Carter KahurangiKAHURANGI CARTER (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well I am pretty excited to be speaking about waste minimisation. It is one of my favourite topics and I have dedicated my career to waste minimisation.Simon Court: Same! We're going to get on.KAHURANGI CARTER: Amazing—let's do this. Let's do it for our future generations and because environmental action is cool. That's right—it's cool. And I know you all want to be cool.So what does this bill actually do? Well I was brought up with the mantra waste not want not" and I've taken that with me into my life. That is why I have been dedicated to waste minimisation since before it was cool—just like my learned colleagues here and the Green Party and our members. So what is this bill actually doing? Well like everyone here I think that raising waste levies is an excellent idea. It is an excellent idea because what it means is that when industries have to pay more to send their rubbish to landfill than they do to reduce rubbish then we're going to be reducing that waste. It's a great thing. Unfortunately $5 a year won't even keep up with inflation and if we look at similar countries to ours—so in New South Wales $160 per tonne—Dr Hamish Campbell: It's a state not a country.KAHURANGI CARTER: A state thank you. In Victoria $130.00 for a tonne but in New Zealand only $60.00—less than half than countries who are similar to us. So you really need to look at why that is and we need to actually understand that we don't need a bill to increase the waste levy; we actually don't. We can just do that through our normal regulation process.So when I look at this bill and really dig into it it's like: what is this bill really doing? And my colleague here on the right actually got the nail on the head. What is happening is that the Government knows that New Zealanders care about climate action and they care about waste minimisation. That is why in 2018 the Colmar Brunton poll showed that the thing that New Zealanders most cared about was they were worried about the build-up in plastic in our environment. They care about the 1.76 billion plastic containers and bottles every year that we use here in New Zealand. And I see those hard-working Kiwis out there taking waste minimisation action taking climate action. They're using reusable nappies instead of disposable diapers. They're doing composting. We've got teenagers who care about mindful fashion and—Hon Member: Wearing wool.KAHURANGI CARTER: Wearing wool absolutely—that we can compost and we can take it and put it into our compost. What this bill is doing is it is taking money away from waste minimisation.We have a $2.3 billion infrastructure deficit in waste minimisation. Where is that going to come from when you're slashing and burning environmental protections when you're slashing and burning climate action? We need to put out that fire that you are creating by taking money from the waste minimisation levy. Let me say that again. We are $2.3 billion in deficit in infrastructure for waste minimisation. It is so important that we are keeping that waste levy in waste minimisation. Cutting $10 million from the Ministry for the Environment—with my former colleagues who work so hard on innovation and vision for this country.We need to take responsibility for our waste and clean up after ourselves because our children and their children in every generation after deserve an ambitious Government—one who cares about Papatuanuku one who cares about a liveable planet for their mokos. We must look at waste as an opportunity to live in harmony with nature because our children deserve it. When we continue down this exploitive extractive system which we have right now which is a straight line from extracting precious metals and finite resources from the environment and sending them on a straight line all the way to the dump where our future generations are going to be mining those finite resources—we have to do better for our children we can do better for our children and I believe we can."