Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:843] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I must say that we have just heard a revelational speech from Minister Benson-Pope who said that the Labour Government had promised to fix the Resource Management Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and that it has done that. I have not heard of anything as ridiculous as that in my life. New Zealanders up and down this country are deeply outraged by the ways in which the Labour Government has imposed compliance costs on them through those two Acts. 
It may be that in this particular bill there is an intention to reduce compliance costs but no one knows—and the Minister would not confirm—whether there would be any monitoring of this amendment to ensure that it was efficacious. There were absolutely no promises of that from the Minister and certainly when we heard the absolutely ridiculous statement from a Minister of the Labour Government that it had fixed the Resource Management Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act we knew that it was officially in denial. That is indeed a very serious condition to be in. It is so serious that Labour should instead of taking just the end-of-year break in 24 hours’ time take a complete break—resign and give the opportunity to the New Zealand people to vote in a National Government for 2006. It is the height of ridiculousness for the new Minister to suggest that the Labour Government has fixed the Resource Management Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. 
I note that both New Zealand First and the Green leader Jeanette Fitzsimons have made quite a lot of comment about the genesis of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I agree that it is important to think about its genesis. As Jeanette Fitzsimons told the House in the 1970s and 1980s prior to that legislation being enacted there were about 20 different pieces of legislation which were all over the place and non-comprehensive. There were calls from right around the country to make it into comprehensive legislation. The bill that Simon Upton introduced in 1996 was world-leading and cutting edge. Yes there were indeed problems with it and I think that that is what often happens with cutting edge legislation. However one would have thought that after 6 years of a Labour Government which had been critical for a long time of some of the deficiencies of the Act it would do something about it instead of bringing this amendment into the House under urgency 24 hours before it adjourns for the end of the year. I do recognise that Brian Donnelly the chairman of the Education and Science Committee and I are in absolute agreement on that fact. 
Another revelation has struck me today and it is that New Zealand First is no longer a schizophrenic chameleon in Opposition. Brian Donnelly has confirmed that New Zealand First has formally transformed into an official poodle of the Labour Government. It was quite extraordinary that Brian Donnelly suggested that compliance costs had not been thought through extremely carefully by the National Opposition both in terms of the Resource Management Act—and we have put up amendment after amendment aimed specifically to reduce compliance costs—and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act where in respect of the new organisms aspect of it again legislative changes were proposed and amendments put up to reduce compliance costs which were absolutely valid and appropriate. Yet Brian Donnelly has suggested that National has not consistently supported the changes whereas the Labour Government—which New Zealand First has formally and officially moved across to—is where New Zealand First is and that is one of the other revelations regarding this bill. 
Federated Farmers did put up a very well-thought-out technical submission and assessment of the costs of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. They assessed that it costs New Zealanders in terms of the set-up cost something like $102 million and in terms of each arable farmer on average about $3000 a year. When the Government says that this particular amendment will save $2 million and the Minister gives us no reassurance whatsoever that there will be any monitoring of the efficacy of the amendment then any faith in the Government erodes and crumbles away. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: No one believes anything he says. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It is absolutely correct that no one believes anything that David Benson-Pope says. 
However David Benson-Pope did give an assurance to New Zealanders that the costs of revoking the registration of some of the toxic substances and then carrying out an appropriate risk management assessment would be available from the Government. I think it is very very important that he is held to the promise he has made to the New Zealand people today. The Environmental Risk Management Authority says that it simply does not have the resources available if indeed those toxic substances do require revocation from the register and a full assessment. The authority says that the cost will be about $1 million per substance and that it simply does not have that money. We are in a situation whereby the authority says on the one hand that it is just not possible to transfer everything across by June 2006—the date by which that should occur—and on the other hand that it does not have the resources to carry out an appropriate risk management assessment of those substances that will be identified inevitably as being a worry to New Zealanders and to our environment. That is of considerable concern. 
I will just point out two things that I think are certainly of value in this bill. I mentioned them before. The first relates to the rapid assessment and approval of other hazardous substances in special emergencies. We in New Zealand have had various concerns over the last few years one being the varroa bee mite. The fact that it has become endemic in New Zealand raises a huge concern about the efficacy of our biosecurity agencies. As I understand it only one bee scientist in New Zealand is at a level that one would expect international best practice to conform to. It was not until the varroa mite was endemic in New Zealand that it was suddenly realised that it was here. When the Labour Government gave up and said that it could not eradicate the mite bee-keepers said that they needed a miticide to fix their hives. It was not possible through the legislation to make that available so it took a tremendous amount of work to get this lazy Labour Government to provide for special circumstances when a miticide would be available. 
But let us just imagine if we did not have this legislation what would happen if we had a foot-and-mouth outbreak and we were not able to get the best therapies possible to ensure that it could be combated in the most efficacious way. Fortunately new section 49L is to be inserted in the Act by clause 12 of the bill. That is important; it should have happened long ago.