter.”, so there’s certainly agreement right across the board. Ninety-three percent of New Zealanders believe it’s important not to litter, and 99 percent—so, almost all New Zealanders—believe it’s very important for New Zealand to maintain its clean, green image. So we’ve got agreement there. The question is, how do we reduce the littering? That’s the key point tonight.

The Opposition are playing politics. I’ll just put it out there, because we haven’t heard that tonight, but I believe that’s what it is. The Opposition have this view, a punitive view, that if we increase fines, everything will be all right—lock ’em up, throw away the key, increase the fines. I don’t believe this is about litter; this is about politics. The right are reaching out for voters around punitive measures.

It is quite clear that New Zealanders care about litter. And there is an issue there. Habits are not always good. We often see this after sports events. I was recently at the cricket at Seddon Park and after the game, the bank was full of litter. We see this often.

💬 Melissa Lee: Yeah, so fine them.

We could fine them $1,000 for each cup, maybe, and they could bring in—how much would that bring in? A lot. We had a concert here recently, Eminem, which I may or may not have attended—50,000 plastic cups after the event. So yes, there is an issue. If we had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything the Hon Scott Simpson wanted, would we capture it or would we let it slip? The way we capture it and the key point I’d like to focus on tonight is pride in our communities—a sense of pride that we have as New Zealanders. If you have pride in your country and you have a sense of community, you’ll be a lot less likely to litter.

As humans, we share this planet, and this is the only planet we got, so we need to work together. We need to understand how we look after this planet. The key thing is—[Interruption]—around this issue—I’m pleased the Opposition are awake. The key point here is community. If we look back into the early-1900s, mid-1900s—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Let’s settle, members.

If we go back a few years, as a society we relied on community for our very survival. We think of a time before refrigeration, when you had farms and you couldn’t freeze an animal. An animal would get killed and it would get shared out among people. Haymaking time—we’d work together. We literally relied on community for our survival. In today’s society, with the rise of technology, we can survive on our own without community, but we can’t thrive without community, and the sense of community is the key. It’s the sense of connection, knowing our neighbours, working together, and that is the key—not increasing fines.

There were 13 submissions on this bill, and I’d just like to touch on a couple of them.

💬 Melissa Lee: Hamilton council wants it. You should vote for it.

We might get to that one, but I’ll start on Kay Jones. So Kay Jones, she said, “While I deplore litter in our streets, I am a realist. Increasing the fine for people littering does nothing to deter them from casually dropping rubbish.” Kay goes on, “This Bill does not provide any means for monitoring or enforcing the punishment.” That’s a key point, and we’ve heard that from a number of speakers tonight. There’s no point increasing fines if you can’t enforce them. The reality is that if I went out on to the street and asked people “What’s the current fine for littering?”, most people would not know. So if it increased from $400 to $1,000, the people wouldn’t even know anyway. It would not make a difference—they would not make a difference. It’s about people taking a sense of pride in their community.

Another submission, from Graeme Edgeler, and Graeme talks a little bit here about the dumping of rubbish. This is a key point that I haven’t heard spoken about in this debate, and I would like to touch on that. In most of our cities—and I’m sure across the countryside at times, but certainly in our urban areas—we often have large amounts of rubbish dumped. There was an example last year over the road from our house. There was a couch; there was—I don’t know. There was a massive pile. There was a trailer load of rubbish, basically—basically just dumped. So we do have to look at why people are dumping, and it is important that we look at things like the cost of going to the dump. It is important that we incentivise people in the right way. You know, we don’t always have to use the stick; sometimes the carrot works as well—or a lolly, Mr McAnulty.

“If there are concerns with dumping”—this is what the submitter said—“or other serious examples of littering, then amendments to the maximum fine for littering (currently $20,000, or $30,000 for dangerous refuse) and not changes to the infringement fee would be more appropriate. Of course, particularly serious dumping abuses are likely dealt with under other legislation: either as criminal nuisances under the Crimes Act, or under the Resource Management Act, and not the Litter Act at all.” But this is an important point, this aspect around dumping—but that point is covered. The current legislation allows for that. But in terms of raising the cost of dropping a piece of litter from $400 to a $1,000, we obviously don’t support that.

Another key point is around education, and as a former school teacher, I’ve spent a number of years encouraging students to pick up their litter. If you can create a culture in the young people—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Did you fine them?

—then that’s how you change. Oh, no, I didn’t think of fining them $1,000. Maybe I should have. It’s about a culture, and the education point—I haven’t heard this spoken in this debate, but it is a very important point here, because if you want to change a society, you start with the young people. You start as young as you possibly can. I believe that good work is being made in this area. Social change always starts with the youth.

As a great man once said, “People litter because they don’t value their environment.” That was spoken by Todd Muller earlier in this debate. He said people litter because they don’t value their environment, and I agree with that—absolutely agree. A wonderful speech, he gave tonight. The key point here is about valuing the environment. I’ve spoken about community, I’ve spoken about the importance of taking a sense of pride in your community, I’ve talked about building community, I’ve talked about valuing community, and I’ve spoken about education. The Government are doing a lot of a lot of things in this area. I’d just like to touch on a couple of them. There are four projects funded under the Waste Minimisation Fund that the Government are funding. So the first one is Keep New Zealand Beautiful, and it has been mentioned before by my colleague Kieran McAnulty. This has a very strong branding, and it is making a difference. The “Do the right thing” project is the key there. There’s is another one, the Packaging Forum: “Litter less, recycle more”. We often hear about reduce, reuse, recycle—the three Rs. But there’s another R that we don’t hear about much: refuse. And that should come first. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle.

💬 Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Refuse or refuse?

Refuse rather than refuse.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Refuse refuse.

Well, there we go. We’ve got the slogans coming thick and fast for those members at home there. But we can all do better around refusing, particularly around plastic, and there’s lots of work being done on plastic—lots of work being done on bioplastics. In fact, the members might be interested in knowing that 40 percent of a car can be made with bioplastic now.

💬 Priyanca Radhakrishnan: How many percent?

Forty percent—isn’t that incredible?

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Get out of here!

I know. So there’s a lot of work being done around plastic. As a Government, we’ve banned single-use plastic bags. The previous Government knew about this issue and they wouldn’t act. We’ve just done it. We’ve banned it, and that’s been very well received, particularly among young people.

So as my time is coming to an end, I’d just like to reiterate that raising the fine to $1,000 will make no difference, but community and education is the key. Thank you.

Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Thank you. I totally endorse the sentiments of the previous speaker, Jamie Strange, in terms of the themes that he emphasised of community culture, education, and valuing the environment, and I’m very pleased to take a call for the Green Party on the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill. This whole issue is about culture, as the previous speaker noted, and when Keep New Zealand Beautiful did some research earlier, or last year, they noted that New Zealanders are not frequent litterers and we have a culture here of not littering. People endorse the fact and don’t like it when people litter, and others have quoted those statistics of 93 and 98 percent of people not wanting littering to occur and recognising the importance of clean, green New Zealand. So this bill from the Hon Scott Simpson, inherited from Jono Naylor—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. Could I just call the folk who were having the conversation across the Chamber to order, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. So this bill is very narrow. It doesn’t deal with the real issues around littering. It was taken up by the Hon Scott Simpson when his Government had nine years to deal with the Litter Act and to deal with the wider issues around the Litter Act that could have really taken action to help here.

Instead, it is just focusing on increasing the maximum fee for an infringement notice from $400 to $1,000. It was the clear advice from both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry for the Environment that a simple increase in that maximum fee was not going to tackle the issue. It was also completely out of scale with other levels of fee for other infringement offences. It’s two to three times the size of infringement notice offences under the Resource Management Act. It’s significantly higher than fees that you get for speeding. So there’s a coherence about our criminal justice system and, as the Ministry of Justice advised, increasing it to a maximum of $1,000 would cut across that. But, more important, despite the councils that Erica Stanford quoted from their submissions, was the issues that councils have raised about how enforcement can happen and some of the more substantive problems with the Litter Act.

So this bill, on its own, because it is so narrow, is not going to fix that. As the official advice noted, the Hon Scott Simpson is assuming that just increasing the penalty will have a deterrent effect but, actually, the major thing that has a deterrent effect is the certainty around being detected, and the compliance and enforcement regime that occurs. What a number of those councils were raising in their submissions to the select committee was that there were issues both in the legislation and the way in which enforcement regimes operated that were the problem. And we have seen from the report that the Environmental Defence Society did—the Last Line of Defence—how little gets invested in compliance, monitoring, and enforcement by councils. So the severity of the penalties doesn’t produce a corresponding increase in deterrence as the National Party and the Hon Scott Simpson seem to think.

So the Ministry for the Environment and I are aware that the Litter Act has some inadequacies. Those are being looked at, but that is not the priority in fixing the nine years of neglect around waste that we had with the former National Government and that member, the Hon Scott Simpson, who was once Associate Minister for the Environment and who could have taken action in this space. We are focusing on the bigger picture issues which is doing something about expanding the landfill levy which was recommended in a major review of the landfill levy in 2017. The National Government didn’t act.

What else didn’t they act on? They didn’t ensure that there are any mandatory product stewardship schemes. They just relied on voluntary schemes. That’s something where we’re taking action in relation to tyres, so that we have responsibility right through the supply chain. So we need a comprehensive approach to waste. Litter is a subset of that. There is already in the legislation, both in the Litter Act and in the Resource Management Act, adequate penalties to deal with severe offending like fly-tipping, and the councils like Auckland have been increasing their response; making sure that when there are examples of fly-tipping, that that is cleaned up quickly, making sure that there is more effective enforcement through things like cameras, and actually taking prosecutions, and some quite significant prosecutions in Manurewa and the Waitakere Ranges where people were charged with fly-tipping of oil drums. So that taking action is going to have much more effect than simply increasing the maximum fee for infringement notices.

It is an opportunity that has been lost by this member in not looking across the Litter Act and ensuring that this was a real response to the issues around enforcement, around deterrence. It’s only just a very, very, very narrow piece, and a pretence at action, which is what we saw the National Government doing when it was in power. So that is why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.

The point that Deborah Russell made about others—I think it was in Taranaki—focusing on things like cigarette butts is an important one. Keep New Zealand Beautiful, the educational campaigns that they have been doing to improve the culture around littering and the research that they have done have shown that the issue of cigarette butts is a very real one, and they have recommended that that be the next big area of focus in terms of behaviour change and litter prevention campaigns. I know that in Auckland, where there’s been a trial of a litter traps that can be retrofitted into stormwater grates to catch litter and prevent it going into the stormwater system and into the sea, that in an 11 month trial where 10 kilograms of rubbish was collected at Beresford Street in central Auckland, over that 11 months and in that 10 kilograms there were 2,000 cigarette butts. So people changing their behaviour around cigarette butts, ensuring that if you’re smoking, you put it in the bin, rather than just littering, can have a real difference in protecting our marine environment and stopping this waste getting into our oceans and being eaten by fish, seabirds, and other marine life. So that sort of education campaign will make much more of a difference. The things like litter traps as a practical example of how we can prevent contamination—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: No wonder Green members are so angry at the lack of action.

—of our rivers and streams and oceans makes much more a difference—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I apologise to the member. I just have to say to the Hon Scott Simpson, you can interject, but it’s bordering on heckling. And I would ask you to resist being quite so vocal about this and allow the member an opportunity to continue with her speech. The Hon Eugenie Sage.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. So those sorts of practical initiatives, wider education campaigns, reinforcing the culture that New Zealanders have that we don’t like littering, will make more of a difference than just this simple increase in the maximum fee that can be charged for an infringement notice.

There is a real issue too that we don’t have a big handle on data across the country. There’s been really good research done by Keep New Zealand Beautiful, but we need more data so that we can ensure that our response is well targeted. Again, that is something that this Government is doing in the waste space, alongside expanding the landfill levy, ensuring that we get more information on what is going to landfill so that we can have more waste data so that we ensure that our policies are well directed—again, something that the former National Government did not do anything about.

Another thing that it didn’t do anything about was the other issues around the Litter Act and the fact that it is very difficult and an enforcement offence for people who are perhaps throwing something out the window of a vehicle. At the moment, the way the legislation is crafted means it’s difficult for the litter officers appointed by councils to actually pin that on anyone, because they’ve got to find the person who did it, rather than just the vehicle drive. So we recognise that there are issues with the Litter Act, but it needs a much more comprehensive review than this bill has attempted. It is much further down the priority list than the effort that this Government is making to use the tools in the Waste Minimisation Act. I would correct Erica Stanford. That was not a National Party initiative. It was a member’s bill from Nandor Tanczos which the last Labour Government picked up as a Government bill. This Government is making sure that the tools in that Act are well-used, rather than allowing them to gather dust as the former National Government did. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.

I understand this is a split call. The Hon Nicky Wagner, you have five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s been a really interesting night. We’ve heard lots of speeches from the other side of the House about how terrible littering is, and about how New Zealanders don’t like litter. We’ve heard lots of stories of unspeakable messes on our beaches, dumping of clothes, fish heads, all sorts of things around this place, and we’ve also heard that New Zealanders like to keep New Zealand clean and green. And yet, after all that angst, after all those issues that are happening in our communities, the other side won’t vote for this very small but elegant bill that will make a difference.

So I don’t know if they’re trying to be a little bit obtuse, but this is about raising the maximum dollar sign of an infringement from $400 to $1,000. It doesn’t mean that you have to charge somebody $1,000 for dropping a cigarette butt. What it means is you have a choice between $1 and $1,000 to make sure that you can craft the fine that suits the crime—the fine that suits the crime. And we’ve heard there are plenty of littering crimes happening in our communities at the moment.

I agree that New Zealanders are really proud of living in a clean, green country. They’re keen to look after it and—I agree with Mr Strange—they do like to maybe refuse, reuse, and recycle their waste. But some people, a small minority, don’t; they litter. And what’s more not only do they litter but they also fly-tip and they illegal dump right across our communities. We heard in select committee that councils are really struggling to manage this. It’s costing them millions of dollars and in Auckland alone it cost $5 million a year to clean this stuff up. The councils want this bill because they believe it will help.

Now, of course litter looks untidy but that’s only the start. Litter and rubbish are strewn by the winds, by the waterways, by the oceans right across our environment. They clog up our drains, they strangle the waterways, and often they strangle wildlife—and we’ve all seen photographs of plastic around fish necks and seals and things like that. Litter is unhealthy for humans as well. It attracts vermin and it’s a breeding ground for bacteria. And as it decomposes it pollutes both water and soil. And an interesting fact, which I think has been raised over the other side, about the number of cigarette butts that are littered and get into our environment: they take over 10 years to decompose. For over a decade, their toxic waste is going into our environment.

So I do support this bill. I think, if we want to deter littering—and we’ve heard right across the House tonight that we do want to deter littering and most New Zealanders agree and all the councils agree—that an increased amount for this infringement tells people that this is a serious issue. A significant fine is valid because littering costs councils, and I just want to divert a bit: when we say “costs councils”, actually it costs ratepayers. It costs ratepayers—you and me and everybody else—to pick up this litter, to clean up the environment. It threatens our natural environment and it threatens wildlife.

So I’m particularly disappointed when we hear the other side understanding the dangers of littering, understanding that people don’t want it, understanding the costs, and yet they’re still not prepared to vote for this bill. They are quite happy to accept the damage that littering’s doing to our environment and our wildlife and our community amenity because littered communities are not people friendly. They give an air of neglect. They make people feel that nobody cares. They’re a depressing place and they undermine the amenity of our communities. I think it’s really important that we deter littering. Most New Zealanders do and I really hope that the rest of the House would vote for this bill. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I’m not a member of the Environment Committee but, firstly, can I acknowledge Scott Simpson. He’s actually brought a big issue to this House. Littering is a huge issue and so I want to acknowledge his commitment to addressing it. But in preparing for tonight, I was trying to find the evidence about the efficacy of this legislative reform and actually it seems like we’re replicating what the UK did because, essentially, they doubled the fines in 2016 and this year it’s now a £150 fine. So that’s been the tool.

But I think in communities like mine, Manurewa—and if I look at Auckland Council—I think there’s been a convergence of this littering issue with waste management and minimisation plan initiatives and I highlight that because one of the big issues we’ve had is the reduction in the size of our bins, for example—and to get a bigger bin, it actually costs you $85. So in poorer communities, we’ve tried to force them to recycle to minimise their waste and I think what we’ve seen, and particularly in communities like mine, is that this illegal dumping phenomenon is actually a massive problem and it’s way more than $5 million, because that’s a 2012 figure. So I’m here to say that this is an issue; is this the best solution?

I guess when I look at my council and their submission, I also look at the submission from Local Government New Zealand who’s highlighted that we have a 40-year-old Litter Act. So what they’ve asked us to consider actually as a Parliament are practical ways to help them enforce and issue infringement notices. People may not know but for the council to issue a notice—because that’s what we’re wanting to do; we’re wanting to supposedly give councils more tools to deter people from littering—for one of those littering notices to be issued, a council officer has to either (a) observe a person littering, or (b) have reasonable cause to suspect such an offence was in the act of being carried out or had just being committed. And therein lies the problem.

A lot of these things happen—and I’ve looked at the national litter survey, which was released in July 2018, and the biggest things that are littered are snack food packaging, disposable drink containers, paper. How are we supposed to prove who that belonged to and who should be issued with this littering penalty to deter them from littering?

One of the other things I decided to do was to actually look at effective interventions and I found a paper titled Effective Interventions on littering behaviour of youngsters, published in 2015 from the Netherlands. And these are some of the things that actually work based on evidence. So you use social surroundings; you target groups not individuals. And I certainly would like to reinforce that. I’d like a community approach to some of these issues. You have group commitment; you use leaders as influencers. You also attract attention to the issue, so you connect the views of community members and their interest and their enthusiasm in trying to address the littering issues. You target beliefs about the effects of littering on the environment. So the relationship our children have with the environment is fundamental to any programme going forward, because if our young kids love the environment, guess what? They’re going to look after it.

OK, so we need to promote more outdoor environmental education. We reward proper waste disposal. You need to look at mechanisms that are going to help change people’s behaviour but also for that behaviour to continue and for them to share that behaviour with their children. And you also facilitate proper waste disposal behaviour. In that regard that’s about: have we got enough disposable mechanisms—so bins—so that we can put our litter in. Do we keep away smells? Do we remove litter immediately because actually litter creates more litter? And it is about bins being clean and easily accessible, as I’ve highlighted.

So, Mr Simpson, I want to thank you for bringing the issue to the House, but as an effective legislative reform I’ve got to say it just does not stack up. And it doesn’t stack up for a number of reasons and one of the biggest is that many councils aren’t using these littering enforcement notices anyway. I mean there are a whole lot that I could have talked about where they haven’t actually issued any so if that’s your solution to this problem, it’s fundamentally flawed. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity and it may surprise this House that I rise in support of the Hon Scott Simpson—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What?

I do. I rise in support of the Hon Scott Simpson’s bill, the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill in the second reading. It’s a pleasure to work with the Hon Scott Simpson. He is leading our environment policy team and it is a new team with new ideas based on science. So we looking at scientific solutions to environmental issues and this is no different.

I’m not sure actually what the Hon Scott Simpson has done to offend this Government, this greenest Government ever that apparently is taking environmental issues very seriously. I mean the scope of this bill is very narrow. In fact, it is a teeny-weeny bill but has such wide-reaching ramifications that could really assist in the mitigation of litter in our community. And so I’m just really not sure why this Government—the greenest Government ever, the one that takes environmental issues so seriously and calls climate change our nuclear-free moment—is not supporting this teeny-weeny bill that would have wide-reaching ramifications on litter. Could it be simply because it was introduced by a National Party member and if that is the case that is really petty for this country moving forward with regards to litter minimisation.

As I said before, this is a new team with new ideas in the environmental space, and I do want to point out that, as part of the Hon Scott Simpson’s crusade for waste minimisation, we published our first discussion document on 23 February—a National Party environmental discussion document; a starter for six—which included a number of waste minimisation points for discussion.

Isn’t it amazing when all of a sudden you get a response from the likes of Fish & Game and Greenpeace that they’re happy with the National Party’s ideas? I think that’s something that we are showing leadership in in this space. We have shown leadership in the past, and we’re showing leadership moving forward, in that we want our country—New Zealand—to be a fantastic place for our children and our grandchildren to grow in and enjoy our environment. So to the greenest Government ever: watch this space. National is absolutely gunning for you in this space.

Look, I said before that this is a narrow scoped bill but it does have wide-reaching ramifications, and it is about an infringement system. Interestingly, the Government supported the Department of Conservation’s (DOC’s) infringement system and didn’t seem to have any problems with allowing DOC rangers and officers to have that power when it comes to wildlife, but when it comes to councils and litter, they’re not so sure. This is an infringement system that would allow swift justice to be met. It de-clogs the justice system and the courts, and looks at a graduated system of an infringement fine, raising it from $400 to $1,000 for the offence of littering.

As we’ve heard in previous speeches, we would let council officers use their discretion to put in place a fine to the offender that was proportionate to the offence. And, again, the Opposition have even talked about littering acts in their electorates and have shown that there is more offensive-style littering that goes on and then there is quite minimal littering in that graduated system. So it is about looking at how much littering is going on for that one person and then deciding what the appropriate fine should be.

Rubbish is a very serious issue in New Zealand and the Invercargill electorate is no different—the southernmost province, which I represent—and, in fact, when it came to Oreti Beach, that seems to be one of the places in Invercargill that gets littered the most; our wonderful beach, one that you can still drive your motor vehicle on to and enjoy. I ran a beach clean-up in 2017 and in total collected 170 kilograms of rubbish as part of that beach clean-up. We had 150 people show up, and it was mainly bottles, cans, plastic, and rope, but we even found a burnt out car, which is, obviously, more than littering. But it’s quite a significant problem when you have people recreating on the beach and they simply don’t pick up their rubbish when they leave.

As I said before, this infringement system looks to bring about speedy justice, to de-clog the court system, and to penalise those who don’t have a responsible ethic with respect to our environment. And it works; it isn’t true that fines don’t deter people from offending, and that is no different with respect to litter. There was a member opposite who compared the bill to a country, in Taiwan, and I equally would like to compare it to Singapore. Now, many of us have had the privilege of travelling to Singapore. It’s obviously a small country but heavily populated, and so they have to take their environment very, very seriously. Interestingly, they have a serious offence regime with respect to littering. For first-time offenders, with respect to littering, they’re actually fined S$2,000; for second-time offending, S$4,000; and for third-time offenders, S$10,000. That’s how serious they take littering, and then if it goes beyond that, they actually have a scheme where there is a corrective work order and people are actually put to work to clean up rubbish themselves. Now, I don’t think anyone who has visited Singapore can say to me that it’s not a very beautiful country and that litter is at a minimum. So I would say to the members opposite that an infringement system does work, that an infringement system is effective, and that if we have pride in our country, then we would take heed of this bill and vote for it and see it to put into place.

Look, in 2016, 30 councils spent $2.4 million cleaning up illegally dumped rubbish. Now, what could we be doing, better spending that money, if we could deter people from littering? And I think this bill goes to the heart of the problem with respect to litter. Our country is precious, our environment is precious, and the effects of too much litter on our streets and in our environment need to be dealt with. And, as I said before, this is a narrow bill but it is an effective one, and infringement systems do work, just like the Department of Conservation infringement system that that Government voted for to give extra powers to DOC Rangers to get on top of conservation problems swiftly.

So I think that this is a very good bill. It is a small bill, but it is effective and has wide-ranging ramifications. I can’t see why this Government won’t support it. If they are so serious about the environment, then they should be getting in behind this bill, which would have significant effect moving forward for our community and for our environment.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on this the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill. I’d just like to start off by doing a little bit of a recap as I am the second to last speaker on this bill.

The Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill is a member’s bill in the name of Hon Scott Simpson, and I’d just like to acknowledge the member for bringing this bill to the House, also too acknowledging my members and colleagues from both sides of the House who are on the Environment Committee. Generally, we work very collegially together, with the environment at the heart of the work that we’re doing in that hard-working committee—also too making note of the committee being well chaired by the chair from Labour, Dr Deborah Russell. So I just acknowledge everyone in the committee and this bill and what it sets out to do—amending the Litter Act 1979—to increase that maximum fine for infringements from $400 to $1,000. Through the select committee process, we heard from 13 submitters. Of those 13 submissions, we heard oral evidence from three of the submitters. That happened in Wellington in July 2018; so some six months ago now. The Ministry for the Environment also provided the committee with advice, and I’ll come to that advice in just a moment.

During the Christmas holidays, previously in my former incarnation, working in a newsroom, we would spend the summertime, particularly over the Christmas and New Year period, wondering what kind of fluffy animal story we would be able to write that day to fill up the bulletin. This year over the summertime, newsrooms all around the country were particularly obsessed, as the rest of New Zealand became obsessed, as it hit the headlines here and overseas. You probably may have read or heard or seen about the path of minor destruction that was caused by a British family on holiday, as they wreaked havoc through Auckland, then down to Hamilton, into Levin. Even Levin’s mayor had Levin on high alert.

This unruly family—“unruly tourists” as they were dubbed—certainly held the attention of most New Zealanders. They probably didn’t realise that it was the rubbish that they spread at Takapuna that really raised our ire, because people of my generation were raised to be a tidy Kiwi. Now, this was an education campaign all about picking up litter, making sure that if there was litter on the ground, we actually went and picked it up. At school, we were on litter duty. So it became part of our collective consciousness to actually be tidy and to pick up litter. So the unruly tourists actually didn’t realise how much New Zealanders actually hate rubbish, because it has been well entrenched into our psyche to be tidy Kiwis. So it’s about this education. That is really the strength of how we can change behaviour, and doing that when we are young informs a type of behaviour that sticks with us through our lives, and it certainly has with me.

Coming back to the select committee, I mentioned that the Ministry for the Environment came to us and talked about this bill, and their advice was that raising the fee to $1,000 would be “unusual and inconsistent with the infringement fees that exist for more serious offending.”—such as the discharging of a contaminant into the environment from maybe industry or trade premises. “In addition, given the issues around enforcement there is no certainty that a larger infringement fee would result in a greater, or any, deterrent for littering.”—this is the Ministry for the Environment; this is their advice that they gave to the committee. And they also said that “proportionality is an important factor and … there are other policy tools available to communicate the seriousness of littering,”.

Auckland Council made a submission, and they had in the year 2017-18 received and investigated 1,644 complaints regarding littering and illegal dumping, which is at the other end of the scale, and “of these 1,644 investigations, for various reasons, only 67 infringement fines were issued.” And the total of those 67 fines netted them $8,500. So they also explained to us why they believe that simply raising the fine would not necessarily resolve the problem of littering.

We heard from Graeme Edgeler. He came and made a verbal submission and he suggested also that the $1,000 infringement fee for littering is actually “out of all proportion with the offense of littering, and out of line with infringement fees for other infringement offences at a similar level. Local authorities”—and I’m quoting now—“do not need the power to adopt bylaws providing for a $1000 infringement fee for littering. They already have sufficient powers under the current legislation.” And then he made note later in has submission that “An increase in the infringement fee to $1000, would see low-level littering punished with an infringement fee much higher than those imposed for driving 49km/h over the speed limit, or drink-driving in respect of the new lower limit is clearly disproportionate.” Also Diana Duncan made note that we need to not just think about littering but also “reduce the production and importation of single use plastics across New Zealand.”

Reduce, reuse, recycle: those are words we’re hearing a lot at the moment. So what is the Government doing? Because littering, as we heard the Minister Hon Eugenie Sage mention, is only one small section in this whole great waste minimisation and how we’re dealing with our waste across the board.

So there are four projects that the Government is currently working on: the Keep New Zealand Beautiful project, “Do the right thing”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! It is about reporting back what came from the select committee rather than saying what is general Government policy. So come back to the bill, if you could.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Of course, New Zealand First—we do support reasonable measures to clean up New Zealand. However, we actually feel that the suggested $1,000 fine that’s set out in the bill is actually excessive. So, by and large, applying a punitive approach in and of itself actually does not and will not achieve stopping of this littering behaviour. We believe it’s actually all about education. It’s about educating the next generation, just like we were educated to be tidy Kiwis. So that’s what we need to do. We need to bring back those types of campaigns. We need to teach our young people to be tidy. So this Keep New Zealand Beautiful campaign, which was originally founded back in 1969, that’s all about litter reduction. It’s about waste minimisation.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: National Government!

You did have some averagely OK ideas, so let’s bring some new ones forward, which this Government is doing.

I’d like to finish off by just concluding that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We did not support it at first reading and we continue to not support it now, but on that I’d like to say kia ora koutou katoa.

Like the previous speaker, I too came to this debate very late in the piece today, but my jaw simply dropped when I heard that the Labour Party and the Green party are going to oppose a bill that raises the fines on people who litter throughout New Zealand. My jaw dropped because the people of Northcote will be very upset at this move. If you want any proof of how far the Green Party has strayed from their true core environmental beliefs, it is to look no further than tonight. This Government is again all talk and all platitudes and very little action. They’re all very big on making you feel good and dropping those fluffy phrases, but not on delivery and not on substantive behaviour.

I’ve heard many speeches here tonight, and I want to traverse some of the key arguments that are coming from the Labour Party and the Green Party on why they are not supporting the member’s bill of my very good colleague, the Hon Scott Simpson. We all know that the Prime Minister wants rational debates. So this is where we will have a rational discussion around some of the key issues that have been raised this evening. The first is that fines don’t deter behaviour. That’s what we’ve heard from the opposite side. But what I’m saying is let’s debate how to make these fines work, how to make this enforceable, because fines, if you can be very blunt, act in the way that negative taxes do, or taxes on negative actions. Think about taxes like the capital gains tax—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Come back to the bill, thank you. I’ve already admonished one speaker for straying from the report back from the select committee.

Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you. I want to be clear that having a fine on targeting negative behaviour, and I’m actually making a comparison to taxes that in fact also deliver—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Was that part of the discussion during the select committee?

No, but I’m—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: You’re not constrained; it’s the third reading.

No, no, it’s the second reading—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Second reading.

But, Madam Assistant Speaker, I do think it’s important because—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): You may consider it important, but I would like you to confine yourself to the matters at hand, which is submissions, discussion at select committee, and how the bill has come back to the House.

OK, Madam Assistant Speaker. So on this topic I simply want to put to the other side: let’s debate how to make these fines work.

Another point that’s been raised in the discussion tonight is that the fines imposed are disproportionate to the offence that has occurred. But let’s have that debate, and we could have the debate in the committee as a whole about exactly what that fine level should be at. We’ve heard that there has been support from the other side for a $500 penalty, so why not have that discussion in the committee stage and convince us that in fact $500 is worthy and not $1,000.

Let’s get to the third key point that this Government is using as a way to vote this bill down. They’re saying that they have a better plan. So let’s talk about their plan. They’ve got a Waste Minimisation Fund, an expansion of the disposable levy fund, and the waste disposal levy level that they want to increase as well. But my question to that side of the House is: can you tell me how the Waste Minimisation Fund will stop the person down at Little Shoal Bay throwing their can of Coke in the river or in the stream? Can you tell me how somebody who goes and drops litter on private property is going to be affected by improving data, which we say that side of the House is trying to do? Because it’s very clear from where I sit and where we sit on this side of the House that their action plan does not in fact get us to a case where no one is littering in New Zealand.

So I want to come to the reasons why we support this very important bill. We know that it’s a big issue in New Zealand—16 percent of all trash is done through litter. It’s not going through some formal waste disposal mechanism. Now, that side of the House wants to say that that’s not an issue, that that’s OK. I’m sorry, but the people in Northcote—frankly speaking, 16 percent is far too much for them.

The second point is that this is part of the solution. Improving the fines and raising the fines level is part of the overall solution. We know that it’s not going to—hand on heart—solve the issue of litter on our streets, but it’s part of the solution. Like any problem that we debate in the House tonight, it is a multifaceted problem, and to say that raising a fine isn’t going to make a single difference makes a mockery of all the other fines that we actually have in New Zealand. So enforcement is important and it’s part of the challenge, but it’s not the full picture. So I do want to agree with the other side of the House on one point they’ve made this evening, which is around the cultural change that needs to occur in New Zealand.

The previous speaker, Jenny Marcroft, raised the “Be a tidy Kiwi” campaign and how successful that was, thanks to the Sir Keith Holyoake - led National Government in the 1960s. I would like to see this campaign revitalised, because I think that it is time for us to revitalise and change our culture because not all of us grew up in that era and some of us, particularly new New Zealanders, may not be aware of those cultural changes and that value that we had when we were growing up.

But to just throw out the fines system because it’s simply a cultural issue, I think, is a silly and irresponsible idea by that side of the House, because to put proactive but also practical suggestions on how we can reduce litter in New Zealand is extremely important. But no, this Government is playing politics. They, in fact, lack integrity, and let me elaborate on what I mean by that. Their words do not reflect their actions in the House tonight—their words do not reflect their actions in the House tonight. The Green Party, I thought, was all about getting litter off our streets, improving our environment, and they have the opportunity to demonstrate the congruence and the integrity that I believe that the Green Party had, but unfortunately lacks in the House this evening.

So we will be supporting this bill, and it is a shame that this Government is deciding to vote this bill down, because we want a tidy country in New Zealand, but behavioural change doesn’t happen overnight. It is part of a long-run series of reforms that includes the carrot and stick methodology, increasing fines, holding people accountable, educating the public, and improving information, and I believe that through that we can get there in the House tonight.

I’m disappointed that the House is not going to pass this bill. The people in Northcote will be particularly unhappy about this bill being voted down and, dare I say, the environmental groups in the area of Northcote will be very upset that we are not looking at improving the fines structure. I would have liked to have devoted more time to this in the committee as a whole, but I commend this bill to the House. Thank you very much.