Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:809] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill was unfortunately interrupted last Thursday when I was saying just how infamous this Labour Government was for imposing compliance costs on ordinary New Zealanders and on ordinary businesses whether small medium or large through the mechanisms of taxation the Resource Management Act and of course the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act itself. 
 I mentioned the very well researched paper by Annie English for the meat and wool board for Dairy InSight for Deer Industry New Zealand for the Foundation for Arable Research and for Federated Farmers of New Zealand which pointed out just how costly the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is for ordinary New Zealanders—and particularly for farmers with an average cost per farm in the order of $3000 for arable farmers. When one looks at the explanatory note in the first version of this bill and at the statements of net benefits of the proposal one sees there is need for considerable concern. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Who brought it in? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: The National Government brought it in—yes it did absolutely and it was regarded at the time as one of the best pieces of legislation internationally. But over the last 5 years we have seen some of the most severe regulations in the area of new organisms anywhere in the world. It has sent—literally—hundreds of New Zealand scientists out of this country when we badly need them and I will give members one example—that is the transgenic sheep experiment that was taking place at Auckland medical school to look for a cure for Huntington’s chorea. And what happened? The scientists said they would not carry out the experiment in New Zealand as it would cost too much and it would take too long because of the regulations imposed by this Labour Government. I think that that is very important and the former member for Tauranga should be aware that in this area we have one of the most— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It’s a boomerang. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: He is saying “a boomerang”; well I say to the former member for Tauranga that this— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Who brought it in? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Yes we did bring it in and he was a member of that Government funnily enough. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Oh yes he was. He denies it—[ 
Interruption 
] Well maybe he was not. He obviously joined it later on because he recognised the virtues of this bill. Nevertheless I want to point out with respect to the cost of transferring the approximately 70000 notifiable toxic substances from transitional controls to the appropriate control regime under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act the estimation of saving is about $2 million. But we are concerned that nowhere in this amendment bill is there any suggestion that there will be monitoring to ensure money will be saved. 
I will ask the Minister to take a call later on to tell this Parliament whether the Labour Government which brought in this amendment bill allegedly to save businesses money will indeed monitor the legislation when enacted to ensure that it is working. It is all very well to bring in extra burdens on farmers manufacturers importers and exporters under the guise of saving money but this Labour Government has had a very poor record over the last 5 to 6 years. 
I did want to mention one of the good things of this bill and one of the reasons why the National Opposition—the National Government to-be—is supporting it. That is found under a new heading in Part 1 “Rapid assessment and approval of other hazardous substances in special emergencies”. It is something that became a very strong reality during the varroa bee mite epidemic. When it was finally realised by the Labour Government that it would not be able to eradicate that mite there was great concern by bee-keepers that a miticide would be needed in order to protect hives. 
At the time it was impossible to bring in a miticide and according to Federated Farmers there had to be some very very heavy eyeballing of the Minister in order for there to be a mechanism to bring in an appropriate miticide. It took a hang of a lot of trouble and effort to make any move by the Labour Government to make that possible but finally it did. So it is quite good to see a rapid assessment and approval mechanism for biosecurity problems within this amendment bill.