Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill

Members, we are in committee on the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill, and we are starting with Part 1, which is the debate on clauses 4 to 12—amendments to the principal Act—and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Point of order, Madam Chair. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m standing here and, hopefully, you and the Minister can see me. I’m just looking for the Minister’s indication, because I do have a series of questions on most of the clauses in Part 1, and I think it would be simpler if I go clause by clause and we have a good discussion process with the Minister. I think there was a nod there. There is a nod—excellent. So I won’t be taking full calls, but I would like to ask the Minister a number of questions because, of course, this is not going to select committee and this is our opportunity to get on the Hansard what is meant and what is not meant by this bill.

Starting then at clause 4, which is amendments to the principal Act: if we go to the principal Act, the purpose is confined—sorry, I’ll just flick on to this—at section 3 of the Act. The purpose is “to encourage waste minimisation and a decrease in waste disposal in order to—(a) protect the environment from harm; and (b) provide environmental, social, economic, and cultural benefits.” Then there is another purpose in Part 3 of the Act, and Part 3 is the waste disposal levy. So at section 25, there is a purpose of that Part 3, and that is “to enable a levy to be imposed on waste disposed of to—(a) raise revenue for promoting and achieving waste minimisation; and (b) increase the cost of waste disposal to recognise that disposal imposes costs on the environment, society, and the economy.”

So what we have here in clause 4 is that the purpose of Part 3 that I just read out is included in the overall purpose section. That seems fine, and I’m not asking any questions on that, except that the Minister can confirm that I’ve not got anything wrong there. That raising revenue part of the purpose is “the promotion and achievement of waste minimisation;”, and then there’s a number of other clauses.

I’m going to come back to subparagraph (ii), but there’s subparagraph (iii), which is to do with “local authorities to manage emergency waste”. I do have a question on this that relates to some other clauses as well, and the question on the local authorities is for the Minister to clarify that this purpose section and subsequent sections only really relate to the Government half of the levy. The broadening of the purpose doesn’t apply to how the local authorities can spend their money that they collect through the levy; it only applies to the money that they spend via the central government’s collection of the levy. I have no problems with this emergency waste addition at new subparagraph (iii).

Then at subparagraph (iv), it’s that the ministry can undertake functions and duties in relation to waste minimisation and hazardous substances. I just have a very small question on this, and it’s just around the grammar. So it’s “in relation to waste management and minimisation and hazardous substances;”. Do those hazardous substances have to relate to waste management and minimisation? Should there be—if you listen to Chris Finlayson or not—another comma in there? A small point, but one that I’m sure the officials can help with.

Then at subparagraph (v): “projects that provide for the remediation of contaminated sites;”. A small question on this point is around what’s happened to that contamination fund—the separate fund that didn’t come through the levy. That’s the second question.

Then at paragraph (b): increase the cost of the waste disposal levy. That’s unchanged from what we’ve got in the Act at the moment.

Going back, then, to subparagraph (ii), that is “activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits;”. I might just pause here and come back to it if the Minister is agreeable, so that she can answer my grammatical question on subparagraph (iv) and if there are any comments on subparagraph (iii) about local authorities and that connection to emergencies being through the central fund, and that I’ve described the purposes appropriately.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve just got two related but, I think, quite narrow questions. Obviously, the crux of our opposition to this bill is in clause 4 there—the fact that the fund can be used on activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits—this general purpose, which doesn’t have any link to waste. My question is really quite precise: given the purpose of the waste minimisation bill overall, is it the Minister’s intention that when those funds are spent, there will be some connection with waste in some way? I’ve read the disclosure statement and the analysis that the department’s done, and it seems in that analysis that there is expected to be at least some connection with perhaps an adverse reaction as a result of waste, or a mitigation as a result of waste, but perhaps not quite as constrained as in the other parts of that clause.

If the answer to that is no, then I guess my question then is: did the Minister talk to the Minister for Regulation about that? Because a charge which is able to be used for general purposes not connected with the activity levied is actually a tax, because it goes for a more general purpose of Government, and that cuts right across principles of good regulation and good lawmaking. The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, in chapter 17 of its guidance, makes very clear the distinction between a fee, where you pay for a service; a levy, where you pay an amount related usually to an industry or a general regulation of activity, like ACC levies or producer board levies or things like that, where there is a direct connection between what’s going on and what the money is spent on; and a tax, where you take money off citizens in one way or another and you can then just spend it in a way which is unrelated to the activity which generated that revenue.

Now, I know the Minister for Regulation is keen on good regulatory design—he’s just getting funded for his bizarre new ministry, his vanity project—but I’m hopeful that you’ve had a conversation with him and that he has reviewed this. Because I am concerned that it—and the document talks about needing to find more money to pay for stuff, and that’s fine, in the waste space. I can absolutely accept that, in the waste space. My friend Glen Bennett talked about contamination and historical problems, and I can understand the need to look at ways to minimise waste, new recycling, the kind of regulation there. But the sort of general “let’s save the whitebait” or the kiwi or the kākā or whatever it might be—there just doesn’t seem to be any causal connection. But it does fit within the general and generic environment.

Now, on this side of the House, we absolutely support protecting the environment and we support the proper use of Government funds to do that, and that fund has to come from the public. But to have a waste minimisation fund—and we accept that, a little, we can expand that and talk about a bit more than just waste minimisation; it’s waste management as well and mitigation of waste harm. That’s what this bill should be doing. But a generic extension to anything to do with the environment seems to be an overreach. So is that overreach real, or will there be, because it sits within this principal Act, a necessary connection between waste and expenditure? And if not, was the Minister for Regulation savvy to the imposition of what appears therefore to be a tax?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will answer the questions that have come through from the Hon Rachel Brooking. First of all, she is correct that the purpose of clause 4 amending section 3 of the principal Act is relating only to Government levy proportion, not to the local authority 50 percent. With regard to the comma and whether other intentions were there with the hazardous substances: no, the responsibilities extend to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

I just also want to touch on the points that both the Hon Rachel Brooking spoke to and also the Hon Duncan Webb in terms of the broadening out of the waste levy. Of course, use of resources is a whole of lifespan of those resources. There are many impacts on the environment through from the extraction point through to the use and manufacturing and then final disposal, and therefore the ability to put a levy on at that disposal end gives that flexibility to be able to address some of the environmental impacts that occur through the lifetime of that product. So the waste levy still will be a levy. Widening the purposes of how the levy can be spent still retains that link to the various environmental impacts that go on through the life cycle of a product.

Just to give further reassurance, I can point the members to South Australia and New South Wales, and also examples in Ireland where, in fact, they recognise exactly this and use their waste disposal levy for wider environmental impact and issues, because of that very notion of that whole-of-life cycle from extraction through to disposal.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to ask the Minister for the Environment about this expansion of the scope of the use of the waste levy, which includes former mining and industrial sites. This is a very important piece of work that we absolutely agree has to be done. It’s essential that we work out how to decontaminate those sites. Our position, I think, is that it shouldn’t come out of a waste levy. But my question is: what is the shortfall in terms of the moneys necessary to properly deal with those contaminated mining and industrial sites? What is the shortfall that is trying to be met there? If we understand the dollar value of that, we begin to understand how much of the waste levy will be used for doing things other than dealing with waste.

The other thing I want to ask about is that there is a problem with the allocation of this money to cleaning up not just historic sites—there’s no mention of it being for only historic contamination—it also says that it will be used for catchment remediation: “works and funding to support the management of New Zealand lakes, rivers, streams, groundwater, and wetlands.” Now, that is good work. We support that work. But catchment remediation may include mitigating the impacts from contaminants that are coming from an active industry right now, the obvious one being nitrate contamination from dairy cow urine, which is turning rural people’s drinking water carcinogenic. It’s possible, through this wording and the definition of contaminants in section 5, that this money from the waste levy could be used to clean up the mess created by a billion-dollar industry that is operating right now in New Zealand, and the obvious question the public would have is: why are you charging me for waste minimisation and then using that money to clean up a mess made by the dairy industry, or made by the coalmining industry? That’s my question to the Minister.

There’s an obvious solution here to this broadening of the definition. It’s simply to add in an amendment. In clause 4, we replace section 3(2)(a)(ii), on page 2, with the words “activities relating to waste that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits”. That is a proposed and tabled amendment so that, rather than being simply activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits, we make sure that it’s activities relating to waste. I want to say that we support a waste levy—it is a good thing—but, for us to grow the pool of money necessary to deal with reducing our waste, it needs to be spent on that; it needs to be spent on waste. No argument with the need to decontaminate sites, no argument with the need to remediate water, but the industries more closely associated with the harms caused by contamination of water or mining waste should be paying for the cost of that, not the public and not the construction industry, for example.

I would like to ask the Minister how logically, or in principle, do you think it is fair that the construction industry should be paying for cleaning up mass acid mine drainage from the coal industry. How is that, in the mind of the Minister, a fair allocation of the levy, which, as my colleague points out, once it’s so broad that it’s not doing what it says on the tin, is a tax. It’s a broad tax on the public, including those of us who put our rubbish at the front gate. It’s a broad tax on the public to pay for cleaning up the mess of industries that are wealthy enough to be made to pay to clean up their own mess. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll respond to the member’s questions. Of course, the member will know that there are a number of historical contaminated and vulnerable sites right across the country. The ministry is working closely with local authorities in terms of ensuring there is an assessment tool to be able to prioritise those sites so that we can certainly work through them together—local authority and central government working through them together—and this levy will, of course, provide the opportunities for central government to assist with that, particularly around the ability to waive the levy fee.

I know that one of the small South Island local authorities noted to me recently that this remediation work that they were intending to do in two of their sites—around a tenth of the cost was actually the levy. So it will certainly enable the central government proportion of the levy to be used, but also the ability to waive the levy fees from the local authority and so reduce some of that burden on the local authorities for it. But we are definitely talking about a large number of these sites right across the country.

With regard to catchments, of course the issue across different catchments is different. It may be sediment, it may be nitrates, it may be E. coli. I am surprised that the member might argue not to use the levy to address some of those issues, because the source is often very difficult to establish. And also, again, I would have expected the member to be fully cognisant of the fact that any resource that we use—any resource from the extraction of that resource through the manufacturing of it, through the use of it, through the disposal of it—has an impact on our environment all the way through. And therefore, putting the levy at the end, at the disposal end, and then using that levy to address issues that occur for the environment all the way through the use of that resource is a very sensible thing to do and a thing that, as I mentioned before, is being done by other jurisdictions—South Australia, New South Wales, Ireland. So we’re not reinventing something here; it’s being done elsewhere.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m still on clause 4 and on that subparagraph (ii) that the Minister was just talking about. It’s been interesting in her answers to Dr Duncan Webb and the answer we’ve just had on that nexus between waste and general environment being to do with a circular economy. I think that that’s the sort of concept that I heard the Minister talking about, and I’m very pleased to hear our Minister for the Environment talking about that and would hope that she will move with the responsibility for reducing waste legislation as well—a little plea there.

But the Minister was just saying other jurisdictions have got that this waste levy going to general environmental harm, and she was there making some examples about the whole-of-life issue, which I agree with. However, there are things that are not to do with waste—say, fertiliser running into a river, causing some pollution of the river. That’s not to do with waste; that is a separate issue. So that is why I have got a tabled amendment to amend both clause 4—that subparagraph (ii) that we’re talking about, which is the activities that reduce environmental harm—and clause 9, because the words are repeated there. At the moment, it reads “activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits”, which is very wide and includes my fertiliser example and the example of coalmines and landfills and those sorts of things. That’s already covered by projects that provide for the remediation of contaminated sites at subparagraph (v). No problem with subparagraph (v); it’s just this breadth at subparagraph (ii).

So I’ve suggested, rather than have the “or increase environmental benefits”, to replace that with “caused by waste”. So subparagraph (ii) would read “activities that reduce environmental harm caused by waste”, and that provides the nexus. So I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that, given her acceptance of the circular economy and that waste can lead its own life after it becomes waste, that goes on for many years and creates all sorts of environmental problems, and, of course, we want to move to a circular economy whereby we’re not actually creating waste. That is the long-term goal, in that we’re thinking of the whole life cycle of a product. I also note that the Greens have a proposed amendment which is similar, and that would be that they just add in activities relating to waste—is the change there—that “reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits”.

The question for the Minister, really, is, given her commitment to a circular economy and the examples that she’s given that relate to wider environmental benefits that still have some relationship to waste, why can we not amend subparagraph (ii) to be explicit about that nexus?

I call Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Francisco Hernandez: I’m Francisco.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Oh, Francisco. Sorry—Francisco, my apologies. Francisco Hernandez.

No beard.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No—I got it.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Thank you, Madam Chair. The crux of the question of this legislation to me is whether it will actually reduce waste volumes going to landfill. And for us to determine that, I’d like to ask three questions of the Minister for the Environment. Has there been any analysis done on the reduction of waste volume to landfill as a result of these proposed changes? And if so, what did the analysis say?

And the second question is what assumptions were made on price elasticity on the Ministry for the Environment waste model that is being referred to—the waste disposal levy model? Because when I worked at the Climate Change Commission, we used that model, and if my recollection serves, its waste is actually quite price inelastic. And that’s supported by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report, which came out with the waste disposal levy papers. So I’m just going to quote from it because it’s really important that we have a picture of how price inelastic waste is. So it reads, “there is some effect, but not a large effect on waste volumes. The percentage change in the volume of waste disposed … is much less than the percentage change in price of [waste] disposal—waste disposal … is price inelastic. … The international evidence … suggests that price changes are more effective if they are accompanied by other measures to reduce barriers to recycling and other alternatives.”

This feeds on to my third question to the Minister. Is there a breakdown on how the waste levy is intended to be spent? Because we’ve heard from my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking about how the dehypothecation of the funds kind of makes it so that it can be spent on a whole wide range of other activities, which means there’s actually a world where the investment in resource recovery actually goes down as a result of the dehypothecation, which I’m sure everyone in this House would agree would be a very bad thing. And the other crucial thing is that the waste sector is essential for New Zealand to meet its climate targets, particularly around domestic methane. Unfortunately, this Government isn’t committed to supporting farmers in reducing their methane emissions as much as the previous Government was, which means it’s up to the waste sector to do the heavy lifting of reducing waste emissions. So there is a world where, if as a result of the dehypothecation in funding, there’s actually less money going to resource recovery, which would be bad.

I want to quote from the 2021 waste labour report. There were 224 expressions of interest received in that and only 34 were successfully funded. So we can already see that the existing funding for waste minimisation and waste recovery is already insufficient to meet with the demands of the resource recovery sector. And I’ll give an example for that. There’s a really good waste reduction initiative in Dunedin—the electorate which I’m based in as a list MP—called the Stitch Kitchen.

Hon Rachel Brooking: A great MP.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: That’s right—go Dunedin; great city. That’s right; the Stitch Kitchen. What they do is they train people to reduce textile waste by giving people skills to sew, stitch, and recycle textiles that would have otherwise gone to waste. They’ve not been funded through the waste levy, and there’s thousands and thousands of other people around the country, lots of people doing great work in the resource recovery sphere that are not currently being funded because the current funds that already exist even before the dehypothecation are already insufficient. So I really want to make sure and really get a breakdown of how the waste levy will actually be spent, and get some sort of guarantee that the intention is to actually increase the resource recovery funding because we’re all saying that it’s really great to reduce the waste. That’s fantastic.

So I’m just going to sum up the three questions that I asked because I acknowledge that I’ve kind of circled around a wide variety of topics which are all still to do with waste. The first question to the Minister was: has there been any analysis done on the impact of the levy changes on waste volumes? The second question was: what assumptions were made on price elasticity and how responsive the garbage volumes are to the waste levy changes? And the third: is there a specific breakdown of how the waste levy will be spent? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will answer some of the questions that have been coming through. I just want to re-emphasise that the waste minimisation levy does not usurp any of the existing liabilities within the Resource Management Act and other relevant legislation that perhaps Steve Abel might have been inferring; that the levy would be used to clean up waste of existing operating industries where there might already be other legislation that covers their activities.

Also, in terms of the price elasticity, I’m very aware that the peak amount of waste that was being generated was 2018, and with the more substantial increases in price that came in from 2019 we are seeing a slight reduction in waste per head of population. So, obviously, as the price goes up there is some incentive to create less waste. It’s not perhaps the amounts that we are putting in. We are having to have that fine balance between ensuring that there is some incentive to reduce waste, being mindful of the cost of living crisis that we are in, and being sure that we have sufficient infrastructure there for other means such as reuse, recycling.

Your comments about the number of entities that aren’t getting funded: of course, this is a contestable fund and there’s a very robust process that is gone through so I won’t comment on individual applications that may not have gone through. But also, I would note that Cabinet have asked that Ministry for the Environment officials work to establish what might be an appropriate envelope of funding for each of the uses. So, very clearly, we are going to look at ring-fencing for each of the uses that are within the Act.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s good to be able to speak to this bill at the committee stage. I have just drafted an amendment and it’s just being delivered now, but I really want to speak to the contents and the background of that amendment.

In Christchurch East, we have a number of waste minimisation facilities and waste facilities, but we also have an incredible set of natural resources. So I just want you to imagine, if you can, a beautiful estuary, wetlands, and a beautiful river mouth that feeds into the estuary and creates bird life, native plants, and trees. It’s an incredible environment, it’s stunningly beautiful, and it’s also the home of the organics processing plant for not just Christchurch City but also the surrounding districts.

It’s a really large industrial organics processing plant that was opened in 2009. There are a lot of people who won’t have seen it, but there are not many people who haven’t smelt it. Members may well laugh, and it definitely has an odour, but it’s actually deeply disturbing—not just the odour but the impact that that odour has on the community. So some of the—

Steve Abel: Is it as bad as the dairy factory?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: It’s possibly worse than the dairy factory, I say to that member—possibly worse. There are residents in Bromley and the surrounds of the organics processing plant who, when it was at its worst, could not sleep in their homes. They literally had to leave their homes when the wind blew in certain directions and had to go and sleep in their cars in vehicle lay-bys upwind of where the odour was blowing. I think that’s a pretty unacceptable impact for an organics processing plant to have on a community.

Similarly, the local school in Bromley had to have days when kids could not leave the classroom. If you can imagine that: you’re at school, it’s lunchtime, you want to go outside and enjoy a healthy school lunch and you want to play with your mates, and the organics processing plant literally meant children could not go outside to play and could not go outside to eat their lunch. It’s a very, very negative impact for an organics processing plant to have.

Now, the really good news here is that there were a number of local residents who became very vocal and very organised and worked with city councillors who heard their concerns—and this comes to the first of many questions I have around this bill at the committee stage, and they’re around the question of engagement.

When changes are suggested at the level that is suggested in the amendments in this bill, and when these amendments are going to have the impacts that they will have on communities, the question really is around the Minister’s level of comfort with not having a select committee process for this bill, not allowing communities who will be impacted by the redirection of funds through the amendments in this bill to have a say, and what message that sends to communities about them having the ability to have their voice and their opinion into these amendments and their impacts. I think we have to be really conscious that we’re removing people’s ability to partake in the democratic process of changing laws, and when you literally don’t allow that to happen, I think there’s a real risk with that.

So the first question really is around the Minister’s level of comfort with skipping the select committee process, not allowing the select committee process, and what message the Minister thinks that sends to the communities that will be affected by—

Hon Member: A stink.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Absolutely—by very real stinks that affect their home life, their school life, and their community.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to bring some local government experience to this area. My questions will relate to what this actually reduces the spending on. I actually had the waste portfolio at Wellington City Council in 2008 when this excellent bill became an Act, and some of you may understand how robust and long-lasting a good Green bill can be, because this was brought in not by the larger parties but by the work of Nándor Tánczos. So I ask the Minister to reflect on how this bill has lasted through various changes of Government and, until now, has begun to really reduce waste.

I’d like to ask the Minister whether she agrees that changing the breadth of areas that can be funded from this bill—and none of us disagree with remediating landfills and those areas that have been added; we just are concerned about removing the funding from the preventative side of things. Is the Minister concerned that, by widening the application of the levy, we will do less on product stewardship on the six products—there are only six product areas: plastic packaging; tyres; electrical and electronic products, colloquially known as e-waste; agrichemicals and their containers; refrigerants and other synthetic greenhouse gases, another area where waste and climate change connect; and farm plastics. Those were all agreed in, I think, 2020.

Surely, the Minister must want some more product stewardship at the top of the cliff. I see the remediation activities and the dealing with the effects of climate change as another example of this Government dealing with the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than investing in long-term, intergenerational prevention measures. So if the Minister could address what areas are not being funded because of the transfer; if she could address the areas of what products should have some stewardship applied—this is meant to be an innovative process that helps manufacturers redesign their processes.

If you look at other countries, let’s take a car example, because I know everyone in New Zealand seems to be obsessed with cars. The new Volvo has been produced. I think it uses wool—so that will keep certain members in this Chamber very happy—in its fabric; it recycles materials; and its embodied energy is far lower. Now, New Zealand is not manufacturing cars but we do manufacture many other products, and also we import things—I think, maybe some limitations on what’s imported; making sure that you can recycle it. Demanding that the individual household sorts—instead of putting it on the system. Would the Minister agree that relying on individual action with confusing and inadequate labelling is far inferior to fixing the system, the manufacture, and the import of goods that cannot be recycled, and that we should be able to fund that prevention of waste, prevention of pollution, using this levy?

I’m sure the Minister would agree that this is a good partnership at the moment between local and central government, the levy sharing. It might be interesting to look into a little bit more whether the local government share is being used wisely, or whether it’s just being used to prop up some fairly ineffective kerbside recycling in some places. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will answer some of the questions that have come through with regard to the bad-smelling Organics Processing Plant in Christchurch. That is certainly an example of where other legislation is applicable; not this amendment that we are discussing at the moment.

To the member who has just sat down, Celia Wade-Brown, if I could remind her that the previous Government had no addition to the levy from 2025 onwards. This amendment is, in fact, increasing the levy and increasing the amount of money that will come in. I think you made a comment about removing funding. It’s not removing funding; it’s increasing the funding. I realised that in the discussion that we had a little earlier, you may not have heard around how the Government intends to identify what the envelope of funding will be for each of the uses that it can be used for in the legislation.

In terms of the amount of funding that’s going to be available and the expansion of the use of funding, we also discussed earlier that widening the purpose of the funding is quite normal in other jurisdictions. That is being done in South Australia, in NSW, and in Ireland. And of course, we talked about the environmental impacts of any resource that we use, right through from the extraction of that resource, to the manufacturing, to the use, to the disposal. There are environmental impacts that occur along that range of use. Therefore, taking the levy at the disposal end of it, it is entirely appropriate to then use that to address some of the environmental impacts that occur through its life cycle. Thank you.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m not taking the closure motion. There’s still quite a bit of new material coming through. I call the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just start with reminding the Minister of a couple of my questions that haven’t been answered. One was in relation to the contamination fund—that was my first one. Then just on this piece that we’ve just been discussing again, I’ve put up an amendment to make that nexus towards waste.

I’ve heard the Minister say that the circular economy is very wide, so there should be wide-ranging issues that the money can be spent on. So perhaps you’d be interested in amendments rather than “caused by waste” around environmental problems that “are related to the circular economy”, or something to that effect if that is the purpose of this legislation—that it doesn’t expand to my fertiliser point. That’s the issue: the fertiliser, at the moment, is still included in paragraph (ii). If it should be the whole life cycle of a product that can have many lives, then I’m sure there is some wording that could achieve that in an amendment to (ii).

But in terms of new material, I am moving now to section 5, which is the interpretation clause, and just a very small question here. I noticed that the definition of “contaminant” is the same as that which is found in the Resource Management Act; whereas a few words down we get to “hazardous substance” and that just refers to the definition in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I have no comments on either of those definitions. It’s just: why that inconsistency where one refers to the relevant other statute and one uses the words from the other relevant statute? Simple question. So that’s on section 5.

So I’ll move through now to some other clauses as well and note that the transitional and savings provisions are in Schedule 1. So if we move to Schedule 1, this has some dates for the criteria and it’s the earlier of the Minister notifying criteria or 1 January 2025. I’m just wondering about this because the criteria are not mandatory. So has the Schedule been drafted with the idea that there will definitely be some criteria? Because then it’s possible that this will come into effect on 1 January 2025 without criteria found in section 38. So that’s another small question that that Minister might be able to answer as well.

Another question, going back to my Amendment Papers—and this is one that I haven’t discussed yet. Well, the first one also amends clause 9 because we have that repetition of “environmental harm or increase environmental benefits”. So I’ve proposed that the “increase environmental benefits” comes off and that’s replaced with “caused by waste”. So “funding activities that reduce environmental harm caused by waste”. But as I’ve just proposed to the Minister, if she would prefer a reference to circular economy or something along those lines, then that would work as well. Again, there we have this repetition of the funding of local authorities—and the Minister’s confirmed that that is from the central government fund, not the local government half.

Then we have a reference to the wider functions and duties of the ministry, including hazardous substances, and we’ve had a conversation as well about that. But my question is why there’s no reference here to the remediation of contaminated sites. Is that because it’s coming from some other fund or is there a reason for that? So I have put up an amendment that would provide that, so in clause 9 to add a new paragraph (vii) funding activities that provide for the remediation of contaminated sites. I don’t know how the architecture of the legislation is working in that regard, and if that’s a helpful suggestion or not.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I apologise. I did overlook the question around the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund, and my apologies for that. Yes, you’re correct: the fund will close as a separate appropriation and instead it will be funded from the levy at a much higher levy. I have indicated that I intend to see this as a priority: funding the remediation of contaminated and vulnerable sites.

In terms of the criteria for funding contaminated sites, we’ll be drawing on the criteria from the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund and seeking further input from the Waste Advisory Board. So certainly there’s nothing lost there. In fact, there is going to be a gain of greater access to a greater level of funding.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually understand the genesis of this bill, because the best parts of it are Labour Party policy. There are problems with the Waste Minimisation Fund in the limits to which it can be put. The two main problems are that you can’t use the fund for the development of product stewardship schemes that we need as a country to bring forward in order to manage solid waste. The waste minimisation levy is collected from New Zealanders and municipalities in respect of solid waste going into landfills, and it is appropriate that that money be able to be put towards the efforts that reduce that waste in order to move towards a circular economy. It is a public policy failure that this bill fixes, that you should be able to use this money to produce product stewardship schemes. So all well and good. It’s also good and proper that legacy landfills, old landfills generally owned by councils, should be able to be fixed up through money from the waste management levy, and this bill also allows that—although not in a careful enough manner—and that’s good.

But those legacy landfills aren’t just a central government problem, they’re a local government problem, and this bill doesn’t fix that because it doesn’t allow the local government to put their share of the waste minimisation money into their share of cleaning up these old landfills. And that’s one of the problems you have when you try and do these things through urgency. Although Rachel Brooking’s amendments fix that problem, the National Party is going to vote against them—I know this because the Hon Rachel Brooking came to me and said, “How do you manage these things?” And we said, “Well, we actually talk to the Minister.” So she talked to the Minister and the Minister could see the merit, but the Minister doesn’t seem to be in a position, because of the lack of some Cabinet authority or something like that, to agree to the amendments. And that’s the problem of doing this sort of thing through urgency.

What’s the other problem with this? The poor definition of what this money can now be spent on is so broad that it goes beyond remediating problems arising from solid waste. The Government, having stripped out in this Budget all of the money from the Freshwater Improvement Fund and other funds like that that can address fresh water, have now turned this into a slush fund that could be, if they wanted, used to go on things other than remediation of solid waste. And that is wrong. That’s why, on this side of the House, despite the fact that there are some good things in this bill, we’re forced to oppose it, to drag this out, to prove that this shouldn’t be being done during urgency. It’s not central to the Budget. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been done—you know, for the next seven weeks, Parliament is sitting one week—one week. So no question time—[Interruption] Two weeks, is it? Sorry, two weeks—

Hon Member: But one’s a scrutiny week.

Hon DAVID PARKER: So one’s a scrutiny week. Yeah, there’s only one week of question time in the next seven weeks. So we can’t scrutinise this, we can’t hold the Government to account for this, for other aspects of the Budget—you know, this, Madam Chair, is all arising from this part of the bill.

I ask the committee—there are senior members on the other side of the Chamber; they should be looking at Rachel Brooking’s amendments on this, which are very, very simple and do what I have described. They should be backing them. They should be backing them, notwithstanding this urgency. Show some leadership. Do the right thing here. This is, essentially, reasonable legislation, for the reasons that I’ve described, but it’s being mucked up by the Government by doing it under urgency, because no one on the front bench there is willing to actually look at the amendments and say, as we used to do with Simon Power across the House in the old days, “Just have a look at them.” Have a look at those things, ask the officials from the Ministry for the Environment as to whether these are sensible amendments that have been put up, and if they are, vote in favour of them. Vote in favour of them and make this legislation better and sort out the issues that this needs to sort out, including limiting this to being solid waste rather than other forms of waste, and making sure that you’re fixing it for councils as well as for central government.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member the Hon David Parker, who has just sat down, for his impassioned comments on this. I also thank the member for the work that was done under his time in terms of the container deposit scheme and other stewardship schemes. I’m sure he was delighted to see the tyre scheme starting on 1 March. Certainly, there is work in the pipeline there that will be progressed.

If I could just assure him, there is some support for the local government. Not only are they getting of course a greater amount of money—their 50 percent proportion remains the same but it’s of a greater amount—but also the ability to apply to have the levy waived for the remediation work. As I have said earlier, I was talking to a small local authority in the South Island, where they had two quite significant contaminated sites that were going to cost about $15 million to remediate. They were encouraged, of course, to apply for assistance from central government for that, but now they also, with the passing of this bill, would have the opportunity to apply to have the levy waived for that work, which they told me was somewhere between 8 and 10 percent of the cost of that remediation and quite a barrier to those smaller councils. So I believe this bill is addressing some of the issues for local authorities.

But can I just assure the member and also the Hon Rachel Brooking that in the legislative programme for this year, I also have a wider reform of waste legislation in there that can address some other matters and give us time to consider whether there might be merit in expanding the scope of what the local authority can use their proportion for. So all is not lost!

I’m going to call Steve Abel. I just want to say, at this point, I was listening to the debate before I came in and the Hon David Parker just gave a very good summary of the concerns from the Labour Party, as did Rachel Brooking. What I’ve been hearing is concern about where the money comes from and who’s receiving it. So I’m actually looking for new questions for the Minister now, because I think a lot of it’s been summed up pretty well.

Thank you, Madam Chair; however, I would say, yes, I absolutely hear you on that, and I have got new questions. The essential question on the excellent amendment from my colleague Rachel Brooking and a very similar amendment from my colleague Kahurangi Carter, which says “activities relating to waste”, adding in those words to make sure it’s not just going to be used for anything, has not actually been addressed by the Minister. The Minister hasn’t responded to whether that very sensible amendment is going to be supported.

The other question I’ve got is—the Minister speaks a lot about the waiving of criteria for the waste levy. Now, that is a bit of an alarm bell for us because it’s right that it should be waived in exceptional circumstances, but the criteria on which it will be waived needs to be set out very clearly, because I think there is a risk that a large industrial waste producer would be getting favours and that the levy could be waived in the wrong instance.

The other point I want to raise with the Minister is about the broadness of your comment on the whole of the waste generation process. The Minister talked about how all the way down the line of some sort of activity, there is generation of waste. My concern about that is the implication is that if you were demolishing an asbestos-laden building and some industry did it in a bad way and left the nuisance of remnant asbestos on that site, that the cost of cleaning that up—and I’m talking about a contemporary activity, not a historical one—could then be covered by the waste levy rather than the assurance imposed in the consent process on that business to make sure they didn’t create the nuisance in the first place and that they had imposed on them a requirement to clean it up if they did make that error. I think the Minister’s explanation implies that the waste levy could be used to clean up the mess created by industries all the way down the line, including at the dumping stage.

I have another amendment to propose, which is tabled. It’s in clause 9(1). The concern is that the levy could be used, for example, under the current wording, for the purpose of developing, operating, or maintaining a waste incineration facility or a waste-to-energy incineration plant. Under the current wording, Minister, it is not clear that that sort of an application could not be funded through the waste levy, so we propose simply to put in an exclusion clause in clause 9(1) so that no levy money may be used for the purpose of developing, operating, or maintaining a waste incineration plant—that could, in fact, be brought into a waste incineration plant, including waste-to-energy.

That is something that the New Zealand public, and certainly the people of Waimate, who are currently trying to oppose a waste-to-energy plant down there, an incinerator, would not like to see their waste levy going towards. Waste incineration works against waste minimisation. Because waste incinerators are hungry beasts that want to be fed by waste, they actually function to disincentivise waste minimisation. It’s a very good reason why waste incineration should be an activity that is not permitted to be funded through any sort of waste minimisation levy. Thank you.

Can I just assure the member again that it is not the intention for the waste levy to be used to usurp any conditions or requirements that might be put in place by other legislation, such as the Resource Management Act. The member seems to be implying that that might happen, and can I assure him of that.

Can I just say that the broadening of the scope of what the levy can be used for is very much a pragmatic solution to be able to achieve positive environmental benefits for all of us, and if we try and limit that too much, then we may lose the opportunity to fund some very important projects, and so it concerns me that the member might want to limit it to things like waste incineration and waste-to-energy plants—over time, technology may change how these things are done. In fact, you may be wanting to constrain new and better technology that may be useful for environmental outcomes in the future.

So I think that the constant refrain that is coming from the Opposition about wanting to narrow this down is taking a much too current focus on the innovative things that could be funded to enhance the environment, and I would just say that we need to be much more forward-looking and enabling in this amendment.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister for responding to the questions. I want to give a bit of a congratulations for increasing the levy. I think this is one of the limited good things about this bill. I also want to give a shout out to Labour for trying to claim a Green bill. Good on you, but no. Ha, ha!

My concern is along the lines of what many other members have expressed, with the widening of the application of the waste minimisation levy to apply to a range of other activities. I do want to just acknowledge that the Minister mentioned that she does not want to limit other innovation, but the precise question that Steve Abel asked was around the use of the levy to fund waste incineration, waste to energy—which is actually badly named; it should be called energy to waste. That is something that we would like clarity on.

That is not my question. However, I would like the Minister to come back to answer that question. We do want to make sure that we are not using a waste levy to fund energy-to-waste incineration, which causes greater pollutants to enter our atmosphere, and toxic ash to be deposited in rural communities like Waimate and like Kaipara. We don’t want to see a widened waste levy used to encourage waste and to force people—truckloads of waste from the South Island descending on Waimate through rural roads and communities. We don’t want to see that happen.

My primary question, however, is a little bit different. It is still related to communities—particularly related to rural communities and particularly related to regional development. My question is, really: what impact will the widening of the application of the waste levy have on those Māori and community organisations that deal in waste, that help us reduce our waste, and that help build a circular economy?

I’m thinking particularly of those exemplary organisations that are members of the Zero Waste Network. They are often run under a title of CRCs, which began in the day, standing for community resource centres, and then changed to community recycling centres and really have come to mean community resilience centres. They are funded out of using the levy to fund their work in the communities. But, of course, as we know—and as the Greens keep on banging on about—everything is connected. All of that work is connected.

This reflects back to clause 4 and clause 9. We really want to see what that effect is going to be, because these community organisations hold our communities together. There are four national networks, two of whom will be directly impacted by this change in use. That’s the Zero Waste Network and Para Kore. They will be directly impacted by the widening and therefore the reduction in resources for those networks. This is really, really important because they are connected to the other two networks—the Community Energy Network, who have had their funding cut, and the envirohubs network, who have had their funding cut. All of them work together—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): So is the member’s question “Will these organisations be affected?”, because we’re looking for questions for the Minister—because we hear the concerns.

SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you, Madam Chair. No. My question is not specifically those organisations, but what is the impact on the community organisations that depend on doing the mahi to create a circular economy from the waste levy. That is fundamentally the question that I would like a response to. I have a host of others, but I particularly would like that question answered.

To just circle back, I also want an undertaking—or more clarification—on the question that Steve Abel asked about whether, in any way, shape, or form, the waste levy could possibly be used for incineration—for energy-to-waste projects. This is something we want to avoid at all costs. So there are two questions there, please. Thank you.

A slightly unusual request—because, of course, the levy is a contestable process with a very robust process that is not the Minister’s involvement, so you’re asking for some assurances about making sure certain entities will be funded through this. Certainly, there will be a contestable levy there. Entities will be able to apply for funding and go through the normal process.

Going back to the waste-to-energy activities, this really relates to why we don’t want to narrow down and say things would be excluded because of the changes in technology, because of the innovation in the future. There are current examples of waste-to-energy activities, such as anaerobic digestion, a lower odour solution to dealing with organic waste. By limiting the waste-to-energy options, we limit those innovations, those technology changes.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I’m going to go to the Hon Rachel Brooking. I believe a lot of this conversation is becoming exhausted, and we are really looking for specific questions that are new.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have been going through fairly much clause by clause, so now I’m up to clause 11, and this is about new section 38A, criteria for funding management. Now, the Minister may, by notice in Gazette, set that criteria or change it, and then there are some issues about what the criteria may include, that I’ll get to. But I’m interested in the “may” in 38A, and if in fact this should be a compulsory “must” that the Minister should do to have this criteria, and we touched on the transitional provisions before.

Then, of course, the criteria may include things relating to waste management infrastructure, limits on the funding costs, and identification, in relation to an emergency, of the things that are emergency waste and whose management will be funded. A little question about whose management will be funded, how that works in the context of that section. I presume it’s the people who are there doing something in relation to an emergency that are managing something—but it seems a curious wording; that is my point. It’s not a policy position there, but if there could be some clarification on what that “whose management” means. And then, also, if the Minister has considered any risk of future events to be included in that criteria.

So that’s two questions: why is it discretionary, one; and, two, what does “whose management” mean? And, actually, three questions: has there been any consideration about future, likely events? And I’m thinking here because we know that there are landfills in coastal areas. Is that the sort of thing that should be considered?

We touched on, before, the role of local authorities, and we know—as you’ve said, Madam Chair, we’ve well traversed the levy that is going to the Government, that the scope has been widened. But the levy that is going to local government, the scope hasn’t been widened, and the Minister has noted that she might be doing some legislation in the future that could widen that local authority’s scope to also include site remediation and emergencies.

I have an amendment that could do that now. So that would amend—now, moving away from clause 11; that would insert a new clause 9A. And in section 32 of the primary legislation of the Act that we’re amending, I’ve put in there that Governments could spend on projects that provide for the remediation of contaminated sites and that could be expanded out to emergencies as well to match this amendment bill. So that could be done now and there’s a tabled amendment doing that.

Going back to some other points, there was a discussion about how the previous Government hadn’t changed the waste levy, and I’d like confirmation from the Minister that her comment there was because the waste levy is normally set in regulations and the regulations were for a period that ended in this next period and that the Government’s not changing that.

The next comment is that the Minister didn’t answer my question in relation to section 30. And if that should also include site contamination, the remediation of contaminated sites—that seems to be missing from that section. And, also, we haven’t heard yet that answer about why this expansion needs to apply to fertiliser. That is my precise question on—going back to 4(2)(a), but also, as you’ve heard some questions there about clause 11 and new section 38A.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take my first call in relation to the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill. I want to specifically look at a particular part of the bill that’s been touched on very briefly by my colleague Rachel Brooking, and I want to expand on that more as one of my roles is to be the Labour Party’s spokesperson on emergency management. A certain section of this bill is focused on emergency management and dealing with waste as a result of emergencies. So I wanted to, if I could, take the Minister for the Environment back to the definition of “emergency” in Part 1, which we’re currently on, which is the same as what is currently in the primary piece of legislation, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act.

Now, I have checked that in advance of asking the Minister my question on this issue, and the definition of “emergency”, essentially, in that primary piece of legislation is very wide. Essentially, if you go through the definition it’s, basically, anything that happens whether natural or otherwise that results in a situation that can’t be managed without the involvement of emergency services—so an extremely wide definition. I wanted to ask the Minister if that was intentional or if it just was consistency within the Act—if she did in fact want the scope to be widened so much to either be just consistent or so that the levy could be used in a wider sense.

The other question I wanted to ask was back to another part of new section 38A, inserted in the primary legislation by clause 11 of the bill, which I don’t think we have touched on, which is paragraph (b) of section 38A(3). This is the criteria that the Minister will use and must look at before considering funding “management of emergency waste and repair or replacement of waste management and minimisation infrastructure”. Now, one section that we haven’t touched on is the section on what other matters the Minister may consider relevant to that. So there is a list there that the Minister must consider, but then paragraph (b) of section 38A(3), there, essentially, means that Minister can look at anything that the Minister may think is relevant.

So I wanted to know: what are those other things that might be relevant to justify the inclusion of such a wide clause? Was that purposeful in the sense that the Minister wanted to think widely? She’s made some comments in relation to other sections—but not, I think, this section; but I’m willing to be corrected on that—that she wanted to, obviously, have a wider criteria. But it seems very open there and I just wanted to know: has she received any specific advice about the types of other things that may be considered when the Minister sets that criteria? Because this is a criteria that can be set, once this legislation is passed, by the Minister alone. I think it’s important to have some clarity on that before moving forward.

Also, I’m not sure if we’ve touched that much on Schedule 1, which I understand is part of this debate on Part 1. I think that it’s important for the Minister, really, to look at these transitional provisions and just say, you know, for example, why was the date of 1 January 2025 considered as part of that schedule? Was that because of any particular reason, or did it just happen to be decided that next year was a good time to start it? Did she consider introducing the particular schedule provisions earlier or not? It’s a question I have, and I don’t think we’ve touched on that schedule.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Moving back to the questions from the Hon Rachel Brooking around her concern about whose management the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill is talking about in clause 11, which inserts section 38A(2)(c)—and that then relates to the question that has just been asked by the member sitting down, Camilla Belich—the subsection there is the “identification, in relation to an emergency, of things that are emergency waste, and whose management will be funded.” The management is referring to the emergency waste, and the reason why the definition of “emergency” in here has the same meaning as in section 4 of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act is that we are intending specifically that the levy can be used for waste that is created in an emergency situation—a flood, an earthquake—where the disposal of that waste needs to occur quickly, given the impact that it can have on human health and the environment.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Just to members, I will take another call. Just be aware: I have been watching this and I’m aware of the previous Chair—the warning she’s given. So I’m well aware of the need for new material.

Point of order, sir. Thank you very much, I appreciate that guidance. Just wanting some clarification from you, however. Since the previous presiding officer indicated to the committee that she was seeking new material, I’m of the view that the two subsequent calls were new material. So to then receive that guidance from you is somewhat confusing. So could you please confirm or clarify to the committee, in your view, whether the previous two calls did fit the criteria that you’re after?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Just nothing wrong with a little reassurance for the committee and that, yes, I’m aware that there was some new material in there—now, of course, being dealt with by the Minister, so it’s no longer new material.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Since my first contribution was not addressed by the Minister with particularity as to the effect of these new clauses, I went and printed off the relevant parts of the original Act and I still would like the Minister—and actually members on the other side—to actually read the changes in the section. There’s some good lawyers on the other side. This is not hard. We’re sitting under urgency. This is meant to be a meaningful committee stage where if there are problems in legislation, we fix them because if we don’t fix them there’s no select committee process to fix them.

I want to take the Minister in particular to clause 4 of the bill, which amends section 3 of the Act. Now, section 3 of the Act—and other members there can go on their devices; it’s very short—currently, it’s the purpose of the Act and it says the purpose of the Act currently is to “(a) protect the environment from harm; and (b) provide environmental, social, economic, and cultural benefits.” It’s all under the first subsection; section 3(1) says, “The purpose of this Act is to encourage waste minimisation and a decrease in waste disposal …”. The new purpose section is different. It says that the purpose is to “raise revenue to fund—(i) the promotion and achievement of waste minimisation;” which is a bit like the original purpose; and “(ii) activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits;”, and that’s not tied or limited to solid waste or contaminants from solid waste. That is the issue that is so simple to be fixed and yet the Government won’t.

Now, I would like the Minister to stand and explain to the committee how we are to interpret new section 3(2)(a)(ii), inserted by clause 4 of this bill, which reads “[activity to] reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits”, and explain to the committee how that is not inclusive of things more than solid waste. Because it plainly is, and it plainly—look, there’s a lawyer there from Queenstown. Look, he knows this; he knows this. He’s a clever lawyer. So are some other people there. We’re not all draftspeople in this House, but there’s enough of us to know that that clause there reads wider than solid waste and therefore this is enabling the Waste Minimisation Fund—now we’ve got someone on the other side saying, “hands down”. This is the emotion—just copying what they’re doing. “Calm down. Nothing to worry about here. No need to do anything. No need to fix anything. We’re not under urgency. We just want to go home.”

Well, you will go home faster if you pay attention to this and fix this obvious mistake in clause 4 by adding the words “from waste”. That’s all we’re asking to do so that this can’t be used for issues other than waste.

I will go over the matters that we have already discussed around this broadening to environmental harm and environmental benefits. Given that any resources that we use at any time have a broad impact on the environment from when they are extracted, grown, taken out of the ground, whatever, to create those resources; through to the manufacture of those resources; through to the use of those resources; and the final disposal of those resources. That product, as it goes through its cycle and becomes waste when it is disposed of, that is an appropriate time to extract a levy and enable that levy to be applied to any of the environmental impacts that occur through the life cycle of that product.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I also thank the Minister for being so engaged. This bill is hugely important because it’s being put through under urgency when it’s only tangentially related to the Budget and would normally go to a select committee, hence all of these questions around waste. If I may, I would like to point out a couple of things in clause 4 that haven’t really been touched on, and this is in relation to the supplementary analysis report, which has to be done because of urgency, and a regulatory impact statement could not have been done, and there is a lot of concern around this.

So one of things that hasn’t really been explored in all of the discussions that we had this morning is around clause 4(2)(a)(iv), which is around the ministry. We have talked about different budgets, and I really appreciate the fact that the Minister has talked about different uses as well. But I would like to know, from a Budget perspective, with the deficit that is being created as a result of a reduced funding in Vote Environment, whether we are expecting proportionally that the amount of money that is created as part of that deficit in Vote Environment is going to be coming out of this waste levy—as in, the money that wasn’t funded in Vote Environment; are we expecting that same amount to come out of the levy? Because, specifically, this broadens to the fact that the ministry will be using this funding to undertake its functions and duties and exercise its power in relation to waste management, but it’s still something that would normally have been covered in a Budget. So that is my first question.

My second question is around clause 4(2)(a)(iii) around emergency management. Now, Minister, you mentioned before the type of things, and, Mr Chair, just before, the Minister mentioned emergency uses, and I think that in the second reading and the first reading we talked about the fact that it could be used for, like, Cyclone Gabrielle and the clean-up. So all of those are considered as waste. I would like to know from the Minister—the Minister spoke on other applicable funds—how this fund is going to interact with the Climate Emergency Response Fund, which is being partially used for things like climate adaptation and cleaning up of this waste—before we see that the Minister has retracted the transparency in the reporting of the Climate Emergency Response Fund as of this year.

So it will be really good to know from the Minister in terms of the interaction between the use of the waste levy on emergency management and also the interaction with the Climate Emergency Response Fund, which was started under the Hon James Shaw, the previous climate change Minister. So those are my two questions from clause 4.

Now to clause 5, we talked about—and the Hon David Parker talked about—waste and solids and all of that. I would like to get a piece of clarification from the Minister because, again, this bill may seem quite small, but it has huge implications also from a judiciary perspective. So it’s also really important when we’re looking at the Hansard, when lawyers are looking at this and at any sort of potential use, that the definition is really tight and we have an understanding from the Minister of what those definitions could be used for.

The specific one that I’m looking at is the definition of “contaminated site”; it means land “where a contaminant is present, or likely to be present,”. In paragraph (a) of amended section 5—this is in clause 5—it says “in any physical state”—which I’m assuming relates to the definition of “contaminant”, which means a substance including gases, odours, compounds, liquids, solids, and micro-organisms. I’m assuming that “in any physical state” will also be referring to those substances. However, my key focus is on the word “land”. Now, my colleague Steve Abel mentioned run-off and the pollution we see in our waterways. I would like to ask the Minister whether things like rivers and waterways are considered “land”, in this case.

So those are my three questions, and I really appreciate this opportunity for us to discuss more broadly in lieu of the select committee process.

I’m just going to take a very short call here because it does relate to what the Minister just said. The Minister was talking about the clause that we’ve spoken a lot about, which is the activities that reduce environmental harms—I think these are your words, Minister; apologies if they’re not quite right—that occur through the life of a product. The point was being made again that waste has many lives. So I would really implore the Minister to consider an amendment—doesn’t have to be the one that I put up being caused by waste—that it could be then “activities that reduce environmental harm related to the life of a product”, to use the Minister’s words. So a very short call. If this is what the Minister means then we should say it in the legislation, and that would make a lot of us a lot more comfortable about these changes. Thank you.

Relating to that, and also the question from the Hon David Parker—just noting that already in the rest of the Act, there is wider scope than solid waste; for example, the declaration of refrigeration gases as a priority product. So we just need to be very careful that what you are asking for in terms of narrowing down doesn’t actually conflict with what is already within the rest of the Act.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I appreciate that. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to make a call on this, and, actually, in all honesty, I wasn’t intending to. But then I heard the Minister’s response regarding the definition of an emergency, and I thought that it’s important that we dive into this. So I’m not going to ask the same question, albeit the same topic that has been touched on once previously, but this is directly in response to the answer that the Minister gave. Camilla Belich asked about the definition of “emergency”, and the Minister responded by saying that it is as is defined in the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002. Now, as the committee knows, there was an emergency management bill going through the House, and, at the time, the National Party did not express any opposition at all to the updated definition that was provided in that Act.

Now, we might be wondering why this is important. Well, there’s one difference in the definition between that provided in the 2002 Act, and the definition proposed in the 2023 bill—and it’s quite a significant difference. It includes the addition of “pandemic” to the definition of “emergency”. Now, if we are to proceed with this, using the definition as provided in the Act in 2002, which will exclude a pandemic, given what this country’s been through during COVID, if we have another pandemic, under the current definition proposed in this bill, a pandemic will not qualify under the definition of “emergency”. Now, I think that’s quite serious.

I would like the Minister to respond as to whether she would be willing, either through an amendment under our name or simply to do so herself, to simply include “pandemic” in the definition of “emergency”. What we don’t want is for another pandemic to come along, given all the lessons that we as a country learnt through COVID, and all the changes to bills and Acts that have been made, and regulation, to account for a future pandemic, and then everything in this bill cannot be triggered because it doesn’t include it in the definition of “emergency”. It’s a genuine request and I’d really like to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

It is very deliberate that “emergency” is being given the same meaning as in section 4 of the Civil Defence (Emergency Management) Act 2002. The volume and the significant risks to human and environmental health from waste that is created from a flood or an earthquake, I would suggest, is very different from waste created from a pandemic.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really grateful that I’ve got to receive my first call on the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill. I apologise to my colleague right here, Glen Bennett, who is also waiting for a call on this bill, because he’s actually on the Environment Committee.

My question to the Minister for the Environment is actually around some of the transitional and savings provisions which are in Schedule 1 of Part 1. This is a new point, because this bill, if I step through it, looks to expand the purpose of the waste levy. It also looks around some waiver provisions, and the transitional savings provisions only refer to the consideration of criteria for approval of projects to remediate contaminated sites and the use of levy collected before the commencement of the amendment Act.

Now, members of this committee will remember that, in early January last year and on Valentine’s Day, we had two major natural disasters in New Zealand. We had the floods in Auckland, and then we had the cyclone that went through Hawke’s Bay and also parts of Northland. As part of the response to that, there were a number of Orders in Council that were put through to deal with that emergency event, including one called the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery (Waste Minimisation) Order 2023. That particular order gave an exemption from levy payments on cyclone and flood waste. That exemption keeps the operator exempt from requirements under Part 3 of the Act, which this bill is changing, to pay for the levy referred to in that part in relation to cyclone and flood waste before the close of 24 July 2025. So that’s the date that that particular order closes. That’s when that order is no longer in force. But I don’t see anything in this particular bill or the regulatory impact statement that provides a savings provision—

Glen Bennett: There’s none.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Oh, there is none—that’s why I couldn’t find it. Is that particular order, which was given and put through under the previous Act, which this bill is now changing, still in force—because it refers to the old Part 3. Once this bill is enacted, there is a new Part 3. Will this bill still allow those people, because of the cyclone and flood waste, to be exempt from the levy?

The second part of that question is: if not, does that mean that the increase that comes into force by this bill, by July 2024—even though that exemption from the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery (Waste Minimisation) Order doesn’t actually close till next year, in June? Does that mean that there is an increase then and they have to pay that increase? They are exempt from the old charges, but when these new charges come in, in July this year, it means they actually have to pay those new increases.

As the Minister is receiving official advice, I’ll step through that again. Last year, floods, cyclone—as a part of the emergency response, there were a number of Orders in Council that were released, including one called the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery (Waste Minimisation) Order 2023. That has a sunset clause for 24 July 2025. So, basically, people who need to dispose of cyclone- and flood-related waste are exempt from the waste levy up to 24 July 2025. My question is—because I couldn’t see a savings provision—actually whether there needed to be one, first of all. Second of all, if this bill comes into force, will that exemption only apply for the old charges, not the new charges, which are coming under this bill, given that the order doesn’t actually have a sunset clause until 24 July 2025?

I’ll have to get further information for the member the Hon Barbara Edmonds on the Orders in Council, but can I just bring to the member’s attention that the amendments in here enable a waiver of the levy fees for local authorities for remediation work. So there is the ability for that waiver to be granted.

Mr Chair, thank you so much. As a member of the Environment Committee, I felt it was important—I’ve been seeking the call for almost 2½ hours now, and it is important for myself and, I know, others in the Environment Committee here—for us too to, I guess, prosecute this, because we didn’t have the opportunity to do it in select committee. So it is good to be here and to be standing. I really appreciate contributions from the honourable Minister. And I’ve been reflecting, actually, and my question is related to your electorate, honourable Minister, because I know that, for you, there are some real challenges and there are some real challenges in terms of waste. Obviously, you have some big industry and some big business. You look at Tīwai Point, which everyone knows, but you also have some good opportunities there, which is what I want to, I guess, prosecute today. You’ve got the SJ Timpany Landfill, which obviously is making good on dealing with industrial waste and waste that needs to be rid of.

My colleague Camilla Belich and the Hon Kieran McAnulty have talked about the emergency management space, but I need to take a different angle on this, because I still haven’t quite got it clear. And just to support, I guess, making sure again we get this right, because, as many on this side have said, we need to make sure, if this is going to pass, that we actually have it right so that when the next emergency happens it is fit for purpose.

Now, I want to reflect, because it happened several times back in March and April, Tuatāpere, which, obviously—is that part of your electorate? I’m not sure—

Hon Penny Simmonds: It is indeed.

GLEN BENNETT: —but it’s close by.

Hon Penny Simmonds: No, it is.

GLEN BENNETT: It is in your electorate. And obviously there’s been a huge issue there in terms of contamination with products that have been buried, have been put away—things like explosives, asbestos, and hazardous materials there.

Now, in amended section 5, and the emergency having the same meaning as the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act—the thing is that the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act talks about leakage or spilling of any dangerous gas or substance. Now, the thing is this is an ongoing issue. And at Tuatāpere this is an ongoing challenge that they have. Is it an emergency or is it just an ongoing issue because of climate change and because of sea levels taking away from that? So I’m trying to understand in terms of where this is and where it fits in in section 5, but also, of course, in new section 38A. Because earlier when you spoke to us, you mentioned that section 38A(2)(c)—you talked about referring completely to emergency waste. But obviously the waste at Tuatāpere is, in my mind, both emergency and is just ongoing issues that need to be dealt with in terms of remediation and how that works.

The other one I want to acknowledge as we come around, obviously, is Bluecliffs in your electorate. And congratulations. You got some good money from the Government earlier in the year—$1.35 million towards the Bluecliffs landfill clean-up. And again, the challenge is because we talk about pandemics and where that fits in, we talk about climate change, we’ve obviously spent a lot of time—and people might think it is repetitive, but I think it’s really crucial because why not spend another hour here, why not spend another couple of hours here to get this tight, to get this right, because we don’t want to be scrambling when the next earthquake, when the next sea-level rise, when the next storm comes through, and it actually isn’t fit for purpose.

Yep, the other side of the Chamber are moaning at us and saying we’re just dragging it out, but it’s actually not on us; it’s on your bosses in terms of they should have thought through this in terms of making sure that they got it right before they brought it to the House, or at least they took it to select committee. So, coming back to the question, it’s around section 5, “emergency has the same meaning as in section 4 of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002”. Again, a leakage or spillage emergency or the leakage or spillage which is just continuing as a regular part because, obviously, of past wrongs that were done and not remediata—remeni—remediating. I can’t even say the word on that.

So that is my question to the Minister. I appreciate you spending time to thoughtfully consider it. Congratulations on what you’re doing in your electorate to clean up parts of your electorate, and I look forward to your answer.

There is a danger in quoting examples from the electorate that the Minister is in. Can I let the member know that the Tuatāpere and Bluecliffs entity is one and the same, and that no explosives were in that site, but it was, indeed, a vulnerable site—one of a number that received over $6.6 million of funding. That was the Southland site, the South Canterbury one, Nelson, and Tai Rāwhiti. And I have indicated that dealing with these sites will be a priority for me. This legislation, this bill, enables those vulnerable and contaminated sites to be funded. And I have stated it as a priority that they will gain more funding. The local authorities also will benefit from being able to have their levies waived from undertaking these remediations. So the bill in fact supports, enormously, addressing these contaminated and vulnerable sites.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate it. I got an email late last night from—

James Meager: From the Labour Party?

STEVE ABEL: It didn’t happen to be, but from a gentleman who is in the environmental advocacy space, a guy by the name of Barry Weeber who works for ECO.

Now, in lieu of a select committee—it’s not a very long email, but he makes some very good recommendations—given he won’t have any right, nor will any member of the public have any right to submit on this, I thought it might be useful for the Minister to ask some of the questions that he puts. “I just happen to realise when I opened the Parliament website and found the waste minimisation bill is going through Parliament. I can’t fathom why this bill has to go through all stages under urgency. I agree with the comments”—and I won’t repeat them, because we’ve canvassed them, about the waste levy activities that reduce environmental harm being too broad. He says, “All these go way beyond the reason that the waste levy was established.” He also makes a very specific point on section 38A “the use of the word ‘may’ (2) should be ‘shall’ in both places. It is also a bit rich”—he goes on—“not levying current mining operations for cleaning up contaminated mine waste sites.”

That is a question for the Minister. It has been asked but it has not been answered. Is it not more appropriate? Why should those dumping construction and demolition fill be paying for mine waste clean-up? That’s a question for the Minister. Why are those who are creating tailings dams, cyanide-laden tailings dams, not being charged a levy for clean-up of contaminated mine waste? That is another question for the Minister. He concludes with “I hope you have some success to change this.”

And my final question is: are there amendments that the Minister will seriously consider, or has a decision been made by the coalition Government that they will not accept any amendments on this waste minimisation bill. Thank you.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendments to clauses 4 and 9, replacing “or increase environmental benefits” with “caused by waste”, be agreed to.

The question is that Reuben Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 4, replacing “society” with “community”, be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendments to Part 1, changing the scope of activities funded by the waste disposal levy to include remediation of contaminated sites, be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendments to clauses 9 and 10 be agreed to.