Shirley Ken: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Shirley Ken: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6941] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: ACT New Zealand will be supporting this legislation. It will allow New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm convention addressing the global problems of persistent organic pollutants. This country has had widespread use of some of these substances with our agricultural base: dieldrin widely used in sheep dips through New Zealand and the residues of that are still in our soils; DDT used very extensively in this country to combat grass grub and other applications; and the polychlorinated biphenyls widely used in the electricity industry with transformers etc. It is not many decades since we drained transformer oil on the side of a road or into a ditch without recognising that we were releasing concentrated polychlorinated biphenyls and there are substantial sites around New Zealand that hold serious levels of that. 
Most of these substances are no longer in use. We are really talking about passing laws to stop them being reused. I think in most instances that that is most unlikely. But let us not be too harsh in beating up on them. If we look at DDT yes it is persistent but it is not particularly toxic. People do not actually die from DDT. It just hangs around for a long time. It does not hang around as DDT; it degenerates to DDD and then DDE which I understand has a half-life of about 20000 years so it does stay about for a while. That is the problem: its persistency and its accumulation in food chains and the like. 
But also let us remember the role that DDT has played in combating malaria globally. Millions of people have died from malaria. More people died from malaria in the First World War than died from the fighting. A lot of people forget that. It is the use of DDT on a global basis that has saved the lives of millions of people—we must remember that at all times when we tend to get harsh and judgmental on the use of these chemicals. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons mentioned her concern with regard to dioxins and furans as the products of combustion and the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of those substances. I am always a bit curious though about our Minister for the Environment because I believe that the solution is high temperature incineration. That does break down these substances. It removes them and destroys them utterly yet our Ministry for the Environment seems to be constantly opposing any proposal for high-temperature incineration to dispose of them. Instead it seems to favour landfills. Landfills are actually a major source of dioxins in this country yet the Ministry for the Environment seems to choose that option in preference to high-temperature incineration. I always find that rather curious. 
ACT will certainly support this bill. Generally we are very careful when we look at ratification of United Nations conventions and at importing those into our law but this one is really consistent with what has become practice in this country. There are alternatives to the use of some of those synthetic substances. We have phased them out in most instances and we now have the safeguards in this bill as it came back from the select committee that allow for the continued use controlled use and phase-out of those for which we have yet to find suitable alternatives.