Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I am proud to be presenting this bill that will enable us to be much better placed to deal with some of the environmental challenges facing us, and I think it is important that we have it in place as soon as possible.

This bill, as part of Budget 2024 legislation, expands the scope of activities the waste disposal levy can be used for under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. In addition to minimising waste, revenue from the levy will be spent on a wider range of projects supporting the environment. It makes sense to widen the use of the levy to address a broad range of environmental impacts. This is pragmatic, practical, and will lead to direct change on the ground.

This is a worthwhile bill that will benefit communities affected by an earthquake or cyclone, benefit reuse and recycling businesses, benefit those living near contaminated sites, benefit local authorities, and benefit New Zealanders.

I would like to thank most sincerely the Ministry for the Environment policy officials and legislative drafter for all the wonderful work they have done in preparing this bill so quickly. I commend the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s been an interesting Saturday morning here in the House. In the rest of the world, it’s June—but not here. I’m still wearing my Music Month badge and here we are, and the calendar is saying it’s 30 May.

We’ve been in here on Saturday morning, and I would say it’s a beautiful Saturday morning for anyone who’s beaming in from Dunedin and Christchurch, where it’s a beautiful day, but, of course, we’re here in Wellington. But, of course, we’re always excited to be in this wonderful Parliament, always excited to be scrutinising legislation. It’s much more fun when you’re making it yourself, and that is what I was doing in the last Parliament. I was working with some of the officials that the Minister has just referred to about new waste legislation, because our waste legislation is quite outdated, and we do need to do much better for product stewardship in particular. And that is something that the Minister has talked a lot about in the committee stage of the debate.

And I think, Madam Speaker—you were in the Chair for some of that, and you might have even made the point that you heard in a lot of contributions on our opposition to this amendment bill that there was a lot of focus on the extension of what the levy can be applied to, what it can be funded on, and this is for the central government half of the levy and that it can now go to anything to do with the environment, which is very wise.

We had discussions in the committee stage with the Minister, talking about the life of a product—a product can have many lives, and so it should be extended beyond what is in the current Act, the Waste Minimisation Act. I agree with that. It should apply to the landfills that we have that are contaminated sites and are causing all sorts of problems all around the country, and they’re going to continue to cause problems.

And, yes, it should also apply to emergency situations—no problem with that—but what we’re seeing is this wide extension to anything to do with the environment, with no nexus to waste, none at all with—and this is inserted, by clause 4, into section 3—“(2)(a)(ii) activities that reduce environmental harm or increase environmental benefits;”. There is no nexus there to waste. There could often be a nexus to waste, and the Minister gave some examples of that, but I also gave examples that referred to things like fertiliser running off a farm, nothing to do with waste, going into the waterways and contaminating those waterways, causing a toxic algae bloom and having fish die. That is a terrible environmental thing to happen. I don’t want that to happen, which is why we need to fund our environment properly, and that needs to happen in the Budget and needs to come from different streams that are not associated with a waste levy.

That money needs to come from either some sort of polluter-pays principle—and that’s a different argument that we could have—or a general tax, not a levy. This is a levy, and it’s related to waste, and there needs to be some nexus with that waste. Hence I proposed an amendment—the Greens also proposed amendments—that would have fixed this problem and provided that nexus, but the Government very clearly does not want to do that because they want to have some availability of this fund to pay for things that should be coming from a general tax.

And why they want to do that is because they’ve cut so much in this Budget from the environment. We know the good work that Jobs for Nature has done and the important work that was happening in the Essential Freshwater package. Those things have been cut, as well as the 7.5 percent cut generally throughout the Ministry for the Environment. That is shameful when the environment is so important to our economy. It is just so short-sighted to not be spending the money to prevent pollution from happening in the first place and to do the remediation of it.

This, of course, is in the context of all else that is happening in the environment at the moment. We had, right at the start of this term, the repeal of the Spatial Planning Act, which would have done much better long-term planning for our infrastructure and our environment. We’ve also had the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act, which was looking at environmental outcomes and trying to move the economic activity in the planning system away from the bespoke consent, by consent up the system to the plans and national directions to save everybody money and time, and to do better for the environment as well. That’s gone.

What have we got instead? We have a fast-track bill and the purpose of that bill overrides all that other legislation that provided for protections for the environment. That is what the bill does. We come here to question time, noting that we’re not having another question time for some time, and the Prime Minister will say the fast-track bill is going to do better for environmental outcomes. I can only conclude that he has not read it—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Except that this is not a discussion on the fast-track bill. So can we come back to the—

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Well, it’s—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, can we link it, please, at least. Thank you.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: The fast-track bill has a purpose to facilitate development. That comes before any environmental protections. There need not be any environmental protections in the way that that bill works. It’s totally linked to this bill and totally linked to the Budget, because there will be more environmental pollution and there will need to be more public funds spent to clean up that pollution. And those public funds—well, they should never have to happen in the first place—will need to come from a tax, not from a levy where there is no nexus.

That is the point—again, this is about a waste disposal levy. There is no nexus here. We had a discussion during the committee stage, as well, about the purpose of the Act, and when we put it to the Minister that there should be some nexus, she warned that you’ve got to be careful what you wish for here because the Waste Minimisation Act also provides for product stewardship schemes for things like fluorinated gases, and that’s totally correct. But the product stewardship parts of the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 are not in Part 3, which relates to the levy. They are in another part of the Act where the general purpose of the Act, which doesn’t change, is still to encourage waste minimisation and a decrease in waste disposal in order to protect the environment from harm and provide environmental, social, economic, and cultural benefit.

So any amendment to the amendment in this bill would not have harmed any potential product stewardship scheme for fluorinated gases , and I was encouraged that the Minister made that particular reference because that would be a very good thing to have some movement on, and I hope that she is doing that.

This bill could have been a good bill. Some things that it does are in the regulations at the moment. The regulations set out what the levy is, and they were always going to end in June 2025, and, of course, if we’d been in Government there would have been an amendment to the regulations to extend it out to set the fee. We’re doing that here in this bill, and that’s a fine thing to be doing, but it doesn’t need to be in Budget urgency. The only reason this bill is here, on whatever day it is, in urgency is because of all the cuts in the Budget to the environment, and the Government is desperate to still do some of that spending and so they’re looking for ways to find some money, and the only way they’ve been able to find some money is with this waste minimisation disposal levy. It’s not a levy—this is now a tax. And it’s a cynical move on behalf of the Government to try and dress it up as something green. It is absolutely not. It is the total opposite and it’s totally consistent with the terrible fast-track legislation and everything else we’re seeing from this destructive Government.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today we are here talking about waste minimisation and, in particular, the waste disposal levy. Now, our children deserve us to be really serious about climate action, about reducing waste, and about protecting our environment, and this Government is completely unserious about protecting the environment. It is all slash and burn.

Now, sitting here on a long weekend, I know that the other side and all of us here would rather be with our families. I just called my teenagers to let them know that I won’t be seeing them for a while. But we are here, even though we know the Government is going to push this bill through. And I think, why are we here? Why are we here fighting this when we know that they’re going to just push it through without that public consultation, without the select committee process? Well, we are here because it is our job to be the voice for the communities who didn’t get a chance to talk in select committee—the ones who this bill most affects. And it will be on record in the Hansard, and I am so proud of that, and that is why I am prepared to give up time with my family because we are paid to be here for the New Zealand people. And it will be on record in the Hansard that we fought for our next generation so that our tamariki aren’t having to deal with the waste that we are not being serious about dealing with today. So I’m happy to be here.

New Zealanders care about waste minimisation, and they deserve a Government who cares about waste minimisation as well. We have a massive waste problem in this country—1.76 billion plastic containers and bottles per year, 17.5 million tonnes of waste per year, overflowing rubbish bins, plastic pollution littering in our rivers. But what this Government wants to do is slash and burn funding for other areas of environment, which my colleagues here have spoken about, and take that money away from waste minimisation, which has a $2.4 billion infrastructure deficit. That deficit means that we are moving away from resource recovery.

I’ve talked about why resource recovery is so important. Resources are finite. Resources are finite and we are just throwing them into a tomb which is our landfill. When we value those precious resources, we invest our waste levy into bold solutions, into solutions that actually make a massive difference for everyday New Zealanders because it’s about system change. It’s not just tinkering with it around at the bottom; it is taking our waste problem seriously.

Now, Minister Simmonds in the committee of the whole House talked about New South Wales as an example of why we should broaden our definition of what this waste levy can be used for. Well, if the Minister is really serious about us comparing ourselves to New South Wales, then she would have accepted—the Government would have accepted—my amendments to increase the waste levy. Because at the moment, New South Wales is sitting at about $160 per tonne. In New Zealand, we’re at $60 per tonne. So you just have to do the maths there. You cannot compare us to a place that is over double the waste levy.

New Zealanders need to come in line with other countries like Australia and the UK, who are putting waste minimisation at the top of their priorities. So what needs to happen in this bill—and I really, really implore the other side to really think about the legacy that will be on record for the future generations when you continue to just let this planet burn. We can make a meaningful impact so that we are not stealing the futures of our tamariki, so that they can have the legacy of abundance that is their birthright, and so that you are putting their futures over a few quick bucks for landlords.

This bill has huge implications for New Zealand. It is not a pragmatic approach. It is smoke and mirrors. And just because you say you care about the environment, we can actually see that actions speak louder than words, and your actions are speaking very loudly today.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please don’t use the word “you”.

KAHURANGI CARTER: Thank you. And the Government’s actions are speaking very loudly today.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

KAHURANGI CARTER: Now, on this side of the House, we actually have vision. We have a vision for a future where our kids can live on a livable planet, where they can walk to school and there’s fruit hanging from the sidewalks, and they don’t need to go and spend hundreds of dollars on fruit and vegetables every week because it is just everywhere. And do you know what? That is what we can achieve.

Just like up in the Far North at Roma Marae—a very, very remote part of New Zealand which has a lack of waste infrastructure and not that many shops. So what the community did, because they were resourced by this levy, was bring together the environment hub. They brought together the Community Business and Environment Centre, they brought together Para Kore, they brought together the Panguru kura to all come, because communities actually know the solutions that they need for their communities. They came together. We talked about waste minimisation. We talked about solutions. And together with the community, with the businesses, we decided that, actually, something that would really help with waste minimisation would be growing a food forest. Now, that was three years ago, and that food forest now is providing kai for the tamariki who were there helping grow it.

And these are the initiatives that we need to be investing in—local initiatives. And when we understand that New Zealanders care about Papatūānuku and New Zealanders care about our children’s futures, New Zealanders want this Government to take climate action, and they want the New Zealand Government to take plastic pollution seriously.

This bill should never have been brought in without consultation. I spoke yesterday to the Zero Waste Network, I spoke to the founder of Wānaka Wastebusters, I spoke to the founder of Para Kore, I spoke to the founder of The Rubbish Trip, and all of them say that they want to be heard on this matter. These are the experts who have been doing this work since way before it was cool. But New Zealanders know that waste minimisation is cool. That is why they are out there doing the work, and our Government needs to stop putting all the responsibility for waste minimisation on the people and start being serious and looking at actual system change.

When I worked at the Ministry for the Environment, I worked in strategic partnerships. That was where we were able to see community, we were able to see business, we were able to see Government come together and work in partnership. Even if we had different worldviews, we were moving towards the same goalpost because we were serious about waste minimisation, and that is where that vision is. It lies with everyday New Zealanders, it lies with community, it lies with the businesses, and the Government needs to come to the table as well. Because when we all put our heads together, when we come up with innovative, clever solutions, we can make a real impact and reduce waste in this country—1.76 billion plastic containers and bottles per year; that is not good enough. That is not good enough for our kids and their legacy of abundance that they deserve.

I want to talk about why it’s so important to me that my children and their children and every generation after can live on a livable planet and can have everything that they need to thrive. That’s because nature, Papatūānuku and Ranginui, provide us everything we need to sustain our lives: mind, body, and soul. So we need to do everything we can to respect and protect Papatūānuku, and that is what waste minimisation is about. It’s about waste not, want not, it’s about dealing with our own rubbish so that our tamariki and future generations aren’t living on a burnt planet.

Well, that was a vapid speech from Kahurangi Carter. This bill provides incentives to reduce waste through a levy. It expands the scope for activities which can be supported to support positive environmental outcomes and, therefore, social outcomes, today and into the future. I commend this bill to the House.

I agree completely with some of the things which have been said around the importance of waste minimisation, the importance of reduction, reducing, and recycling. We also all agree, I think, about the importance of restoring and looking after the environment.

I think the Opposition have two key issues. One, which they’re clearly confused about, is: do they want the levy to go up or do they want to keep it down? They seem quite confused about that. The second thing I’d say, in terms of that levy, is that Kahurangi Carter talked about 1.6 billion plastic containers, and, of course, those got put on a policy bonfire by the Labour Government at the beginning of February last year.

The other thing to mention is that we have an infrastructure deficit—yeah, we agree with that. But we have an infrastructure deficit across every single class of infrastructure, whether it’s roads, whether it’s railways, whether it’s water, or whether it’s landfills. We have an infrastructure deficit right across the board, and that is one of the reasons why, in this Budget, we have $1.5 billion to fix some of the infrastructural deficit in education. I commend this bill to the House.

To te Whare. First of all, Madam Speaker, if you’ll indulge me: tuatahi māku, ki tōku whāea ki a Moana Sinclair kua riro atu ki roto i te rangi kua pahure ake nei. Ki tōku whāea ki a Hinerangi Puru kua riro atu ki te pō. Kotahi tonu te kōrero ki a rāua tahi: haere mai hāere.

[Firstly for me, to acknowledge Moana Sinclair, who has recently passed away. And to my aunt Hinerangi Puru who has travelled to the night. There is only but one thing to say to you both: welcome and farewell.]

First, I wanted to acknowledge Moana Sinclair, a lawyer and a staunch advocate for Māori rights, who, sadly, passed away in the past two days, and also Hinerangi Puru, who, for many of us, and all of us that have been to Waitangi, is one of those special kuia who you know where she stands on matters—she’s very direct and very upfront about how she feels.

Why is it important to acknowledge both of them, but in particular, for me, coming from up north, Hinerangi Puru? Hinerangi is the daughter of Dame Whina Cooper. Dame Whina Cooper, of course, led the famous land march here to Parliament, leaving her home in Pānguru, in the Far North and making the march all the way down here. The slogan and the kōrero that she gave everyone that marched with her was “Not one more acre.” Now, people think that’s just simply an acre of land. That’s a far too simplistic way to look at a very complex and intelligent woman. “Not one more acre” meant looking after the land too. It meant let’s care for our environment; let’s make sure that if we aren’t losing any more acreage, we leave it in a better state for our tamariki and our mokopuna. So I want to acknowledge Hinerangi Puru, who passed away, sadly, and will be on her marae this evening in Pānguru. That’s important, because I stand to oppose the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill. Once upon a time, I was a civil defence Minister—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: That’s right—a very good one.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Thank you very much. I thoroughly enjoyed the role. Nobody enjoys being in places where emergencies and tragedies are happening, but it was a role that I relished and I enjoyed meeting amazing people who did amazing things. One of the fallouts, though, was that it wasn’t just the event itself.

Many of the people in this House will remember when the flood took place in the West Coast and an old landfill ended up washing into the river. Many people from the South Island know what needs to happen with a matter called “dross”: where it goes, what happens if it touches water, and how it impacts people. For those people in that township down in the South Island, poor waste management policies and poor waste management practices by corporate bodies in this country continue to affect our communities far and wide. So my point to this Minister for the Environment is: it’s no good just looking at the levy. Let’s have a good hard look at all the suites of policies and legislation that can allow communities to do the right things with their waste.

Of course, Mr Foster has said that he’s a little confused. All the parties on this side of the House have clearly said we’re happy for the levy to go up, but what we don’t want to see it do is be spread even more thin, right across the country. It’s got to be far more specific and far more deliberate, or what’s going to happen is we’re going to have more and more cases like dross in Mataura.

Hon Penny Simmonds: Removed years ago.

Hon PEENI HENARE: We’re going to have more and more riverbank washouts in the West Coast.

And Penny Simmonds might bark back from the other side of the House, but that Minister needs to know that very soon those things will come home to roost. Without good planning and without consultation with the public and the community, what’s going to happen is, through this bill, the pūtea, or the levy, will be spread even further and far afield. It’ll be a case of giving with one hand and punching you in the puku with the other. That’s what’s going to happen.

Sadly, what it also does is it blurs what’s good investment—it’s not deliberate enough. It says, “Oh, we’re going to invest in this because we think it’s good for the environment.” That’s not good enough. We need this to go towards more waste minimisation initiatives—ones that are already set up; ones that are working well in our community to further support the work that’s being done. My colleagues right across on this side of the House have given fantastic examples.

So my final words are: to the whānau out there who do this mahi, thank you. Don’t lose hope. We’re here for you. You might not have been able to find your voice on this particular bill, because it’s being rammed through unnecessarily, but here we are, standing up for you. I oppose this bill. I’m really saddened that the Minister had the opportunity to work constructively with this side of the House and failed to take it. It’s because of that, we’re going to go even harder into the evening. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Andy Foster: Here we go.

STEVE ABEL: Here we go—you are right about that. There is no away place, Andy Foster. There is no away place. Waste needs somewhere to go—waste needs somewhere to go—and if you don’t put it in the right place, it causes a legacy of toxic mess for generations to come. And right now, all across this country, the public is having to pay for cleaning up a bad history of waste management. There are dozens of sites across every district in this country—in fact, up to hundreds of sites—that need to be managed, and we are still creating the problem. We are still landfilling millions of tonnes of waste that should not be going to landfill. The reason that we, the Green Party, under Nándor Tánczos, put up the Waste Minimisation Act was to address that, and it was supported and taken on board by the Labour Party. And they will also at some point support our very wise proposition for increasing the actual volume of the levy, because we like to bring the Parliament with us on what needs to be done to address this very important issue of waste.

There is no away place, and when the levee breaks, we have no place to stay. What do I mean by that? I mean that the levy, as rightly articulated by my colleagues David Parker and Rachel Brooking, is a very important thing that we all agree on. We agree on the levy, and we agree it should be increased, but if you start frittering it away on the wrong things, you are squandering that vital—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please don’t use the word “you”. Thank you.

STEVE ABEL: Pardon me. Madam Speaker, I’m really sorry. I am genuinely trying to work on that thing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not alone, Mr Abel.

STEVE ABEL: I appreciate that it’s against the rules, and I apologise.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: You’ll never walk alone!

STEVE ABEL: Thank you—over the hills and far away. If we waste the levy on things it is not designed for, we fail to actually mitigate the waste problem; we fail to actually accumulate the money that we need to build the infrastructure to actually deal with the waste problem. And that is a crime. That is a terrible thing to pass down to future generations.

What’s more, this amendment to the Act actually means that you can use this waste levy for cleaning up things that were produced by other industries, such as acid mine drainage from the coal industry, such as tailings failure. Tailings dams, if you don’t know about them, are a consequence of the mining industry. There’s a massive one outside Waihī full of cyanide. They commonly fail around the world, and they commonly kill people when they fail, and they cost a lot of money to clean up. Why is there not a levy on the mining industry to address the legacy of that industry’s cost? Why is the levy being put instead on municipal waste to cover the cost of the effects of contaminated sites from the mining industry?

That is an absolute failure, and this Government here, this “coal-ition” Government, want to do even more of that mining. They want to do even more of that mining and create even more of those acid mine drainage sites and those toxic tailings dam levees that in extreme weather events—which we’re seeing more and more of because of climate change, which is caused by coal burning, coincidentally, in case no one knew. Because climate change is going to cause more extreme weather events, it is in those circumstances of huge rainfall that you get more tailings dam failures. So we are facing that risk as a consequence of climate change. Why is there not a levy put on the oil, gas, and coal industry, the “drill, baby, drill” industry that this “coal-ition” Government want to have more of? Why is there not a levy put on them to clean up the mess that they are going to create?

That is where the levy for those toxic site contamination cleanups should be coming from, not from municipal waste, not from construction waste, not from the things that this waste levy was designed to do. That is why we will be voting against this bill—that is why we will be voting against this bill—and when the Government is ready to have a conversation about how we do a waste levy well, we’ll be there for it, Scott Simpson. We’ll be there for it.

There’s something truly bizarre about a Green Party that is railing against a piece of practical, prudent environmental legislation that is designed to entirely fund exactly the sort of thing they’re complaining about, like the Fox River disaster that occurred in 2019. Now, I’m delighted, on behalf of this side of the House, to commend this bill to the House, because it represents everything that is good about a blue-green approach to environmental-practical approach.

I have moments, and I did last night, where I have a pregnant pause because sometimes I am flabbergasted. This is a debating chamber and we’re supposed to debate the elements of legislation that come through. And it’s hard to respond when there’s been little debate because there’s not much said from the Government side. But the previous speaker who just resumed his seat feels like this is good environmental practice and law.

But this legislation is actually around waste minimisation. That’s what was on the tin when it was created in 2008. That’s what it was there to do. And there’s a real challenge, as we look at this, because it’s doing things now that it wasn’t intended to do. Yeah, of course we agree we want to do everything we can to protect our environment, but then the challenge is that they take money from the Ministry for the Environment. They take money away from protecting nature. They take money away from climate change. So they’ve got to find it somewhere else, and so they extend this legislation. They make a huge chasm where they can dump all their rubbish and all their silly ideas into.

Now, this is a debating chamber and we need to be debating these issues. But, again, when it’s 30-second, 20-second calls, it’s hard to engage in a good debate. But, thankfully, this side of the House have been constructive and have brought good ideas and we look forward to implementing them in 2026.

The original Act, in 2008, was to promote and achieve waste minimisation—to promote and to achieve waste minimisation. That’s it—a levy. And, as the Hon David Parker mentioned in the committee stage, this isn’t about a levy; this is about a tax now, because suddenly it broadens everything out. And it’s not about waste minimisation; it is about finding dollars and cents to throw at the environment because they have purged and plundered. And, when he spoke about that—I didn’t get a chance in the committee stage to speak on the title, but I had thought about some ideas of what it could have been, what the title could have been on this bill. And one of them I had thought about was maybe it could have been the “Waste Minimisation (It Looks Like a Tax; It Sounds Like a Tax; It Smells Like a Tax; It Takes Like a Tax; Let’s Call it a Levy) Act”. But, obviously, I didn’t get that one through. I think it would have been good.

Why I bring that up is because officials have actually talked about this. Officials have, in one of the key documents, talked about the fact that in accordance with Treasury guidelines for setting changes in the public sector, in practice, fees and levies might not fit into discreet categories and could be considered as being on a spectrum. And it goes on to say that, in this way, a levy might be more akin to a tax. This is a tax. It smells like a tax. It takes like a tax. It is a tax, because, initially, of course, you would have your construction waste.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, not “you”.

GLEN BENNETT: Someone would have—well, I know where you live and I know that you’re into—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know where you live, too.

GLEN BENNETT: —home renovations, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before anyone gets upset about that, we’re almost neighbours; so don’t worry about it.

GLEN BENNETT: Thank you. It does sound a bit weird; I apologise. DIY projects—so you want to do a renovation. Someone wants to do a renovation in their kitchen. Someone wants to, you know, develop the sleep-out. And, of course, they have bits of leftover timber, and, whether they’re treated or untreated, they take them to the dump. They pay a levy because that money from the levy then goes to support initiatives that reduce waste. So, now, when somebody—it wouldn’t be myself because I’m a horrific home improvement person; it would be someone like the Hon Duncan Webb, probably, would be renovating his ancient abode in Christchurch there. And he’ll take his waste to the dump and he will pay a fee. He will pay a tax because that money won’t go into waste minimisation; it could, but it might end up in environmental projects.

So, of course, we think that’s great, but it’s not what the bill was about when it was created more than 15 years ago. So we really want to address—well, I don’t want to offend elephants—the issues in the room today. And the reason we’re here in urgency, the reason we are sitting here discussing this, is because the Government cuts, cuts, cuts on all fronts when it comes to our environment, on all fronts when it comes to climate change. They took money out on 30 June. They took a lot of money out—millions and millions of dollars—and so they need to make up for it somewhere else. So “Oh, we’ve got this little wee bill over here that probably doesn’t need to go through urgency because it probably doesn’t meet the threshold, but, hey, we’ll just try it anyway.” And here we are without the ability for infrastructure companies, without the ability for construction companies, without the ability for green waste companies, without the ability for home DIYers to actually speak into this and talk about these levies, talk about these fees, talk about what they think this money should be used for.

The narrow criteria was meaningful. The narrow criteria had a purpose around waste minimisation. And so here we are—here we are. For most New Zealanders, it’s 1 June. It’s the first day of winter. But here we are on 30 May and it’s cold, and it’s cold and it’s depressing in here.

So, what was this for? So, hopefully, the Government MPs know what this was for. It was around things like curb-side collection. It was around things like the assets and infrastructure to ensure food and green waste, that we still want to do. It was about organic waste - processing facilities. It was around resourcing for the recovery for infrastructure, where they get rid of construction waste. It was around projects that must be directly diverted from landfills. And, now, some of that might happen, but not all the time. Some of it might happen but it’s going to be money’s going to be sprinkled over here; money’s going to be sprinkled over there; money’s going to be sprinkled, sprinkled everywhere. And it’s not good.

I also had done some thinking around the title, because, again, I’m just unsure because the word “levy” is triggering, and it is, I know, for all sides of the House. But I did have a look and have a think and I would have liked to have seen some ideas pass, but, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

Another idea I had was the “Waste Minimisation Fiscal Savings for Budget 2024 Act”, but, you know, didn’t quite meet the threshold. Then there was the “Waste Minimisation that Occurs Through the Life of a Product Act”, which the Hon Penny Simmonds talked about. Then I talked about the “Waste Minimisation Finding Funds for Nature from this Act Because We Didn’t Use It in the Other Acts”, but that probably isn’t going to work either. Then there was the “Waste Minimisation Wasted, Wasted Acts”, but that just sounded a little bit dodgy and some people were really struggling with that.

But then I did have, and I think this is important—and I think this is a serious one. I think this actually could have been the bill. Because, as we know, and as one of my colleagues said earlier, the title is actually really important. When you go somewhere and you see a name on something, you know what you’re getting.

James Meager: Here comes the standing ovations.

GLEN BENNETT: Yeah, I’m happy for a standing ovation. I’d really appreciate that, because I think what we’re doing is pushing on something because nature is not standing and giving an ovation. Nature is not happy with what this Government is doing. And it was the “Waste Minimisation (Don’t You Know That It’s Toxic?) Act”. I don’t know. I was going to sing it, but I thought I better not because I might put the House into disrepute.

In closing, I think we really need to consider what has gone on in the last three days—what has gone on—whether it is our environment and ignoring it, whether it’s our climate and ignoring it, whatever it is. This Budget was terrible for the environment. It’s an outrage; it’s wrong. And you know what? When you look at 4,000 fauna and flora that only are found in this country, when you look at world regulations and world bodies mocking New Zealand for the way that we are treating our environment, I am offended, and it is wrong that we should allow cuts in some places and then sprinkles and nickels and dimes in others to feel like we’re appeasing our environment, to feel like we’re appeasing our climate. I think we need to totally scrap this and start again. I think we need to consider what we’re doing for the environment. I think we need to start again.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill is a good bill. It’s a win for in the environment. I commend it to the House.

This is a split call.

Madam Speaker, I rise to take a call—I did try to ask some questions in the committee stage, but I want to come back to this waste minimisation bill that is before us. Labour opposed this bill because we don’t see the value in diminishing the relationship in terms of broadening the criteria of the levy that we’ve all been talking about.

Many of my colleagues on this side of the House have traversed a number of reasons why the bill is not being supported on this side of the House, and one of the things that I wanted to raise was the fact that many communities throughout Aotearoa have heavy industry belts. What that means is industries that do quite a lot of damage to not just the air but also to the soil, and communities such as Māngere, such as a couple in South Auckland, are having to put up with industries who are contaminating the soils, who have industries such as recycling plants but are not taking care of things like scrap metal. And when you have a disaster in your local community that produces a fire because the current legislative requirements have not been met, Fire and Emergency have to tackle that—block the roads for two days; there’s a big fire and in that particular industry. So all the things that come out of an incident like that affect local communities.

One of the things that I wanted to raise that was in the analysis was the pace that this bill has been written at. The analysis and the modelling I would really question, because of the impacts on local communities and the limited assessment, particularly when you don’t have a select committee process, when you don’t have the voice of our community to raise issues right across the motu. And especially our rangatahi. In my local area, our rangatahi, our young people have been very, very active because this impacts on their future. So I want to raise on their behalf that part of the waste minimisation initiatives must include education—education of cause and effects. And my hope is that the Government needs to listen to the voices of their communities because we are here because of our communities. So when our communities don’t have a voice, we need to stand up as members and represent their voice.

Education is important because the waste minimisation speaks about that environmental harm, and in local communities, whether you’re from rural, whether you’re from an urban environment, many of our young people want to be involved in the good initiatives because they understand the environmental harm. And this bill doesn’t provide the context in which young people can get involved in actually pushing their views forward, because they’re really concerned about their environmental space, particularly in the urban areas. And when you come from backgrounds such as Māori  such as Pasifika, such as ethnic, then how do you input into laws of the land that you don’t even get a look in? When you don’t have stakeholder consultation, when you don’t—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we just avoid the use of the word “you”.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: Apologies, Madam Speaker. You’ve said that to nearly every person that stood up and I do apologise. It is really important that we receive stakeholder feedback in every process of the legislative chamber.

I wanted just to, quickly in my time that is left, reinforce as to why Labour is opposing this specific bill—because it just weakens, it doesn’t provide the opportunity for the public to raise specific issues around remediation of contaminated areas, around freshwater improvement, and specifically when you’ve got a large youth population and communities who don’t necessarily understand as to the environmental impacts. So this levy that is going to be collected doesn’t really benefit; it’s an indirect benefit for our local communities. And that’s why I want to stand up and advocate that as part of the suite of options, education around protecting our environment is very, very important. Thank you.

This bill would make us better placed to deliver better environmental outcomes, so I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to speak once again—in such a short space of time—on this bill. I did, when I spoke earlier, reference the fact that this morning, when I was getting a coffee before coming into the House, someone asked me at the place where we get coffee whether we were getting tired. At the time I said, “No, we’re just getting started.” We’re just getting started.

Hon Member: You look tired.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: A member across the House just shouted that I look tired. Obviously, that member hasn’t looked at the policy they’re putting forward—that’s tired. But then, at lunch, the person at lunch said, “Now you must be getting tired.”, and I said, “No, we’re just getting going.”, because we are just getting going.

Now, I don’t want to waste any time, but I will make sure that I go slowly through this speech, because there are so many points that I need to cover off in this last opportunity, due to this rushed process. What I would say is that whilst this Government is wasting no time moving this bill through, they are trashing the process—trashing the process. There are several issues to cover in this call, and I’m going to struggle to fit it all in but I will do my best—I will do my best.

I want to talk about the impacts on community, and this will come up in a few parts of this speech because this process today has excluded community, and we know that this bill and its effects will really affect our communities. I’m going to revisit one of the things that I spoke about in my earlier speech. The Minister said that it didn’t really sit in the purview of this bill, but I think that it’s important that we revisit it, because it’s exactly what happens when communities are adversely affected by the impacts of waste facilities.

This is our beautiful estuary environment in Christchurch East, a stunning natural environment. It’s home to the river, the estuary, and the ocean. It has native flora and fauna. Native and exotic bird species nest there. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. But it’s also home to an organics processing plant, and there’s been a long and ongoing issue with the smell that is generated by that organics processing plant. It’s a really, deeply offensive smell. It’s very hard to live with, and it has really affected local residents, many of whom can’t stay in their homes when that smell hits their houses at night. It’s affected schools, where kids can’t leave their classroom to eat their lunch, to play in their playground, or to ride their bike or their scooter home. It’s really affected communities.

Just to give a sense of how deep that effect is, I just wanted to read you the time line of the process that it took—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just ask the member—I understand the gravity of that situation, but I would like the link to come back to the waste minimisation bill.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: It definitely will—it definitely will. It ties directly into my first amendment. But thank you very much for reminding me of that, Madam Speaker. I think you will find it directly links to the amendment that I wasn’t able to speak to at that stage of the bill this morning.

On 20 January 2021, an abatement notice was issued to the organics processing plant requiring that there be no offensive and objectionable odour beyond the boundary after 31 January 2022; 1 February 2022, Environment Canterbury issues notice of non-compliance to the organics processing plant; 2 June 2022, Environment Canterbury issued notice of non-compliance to the organics processing plant; 4 June, another non-compliance notice; 31 August, a formal investigation into odours across eight dates; 19 December, another notice; 10 January, a non-compliance notice; 15 January; 19 January; 26 January—and on it goes.

Andy Foster: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The last time we were on a third reading, we were instructed quite clearly by the Speaker to stick to the bill. He has gone a long, long way from the bill and hasn’t come anywhere near it for a very long time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for that point of order. I am listening for the connection.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Speaking to that point of order, Madam Speaker. If I may, this has cropped up before under urgency, particularly Budget urgency, where we haven’t had an opportunity to study this and prepare a great deal in advance. Speaker’s ruling 137/1 makes it quite clear that where a bill is passed through all stages under urgency, there’s a much wider approach than is normally the case, and that’s a ruling by Mr Mallard.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do understand that, Dr Webb. I would just like some linkage please. Thank you.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Absolutely, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The good news is that I can now move on to how that sequence of dates and that community activity links into the point I was wanting to raise about the first amendment. That first amendment was a suggestion to change—or a request to change; an amendment to change—two words, and it’s because words really matter.

Now, if you want an example of how much words matter, here’s a really good example. “You will get X”—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not “you”.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: OK. Members—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We’re really struggling today. Everyone’s getting tired.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: I was so sure I wasn’t going to say it—so sure I wasn’t going to say it. [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. Let’s give Mr Davidson a chance.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll get back to my example of how much words matter.

Hon Member: Oh, must you?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: I must—I must. Here’s how words matter. “Members are entitled to X.”—members are entitled to X. Now, how different is it when you say, “Members are entitled to up to X.” It’s entirely different—entirely different. X becomes two different things when you add two words—“up to”—in front of it.

The two words I want to talk about in my suggested amendment was the difference between—and I’ve got them here because I think it’s really important that we focus on the detail of these. One of those words was “society”—society—and my amendment suggested changing it to “community”. Now, “society” can be defined as an organisation or club formed for a particular purpose or activity, and the definition of “community” is the conditions of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common. So words do matter because there’s quite a big difference between society and community.

The sequence of dates—and the point that I was making with that sequence of dates—that wasn’t a society; that was a community working together to challenge a council and to challenge a process that was taking place and was having a really detrimental effect on their community, not on their society. Hence my request in my amendment to change that word, because words do matter.

Now, the second amendment, which was to change the title to being the “Waste Minimisation (Last-track Levy) Amendment Bill”, was because it really is the mechanism of this bill now to be a very, very, very small safety net for some of the very, very, very big negative impacts that projects given permission by the fast-track bill will have on environments and on communities. So for those who don’t remember the reference at the time, I said, “What’s in the box should be what’s on the box”, but, in fact, what I should have said is, “What’s in the tin should be what’s on the tin”. So for anyone who got lost, “in the tin; on the tin” not “in the box; on the box”. So that was “what’s in the tin should be what’s on the tin”.

Hon Member: What about the bottle?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: A member did suggest talking about the bottle. I think it’s probably best that we don’t talk about the bottle.

What I did think would be important would be to talk about the reason that this bill has been pushed through in such haste, and we know that’s because the cuts that have been made in this Budget today, 30 May, are going to leave a really big shortfall in environmental spending. What’s required is that the small amounts of existing revenue are then funnelled into other activities—so taken away from where they’re currently hypothecated—and the scope of this bill is broadened out so they can be used in other places.

What we’re looking at here in this Budget is cuts to environment operating funding of close to $400 million. That’s $400 million. That’s a lot. It’s a sixth of what landlords—mega landlords—got in tax cuts in this Budget, but it’s a huge, huge and disgraceful amount of money to claw out of environmental spending, and I can’t imagine how anyone will sleep well tonight. I certainly hope they won’t before midnight. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I think it is about time we got this bill passed. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.