Court SimonHAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES AND NEW ORGANISMS (HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES ASSESSMENTS) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 11 May.SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. The ACT Party supports any improvement in the regulatory system of Government. That's why we support the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill because it will make it easier for the Government agency—the Environmental Protection Agency—to assess chemicals to assess products that are used on-farm on roads in factories to assess them for safety and to confirm that they are suitable for use in New Zealand. But the ACT Party must draw attention to the fact that this piece of legislation which was crafted in the early 2000s in response to the dire threat of genetically modified organisms taking over and merging with other organisms and taking over the food production and maybe even taking over human beings—who knew?—is well out of date and long overdue for an upgrade.But of course the reason it was so top heavy and so complex to start with was because so many of the issues that concerned people about the environment and human health were not well understood by the activists and those who shouted the loudest at the time. In fact there were a number of books written about the GE corn that was going to infect all the other corn and cause all kinds of problems with crops. That never happened. The other problem that this legislation was intended to address of course was the legacy of toxic chemicals produced in those decades after World War II which included DDT pentachlorophenol 245-Trichlorophenoxyacetic Acid Lindane and Chlordane. They might have been used to treat timber or even to treat food and of course what we know is that they were toxic to humans toxic to future generations as well as to plants and animals. Now all of those chemicals have been banned and removed from use as far as practical and of course there are much better controls now on how they're used.So what we're left with actually is a piece of legislation that looked back to the problems of the 1980s and 1990s when those highly toxic chemicals were still in use and attempted to regulate them out of existence so they didn't pose a threat to human health. But by the time this legislation was passed in the early 2000s new generations of much safer products for use in food production and agriculture and animal welfare around the factory and even on the roads to control weeds and other noxious materials where people drive and walk—that generation of chemicals that have been produced in the past 20-odd years is far less harmful yet the legislation still looks backwards 20 30 40 years. So it's good it's being reformed and it'll be a much simpler pathway to get these hazardous substances classified so that we have a much better understanding of their risk and whether they are in fact hazardous or whether they're safe to use with adequate precautions.Now I've had the great pleasure of spending weeks and months wearing full chemical and biological protective equipment including masks and respirators and I didn't do that for fun maybe like some other members of this House; I did it for work. And what I want to tell the members of this House and people who might be watching is that actually even though these substances may be harmful if used incorrectly New Zealand is fortunate in that we have a good health and safety culture we understand risks and we get on with the job. The problem for people like the onion growers of New Zealand is in fact that they have applied for much safer chemicals that they want to use in food production than are currently allowed in New Zealand. They told us on the Environment Committee that in fact some of the chemicals that they're allowed to use in New Zealand are banned in other jurisdictions like the European Union. They've had applications with the Environmental Protection Agency for reassessment for years and years and years without them being reviewed and without getting a decision. That's putting their access to markets at risk it's also putting the health of people who consume products at risk and it makes it much more difficult for the onion growers for example to deliver a product that they can be confident in to consumers. So it's good there'll be an easier pathway. One of the reasons there'll be easier pathway is because it provides a much more limited opportunity for people who are environmental activists or have a bee in their bonnet about something to oppose the use of particular substances on essentially an ideological basis. There are some people who say We can kill all the pests and weeds simply with steam or with a bit of lemon juice or there must be some natural remedy we can use." Well the problem is that in an environment like New Zealand there are a whole lot of pest and weed species introduced actually for which there is no natural remedy. Those weed species are out of place in New Zealand and can only be controlled with chemical control. But one of the things the committee heard which is of great concern is not only are substances that might be used in the factory or on the farm or on the roads to kill weeds excessively regulated and hard to get permission to use but there's a whole other class of things that this bill deals with that were actually not up for reform and discussion and that is what this bill calls "new organisms". Now at the time the bill was passed genetic modification and genetic engineering were seen as an enormous bogeyman. There were books written about it there were documentaries done about it and people thought that a genetically engineered sweetcorn was going to start marching from the fields into town and do all kinds of damage. Of course it never happened; it was a load of nonsense. What we do know is that the use of gene-editing technology has the potential to deliver medical treatments that are currently unavailable in New Zealand. We heard from the Malaghan Institute who told us that some of the gene-edited treatments for aggressive cancers that are available as of right in Australia and that save hundreds of lives every year are not available in New Zealand because of the regressive backward-looking laws that mean we can't use a genetic technology outside of the laboratory in New Zealand. And this law the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is the main reason why we can't do it. So what submitters told the committee is "Actually it's good you're reforming this bit about on-farm chemicals and the sprays we use to kill weeds along the State highway but actually New Zealand needs you to focus on the really tough subject of reforming the laws around genetic modification and gene editing so we can have access to better medical treatments." and then if we extrapolate from that so we can have access to pest-control technology that currently is limited to dumping bucket loads of sodium monofluoroacetate or 1080 as some people might recognise it onto forests onto farmland all over New Zealand—a poison that's used in that way nowhere else in the world but which our Government our Department of Conservation and other agencies claim is the be-all and end-all and the only thing saving our forests from possums and yet it's quite clear that there are technologies available right now in terms of gene editing that should be up for discussion and that should be available in New Zealand. And then we think about on-farm methane emissions. Well I visited the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) last year and what they told us was that they found the gene to reduce methane emissions from cattle. So as I mentioned before in the House actually solving climate emissions is quite easy. It doesn't need 300 recommendations and strategies. The technology is available right now but because of this legislation which is unfortunately not up for debate today it's not available in New Zealand. What the LIC told us was "If you had to take the gene for low methane tasty meat woolly sheep animals that were resistant to pests and actually animals that would have a better lifetime welfare you would need access to gene-editing technology."So ACT will support this bill and we will also be asking this Government: when are they going to bring legislation to the House to actually reform the thing that New Zealand farmers and families and businesses need most and people who need medical treatment?"