Barker Rick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Barker Rick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:10123] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister for the Environment 
: I move  
That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee for consideration that the committee report the bill finally to the House by 13 February 2004 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer and during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c). 
In June the Government announced a strategy to improve the workability of the hazardous substances provisions of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. This strategy was developed in close consultation with industry leaders and focuses on improving workability to enable the Act to better serve its purpose—that is to protect the environment and the health and safety of people and communities by preventing or managing the adverse effects of hazardous substances. The strategy identified a number of prioritised actions with the most critical actions delivered first. This bill is the first legislative action identified in the strategy. The bill’s primary objectives are to enable the practical application of controls to all hazardous substances and to provide for practical management of the transitional period. 
This bill in providing for those outcomes reduces the cost to the Government and industry reduces barriers to innovation and better protects the environment and the health and safety of people and communities. The bill does not affect the Act’s operation over new organisms at all. 
As I stated earlier the changes in this bill reduce the costs to industry and to Government and will reduce the barriers to innovation. Costs to industry are reduced by providing for cost-effective controls to be assigned to all hazardous substances existing or new regulated under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act whether they are explosives ammunition fuels solvents printing inks window cleaners lubricants poisons or fly sprays. Costs to the Government are reduced by removing unnecessary constraints on the processes of transferring existing hazardous substances. The transfer is the process of assigning each existing hazardous substance a hazard classification and appropriate Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act controls thereby replacing the controls that previously applied under former laws such as the Explosives Act the Pesticides Act and the Toxic Substances Act. Transfer is primarily a technical process that will bring the regulation of hazardous substances under one statute—the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. 
The bill provides for transfers to be effected by publication of a decision of the Environmental Risk Management Authority as a notice of transfer in the  
New Zealand Gazette 
 rather than by making an Order in Council. That is more efficient and timely with the same health and environmental outcomes as a result. The level of consultation with the community and industry will be the same as for the present day transfer process. Once the existing hazardous substances are transferred they will be used as similar reference substances by applicants when applying to introduce a new hazardous substance. That enables processing via the lower cost lesser information and faster rapid-assessment pathway. Therefore by enabling a transfer to proceed in a more efficient and timely way costs to industry are reduced as approvals for new hazardous substances become faster and more cost-efficient to obtain. 
I stated earlier that the bill provides for protecting the environment and the health and safety of peoples and communities. The level of protection afforded by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is strengthened by this bill. By enabling faster and more cost-efficient approvals we make the introduction of safer new-generation substances easier thereby helping to reduce the overall level of risk from hazardous substances. This also reduces barriers to innovation and provides greater opportunity for smart economic growth. 
This bill reduces the costs to industry by providing for exemptions that allow the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act controls to be phased in as long as the predecessor controls are complied with in the meantime. An example of this is labelling that clearly communicates the hazards of any given substance to all users of that substance. The bill enables the authority to specify that Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act labelling requirements need not be met until a date specified by the authority provided that in the meantime retail stocks comply with the predecessor requirements. This avoids the costs of relabelling existing retail stock. New retail stock only will require the labelling. This provides legal clarity for business management of risks and cost-effective implementation of change. Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act controls allow businesses to develop innovative cost-saving measures in managing the risk of substances. That scope for innovation is a significant benefit for business. The bill allows those businesses that wish to take advantage of performance-based Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act controls to do so proactively prior to the substances they manage being transferred to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and further removes a dual regulatory regime that would otherwise apply. 
In conclusion this bill includes a number of provisions that though individually modest collectively will provide meaningful reductions in cost to industry and the Government and will reduce barriers to innovation. Importantly the provisions will do so without compromising the level of environmental and health protection afforded by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The changes in this bill will ensure that the processes of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act work better without compromising what the Act originally set out to achieve which is a healthy environment for all New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.