Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to the debate on clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Talking to the title—this is the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill—and given the Minister’s discussions and what we have heard is in the supplementary analysis report and why this bill is here in Budget urgency, I’m suggesting that this title should be amended to “This Act is the Waste Minimisation (Pay for Environmental Cuts) Amendment Act 2024.” I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

Of course, this all goes back to the wider point that we’ve been discussing today about the extension of what the levy can be spent on. That extension is for all the environmental things. The Minister has talked, in a number of speeches, about how important it is to think in terms of a circular economy and how important it is to think of the long life of a product and the many lives their product can have, so, of course, it could be amended to something like “Activities that Reduce Environmental Harm Related to the Life of a Product”.

If that was the case, then my suggested amendment to the title would not be needed because, indeed, it would still be about waste, but this bill has gone well beyond waste, and the Minister has shown no interest in making an amendment that would fix that problem. It would be a very simple problem to fix. So until that happens, this bill needs to be renamed. I would be interested, again, in hearing from the Minister about why it is that this nexus between waste and whatever the spending is on needs to remain.

I mean, another suggested change could be because that nexus is not there, and we heard from the Hon Barbara Edmonds, and earlier on we heard from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb as well about the importance of a levy, having a nexus before it becomes a tax.

So another suggestion is, of course, that “This Act is the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Tax) Amendment Act.”, because until there is the nexus, it isn’t the levy, and it’s going well beyond any consensus that has been in this waste minimisation space. It’s a consensus that I’ve been very pleased about and have hoped to continue with the Minister, with all the parties in Parliament, because it really does seem like a no-brainer, but instead this Budget is choosing to reduce environmental spending with the 7.5 percent cuts across the board.

We know, as well, with climate change that there are cuts there to all of the mitigation measures. We know that there are cuts to the Department of Conservation. Presumably, with this widening of the objective, spending could be provided to groups doing things. And we know that this Budget has been good for ferrets—it has been good for ferrets because everything’s been cut. So who’s going to prosper when we don’t have the Jobs for Nature doing pest management? It’s going to be the ferrets—other mustelids as well; not restricting it to ferrets.

Andy Foster: Stick to the bill.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I’ve been challenged here to stick to the bill. I’m totally sticking to the bill, because that is the point—this bill is supposed to be about waste and waste minimisation. We accept that that goes further than just thinking about what is being taken to a waste facility, that we should be looking at landfills and old landfills. We can be looking at what happens in emergency circumstances—that’s a proper thing to be doing. If that was the case and there was still that nexus with waste, then “This Act is the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Act.”—that is the proper title for the Act, but at the moment it is increased too far. It is overreaching and that name needs to change, so either in the brackets, “Pay for Environmental Cuts” or, in the brackets, “Pay for Waste Disposal Tax”. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call in relation to this title and commencement section of this debate—only the third part of the debate that we’ve been able to have on this bill. I think often the importance of the title and commencement debate is a little bit overlooked in this debating chamber, but I think it is important to realise that the most read and considered part and the most influential part of a bill is always the title. So it’s really important that we get it right.

Hon Chris Bishop: The title?

CAMILLA BELICH: Well, yeah—it’s the thing that’s reported on. It’s the most read part of the bill. I challenge you to prove otherwise. Most people—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Engage with the Chair, please.

CAMILLA BELICH: That’s a helpful interjection, Mr Chair—you know, it’d be interesting if the Minister in the chair had a view on that. But I would think that statistically, yes, it is usually the most read part of the bill—the title. So it is important, and it’s really important that it reflects the content of the bill for that reason, because it is so influential in guiding what the public sees as the content of the bill.

We’ll all be aware that waste management, or waste minimisation, in some contexts has been used to cover a myriad of different types of roles and types of activities that people in society have. Quite famously, in fact, waste management has been used in things like The Sopranos to cover things that were not actually waste management, in terms of people’s roles. So this bill has not an exact reflection on that particular situation—I wouldn’t go anywhere near that far—but I would say that there are certain things within this bill which are not reflected in waste minimisation. So I support the amendment of my colleague Rachel Brooking to change the title to be more reflective of what it actually does.

I have a few other suggestions, as we haven’t heard the Minister for the Environment’s feedback on my colleague Rachel Brooking’s suggestion. So I would like to ask the Minister: would she consider changing the title clause to “This Act is the Waste Minimisation (Paying for Tax Cuts) Amendment Act”? Would she consider changing it to the “Waste Minimisation (Paying for Unspecified Projects in the Future) Amendment Act”? Would she consider changing it to the “Waste Minimisation (Increased Powers to the Minister) Amendment Act”? Will she consider a slight change to the title clause, with a variation on what my colleague Rachel Brooking suggested: “This Act is the Waste Minimisation and Decrease in Environmental Spending Amendment Act”? All of these, I think, would give a much better flavour as to the exact changes that have been brought in by this bill.

Of course, we’re aware that we have existing legislation in waste management. We’re aware of that because the principal Act, which is part of the clauses that we’re debating at the moment, is mentioned in this section in clause 3—the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. We’ve had a discussion in earlier parts on the history of how that came about, so we know we have waste management legislation in New Zealand. So what are we getting here? What is new? I think the title could more aptly reflect what we are actually getting.

So I’m interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. I know other members will have some contributions to make in terms of the commencement, but my question is purely around the title.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking to the title and commencement, one thing that is clear, and has been articulated by others—and I have a proposition that extends on some of the commentary that’s been made—is that this is no longer merely a waste minimisation amendment bill. It’s no longer—it is an amendment bill, but it’s no longer merely a waste minimisation, waste disposal levy. Now there is a problem, for the expectation of the public, when they are paying levies and they stray into the tax territory, is that what they’re being told they’ve paid for is actually what they’re being used for. I think it’s been very clearly articulated in the debate so far that, clearly, the broadening of the categorisation to include other things is going beyond a waste minimisation levy.

So I propose this title to the Minister: I suggest it would be more correctly called the “Financial Diversion of Waste Minimisation Levy to Mining and Dairy Waste Cleanup.” It’s a bit long, so I’m actually going to—understood correctly, it’s the “Financial Diversion of the Waste Minimisation Levy to Mining and Dairy Waste Cleanup.” Now, that is technically what it’s able to be used for, under the definitions of what it can be used for, so would it not, Minister, be more correct to give it a title that is fit for what it does? Well, that’s my question, and I’ll leave that with you, Minister.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The sitting is suspended until 2 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

There are two issues I want to raise in this contribution. The first is why the legislative framework no longer sets up a levy; it’s now tax. Levies are collected for purposes for which the activity is related. So if you take a levy from the solid waste sector, you should be spending it in that sector. You shouldn’t be using it for other purposes that are unrelated—for example, for dealing with agricultural pollution from non-point source discharges or for riparian planting and that sort of thing, which are unrelated to landfills.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): And is this related to the title and commencement?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, absolutely.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): OK.

Hon DAVID PARKER: This is the difference between a levy and a tax, which I’m trying to explain. A levy is collected for purposes that are related to the activity for which it is collected, which in this case is waste. “Waste” is defined in the Waste Minimisation Act, Madam Chair, and I’m happy to read that out to you, because that definition does not change. It’s set out in the definition clause, clause 5: “waste”—(a) means any thing [that is] disposed of or discarded; and (b) includes a type of waste that is defined by its composition or source (for example, organic waste, electronic waste, or construction and demolition waste), and (c) to avoid doubt, includes any component of the element of diversion material, if the component or element is disposed of or discarded”.

So it’s clearly intended to cover the sorts of things that you dispose of in the various sorts of landfills that we have—not general pollution into the air or general pollution into the water, not greenhouse gas emissions, not water pollution—and yet, the changes that have been made by the House, at the request of the Minister, have changed this legislation. We tried to put amendments to limit the purpose that this could be put to—to waste—and those amendments were voted down by the House, essentially, by the Government members. So that’s why this should not be called a levy.

The second point is that because of that, we’re not going to fool local government on this. Local government put up with their citizens paying at municipal dumps, because that’s where all the money is collected, essentially—every cent that is collected under this levy—and already it’s a big step for them to give up half of it over to the spending of central government. They put up with that because there are some things that need central government contribution, like facilities that you only have one of in the whole of New Zealand, like—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Like glass.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yeah, and glass schemes throughout the country and things or some of this expensive kit. But they want it all spent on waste. Now, I previously addressed the House as to how we got to the point where local government asked for this to be imposed on their local citizens, with the knowledge that it was going to be recycled into waste minimisation, including by the Government. You be a councillor now and come along and tell your local communities, “Oh, we’re going to put this up, and, by the way, it’s not going to be spent on waste minimisation. We’re going to spend it down the other end of the country, on a bit of agricultural runoff which is unrelated”—

Andy Foster: It could still be spent down the other end of the country, but on waste.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, yes, to the extent that you have facilities that are centralised, they have to be centralised somewhere, and they should be centralised in different parts of the country, actually. But the idea that local councils are now going to put their hand up and say, “We want to give more money over to the Government, from our people, to spend on things unrelated to us.”, is just complete nonsense, and they’ll see through the fact that this is no longer a waste levy. It’s a taxation to fill in holes that have been created in the same Budget through the Freshwater Improvement Fund, because otherwise the Government’s got no money to spend on the freshwater improvements that this country needs.

So that’s why we will be voting against this title, because it is not a levy, nor is it now about waste, as defined in this very Act. It’s going to broader purposes which are going to, in the end, undermine the consensus that we have achieved, which I think we should be proud of as a country, to do something on solid waste.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s good to have this opportunity to speak to an amendment which should have just landed on the Table, which is an amendment to the title. It’s on the basis of ensuring that there is as much honesty and integrity in the bill as possible. So that’s about making sure that what’s on the box matches what’s in the box, so to speak.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Or the tin, even.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Or the tin—the tin. Thank you.

Hon Andrew Bayly: What on earth does that mean?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you. I’m so pleased that a member across the Chamber has asked for me to provide a little more detail on what the term “What’s on the tin is the same as what’s in the tin.” means, or, as another member next to me has just asked, “What’s on the box is the same as what’s in the box.” I’m anticipating that this may take me more than five minutes, but I’m fully prepared to take the time required—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Only if you get to the point.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —to explain. So just to finish the quick explanation, “What’s on the box or tin is the same as what’s in the box or tin.”, essentially, means it is what it says it is. So you don’t open the box and find that it’s not what was on the box that’s in the box, and you don’t open the tin and find that it’s not what’s in the tin that was on the tin; you find that it is what it says it is. This brings me to my amendment—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Good.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to explain the amendment further. Currently, the title is the “Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill”. My amendment suggests—and it’s probably important to give a bit of background here around specifically what the bill is doing and addressing and around what these proposed amendments are aiming to do. That’s broadening the scope of the activities of the bill so that the levies collected don’t relate just to refuse and rubbish and those things that the bill had, up until this point, been intended for but in fact now shift to being able to mitigate or make good damage caused by other activities or events that have negative environmental impacts. When we start talking about that, we’re talking about chemical runoff and we’re talking about mining and exploratory activities that might happen on land and the necessary—as we all know—steps that have to be taken once those kinds of activities are carried out to clean up the damage that’s done.

We also know that recently a bill that very much is in the tin—or in the box; the same as what’s on the tin or on the box—is the Fast-track Approvals Bill. My suggestion is that if we’re going to continue in that vein—if we’re going to create bills and have bills moved through the House—and in this instance, today, at great speed, despite my contribution right now—at great speed, then I think that it’s only appropriate for us to accept my amendment, which is to change the title of the bill from the “Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill” to something a little more straightforward and a little more related to the other bill that it dovetails in so tidily behind, and that would be to change it to the “Waste Minimisation (Last-track Levy) Amendment Bill” because this bill—

Hon Member: What a load of rubbish—sit down.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —will, effectively, become the backstop. A member across the Chamber calls it a load of rubbish. That’s a really relevant heckle to raise at this time because the load of rubbish that the member refers to won’t be able to be addressed because the resource and the funds and the revenue that are generated through the initial bill are going to be tied up in other places doing other things, to other damage that’s caused by activity that’s carried out through the fast-track bill.

So by making this a sister bill—or a brother bill, if you will; a fellow bill—to the fast-track bill, we would do that by calling it the “Waste Minimisation (Last-track Levy) Amendment Bill”, and I hope that the committee can support my amendment. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. It’s a real pleasure to take a call following my esteemed colleague Reuben Davidson and what I thought was a very—

Glen Bennett: Powerful.

RACHEL BOYACK: It was a powerful contribution. It was a very thoughtful contribution. I want to take some time to talk to my Amendment Paper. I understand that we have a few more Amendment Papers, I think, that may have recently been delivered to the Table from colleagues. I think it’s a good opportunity for us to talk through some of the important details around the title and commencement date in this bill, which is a very important part of the bill that we are discussing in the House this afternoon.

I have an Amendment Paper that would replace the date for this bill to come into effect, which is currently 1 July 2024 and move that to 31 July 2024, so I thought I might take a few minutes just to explain to the House why I have thought through this date change and why the change in date would be, I think, really, really useful to improve the bill, which is the purpose of the committee of the whole House stage.

The first thing is that we’ve had quite a few discussions throughout earlier parts of the bill and in the first and second readings, about the fact that this bill will have an impact on those who collect the levies. So one of the things we want to ensure, because we have seen this before, is that when we put in place changes like this, that we actually give time for it to take effect. It’s only one month until 1 July. It’s 1 June today—first day of winter, and we’ve seen the Wellington wind today that reflects that. I think that giving some extra time is always a wise thing to do, which was one of the reasons why I thought let’s just give this another month to breathe and to take effect.

But the other reason I thought—which we’ve also discussed in our contributions, is that this date would more closely align with the tax changes that the Government’s looking to introduce. One of the unfortunate things we’ve seen through this Budget and we’re seeing through the legislation that is introduced through this Budget, including the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill, is that the Government is not giving much. Superannuitants are getting $2 a week—giving a little bit on one hand, but on the other hand, they are doing—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can I just remind the member to come back to the purpose of her amendment.

RACHEL BOYACK: Which is exactly why I’ve said that I think we should change the date to 31 July, because these changes are going to increase costs to people who are disposing of their waste—that is what the bill does. So one of the things I think is really important is for us to consider what the impact of that might be on the people at the receiving end of those changes, which is why I’ve suggested that we replace “1 July 2024” with “31 July 2024”.

It’s not the only little change that’s coming through. We’ve also discussed, if you will, the changes to the parking ticket costs, if you don’t pay on time, and there are a few other things that are coming in. So I just think it would be good, in my opinion, for the Government to seriously consider lining these things up, because we do have a cost of living crisis—and it has been discussed through other stages of the bill the cost of living challenges that we face.

Often, we hear from people who are on low incomes having to dispose of their rubbish and their waste that actually the burden of doing that is quite challenging. Surely we would want people to have that extra $2 or $10 a week in their back pocket so that when these changes take effect, currently on 1 July 2024, but if we were to push that out, people might just have that little bit of extra cash in their bank account to be able to pay for these things.

So I thought quite carefully about the dates that we could look to here. I’d be very interested in hearing from the Minister. I think it would be wonderful, because obviously we want to be able to feel confident that these things have been considered by the Minister, and it’s very useful in a debate such as this that the Minister has had an opportunity to respond, otherwise we might need to take further calls just to clarify some of these genuine questions we’ve made.

One of my questions is also: has the Minister consulted widely and looked carefully at the impact of having this bill come into effect so soon on 1 July 2024? And would she consider there to be some benefit in pushing that out to 31 July 2024, just to ensure that the legislation can be implemented effectively? So those are my questions to the Minister. I’m really hoping that we may be able to get some answers from her. Thank you.

Before I take another call, I’m just going to say there is very little new information coming. Unless there is something more relevant, I will take a closure motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. On this, I would like to ask the Minister some questions around the commencement date. Specifically, I know that previously we have discussed potential projects and all of those things. But one thing that we have not discussed is on page 3 of the supplementary analysis report on identification of savings, which is around that this report that was being produced has not factored in the assessment of specific existing costs, such as current initiatives that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits, that will fall within the broader purpose of clause 4 that we have discussed before.

So my question to the Minister is: has she considered how these current projects that would be affected by the commencement date of 1 July and that fall into the broader scope of clause 4 will be either notified, or the work has been done with them, so that they are able to receive the funding and are able to receive the support from the shift of the funding in Budget lines within a one-month period? I think that is something we haven’t touched on before. On top of that, there is the discussion that I mentioned before on whether the administrative system has done that. But that has already been addressed, so I won’t ask that.

If this is something that the Minister could clarify and if it’s something that has been considered, that would be great. But if it’s something that hasn’t been considered, I would just like to also throw the Green Party’s support behind Rachel Boyack’s Amendment Paper of shifting the commencement date, just so that that way there is sufficient time for these current projects to get the funding and to get that balance that is needed. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Reuben Davidson’s tabled amendment to clause 1 replacing “waste disposal levy” with “last track levy” is out of order as not being a serious amendment.

The question is that clause 1 stand part.

The question is that Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment to clause 2 replacing “1 July 2024” with “31 July 2024” be agreed to.

The question is that clause 2 stand part.

The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading