Chadwick Steve: Waste Minimisation Bill — In Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Waste Minimisation Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17584] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I am really thrilled that we have got to the Waste Minimisation Bill in the House tonight. I acknowledge Nandor Tanczos. This bill was indelibly branded with Nandor’s name and even though Dr Norman is in the chair tonight I would like to acknowledge Nandor Tanczos and the work that he did because this was a member’s bill and it is not often that a member’s bill becomes a Government bill. Even more spectacular it is not often that we reach unanimous agreement as we have on this bill—I am dying to see how we will all vote on this bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee which I chaired was a lovely experience in relation to this bill. 
When we first received the bill it was quite cumbersome it was overly bureaucratic and complicated and it was overly complex. But we have worked through it. I then handed it over and I have watched what is happening under the new chair Moana Mackey; it is great to know that it has progressed through and that the committee worked so well. We also went over to Australia—as I heard the previous speaker John Carter talk about—and that was very experiential for us all because we saw that waste is not waste at all. I had hoped that this bill would be called the “Waste Minimisation and Resource Recovery Bill” because that is what we are trying to teach the next generation. Some of us are too old and we need to be grandparented out about seeing waste as a resource and as gold actually—where there is muck there is brass. We learnt that when we went around many sites in New Zealand too. We saw that if we look at waste quite differently as something that we do not just chuck in a hole in the ground and fill in we can manage it quite differently and significantly alter the way we deal with waste in New Zealand and also then look at the sustainable use of resources. 
Congratulations to the committee. I want to say too that because this Government picked up the bill as a Government bill—now in Dr Russel Norman’s name—the bill also fits in with a lot of the other work that we have led as a Labour Government on issues of sustainability and I am proud of that. The emissions trading scheme the  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
 and improving the framework for managing freshwater resources are all sustainable initiatives of this Government. I just want to talk about the levy here. I notice it has gone down from $25 a tonne to $10 a tonne—how disappointing! We need to find the right price-sensitive level so it is a disincentive rather than a punishment. It will not be a punishment at all because we will use that levy really well with a—I see it is not an authority now—waste advisory board. But it is about striking the right economic disincentive so that people decide that perhaps they had better have another look at their waste do source-point sorting and get recycling and all sorts of initiatives going that excite the community rather than seeing it as punitive. I think we will take a while inching up if it is an annual increase to the levy until we reach that right price-sensitive level to change behaviour. Congratulations to the select committee. I hope we all vote in favour of this bill. It would truly show that we are a sustainable nation and that we all want to make a difference. Thank you Madam Chair.