Shirley Ken: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Shirley Ken: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11808] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party joins with every other party I think in this House in supporting the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill. I would like to comment on the legislative process but before I do I commend the chairman of the Education and Science Committee the Hon Brian Donnelly whom we have just heard from. He clearly has a very good grasp of this legislation and steered it through the committee under considerable duress. I think the House should note the tremendous job he has done under what I would regard as unreasonable pressures that were put on the select committee by this Labour Government. 
I was aghast to learn in this debate that the bill had its first reading on 18 November 2003—last year—and that the chairman of the select committee only learnt of the report-back date at the time of the referral motion. That referral motion set the report-back date to be 3 days after the recommencement of Parliament in 2004. Now that was an outrage. There has been indecent haste. People have been forced to make submissions through the Christmas-January period. That is happening too often under this Government and I may say with this Minister the Hon Marian Hobbs. 
There is a parallel situation with regard to Project Aqua in terms of the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee is meeting at 7 o’clock tonight to deliberate on that bill. The Government wants to ram the bill through next week and that committee has faced a similar time constraint. I can speak with authority as a member of that select committee and say there has been indecent haste. As a legislator I am not satisfied or convinced that every submitter has had a reasonable hearing. Officials have been put under intolerable pressure all because this Government cannot manage its affairs. 
The point was well made in this debate that the hazardous substances legislation goes back to 1996. This Government has been in power now for—what 4 years? It seems a lot longer but— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It seems a lifetime. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: It seems a lifetime of misery but it is about 4 years. All of a sudden late last year the Minister had a rush of blood to the head. She rushed this bill into the House and gave unreasonable instructions to the select committee. Brian Donnelly did his best—I think he did a good job in the circumstances—but it is not fair in terms of the legislative programme for Governments to behave in this way. This Labour Government is behaving like that consistently. Time and time again it is treating select committees with contempt. I say to the Government that in doing so it is treating the people of New Zealand with contempt. It is an arrogance that comes when a Government has been in power too long—far too long. We are seeing more and more of that arrogance and total disregard for due process—and disregard for the select committee process in particular. I say to this Government that it should heed this advice and be warned that the public of New Zealand will not accept that sort of behaviour. 
The legislative process on this bill has been appalling. I think all parties—even the Government—must concede that. But in terms of the content of the bill I think that has been very well explained by the chairman. I do not need to repeat the details. The bill is sensible in that this is a very complex technical area but the bill sets out to streamline some of the processes and to introduce some flexibility in the transitional measures—all aimed at reducing the compliance cost thresholds. The ACT party certainly supports that and therefore we will be voting for this bill.