Wagner Nicky: Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill — First Reading 
Wagner Nicky: Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3585] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to see this bill come before Parliament because it deals with an increasingly important issue—the management and reduction of waste. We need to be talking about this issue because there is no doubt that the increasing amount of waste is threatening the health of our people and the health of our environment. Being wasteful is costly too. By its very nature waste is the result of using resources inefficiently. Individually and as a nation we cannot afford to waste our resources. 
National has no argument with the intention of this bill which is to protect the environment by minimising the amount of material resources used and the amount of solid waste disposed of but we do not support the methods proposed in the bill. In fact we believe they are wasteful in themselves. We do not like the mandatory nature of the bill its heavy-handed over-the-top rules and the complex and expensive bureaucratic framework it proposes to create. We believe there has to be a better and a simpler way. 
This bill proposes two very thick layers of bureaucracy—a central government - controlled waste minimisation authority and then local waste control authorities as part of each local territorial authority. This is really only a supercharged version of the structure that already exists. At the moment the Ministry for the Environment manages the present waste strategy centrally and territorial authorities are responsible for waste management locally. Why do we think that merely by changing their names we will have any better results? 
People working on the ground in waste management currently—in recycling and in resource recovery—are already saying that the present administration is overcooked that there are too many different people and too many different organisations and that the processes are too laborious. They already feel that any possible effectiveness or efficiency has been micro-managed out of the system. They point to other places where simpler structures have been more effective. They talk of the Waste and Resources Action Project in the UK and of the very effective systems employed in British Columbia. They say that complexity and bureaucracy is already stifling progress in waste minimisation in New Zealand and they are convinced that if we can just set the right incentives in place and stand back the market will take care of it. 
At present when we are dealing with waste we reward the wrong behaviours. Dumping is subsidised while recycling and resource recovery have to stand on their own two feet. If people were to feel the real costs of their waste disposal behaviour they would soon change. The true total and transparent costs of managing wastes would be a powerful deterrent for individuals and businesses—and to do that would be fair straightforward and simple. Complex rules hundreds of bureaucrats and layers of administration just cost money and create uncertainty. 
This bill requires businesses and all organisations to produce waste minimisation plans which have to be approved by local government. But plans however laudable are just bits of paper that mean nothing in themselves. Let us get people actively doing the right thing rather than just shuffling papers. The key to getting real change in behaviour is to reward people for reducing their waste streams. If it costs us real money to dispose of waste whether as an individual or a business we will think twice before we accept bulky packaging or unnecessary products and when we are ready to part with something we will be much more likely to recycle reuse or find a way to recover value from the item. 
In summary the bill is good in concept but bad in process. The structure it creates is bureaucratic and expensive dictatorial and heavy-handed and there is no guarantee that it will work. I say to Nandor Tanczos that I am sorry but as much as National supports the principle of protecting the environment by the wise use of resources and the minimisation of waste we cannot support the wasteful methods he is suggesting.