Willis Scott; Simmonds PennySCOTT WILLIS (Green): 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 there 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 widening 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 has 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.Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): A slightly unusual request—because of course the levy is a contestable process with a very robust process that is not with the Minister's involvement. You're asking for some assurances about making sure certain entities will be funded through this. 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 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."