Tremain Chris: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Tremain Chris: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:839] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 Mr Chairman—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Member 
: Tena koe! 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: Tena koe—or tena koutou! Get it right if you are going to use Maori language please! 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. Do not bring the Chairman into it. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: I would like to speak to the title of this bill. The purpose of the bill is to improve the workability of the provisions around hazardous substances such as paint petrol sprays and all manner of chemicals within the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. With the recent explosions at the Bunsfield Oil Terminal near London it is imperative that we have robust legislation to deal with hazardous substances and indeed new organisms that come into this country. If we look back at the accident that happened in Kaikoura when rat poison went into the ocean we see that it is imperative that we have controls on hazardous substances. There is no argument there. 
There is however a fine line between controls and over-regulation with its effect on innovation and growth in this country. Right now New Zealand has one of the worst balance of trade deficits in history and we still sit under halfway down the list of OECD countries in terms of individual per capita economic wealth. If we are indeed going to grow that position we must continue to introduce bills of this nature which reduce compliance costs and help innovation to help to grow this country. Anything we can do as a nation to reduce bureaucracy and help business to export and to grow should be a key focus. I believe that this bill will help to do that. Anything we can do to reduce regulation should be a priority for this Government. I also believe that this bill will have an impact on that. 
In talking to this point of reduced regulation I just want to bring to the Committee an example of regulation at the moment outside this bill. It is a company called Goodtime Foods in Napier. It is a small to medium sized enterprise with a strong domestic market and champing at the bit to get into the international market. It has potential orders of products that would triple the size of its business but is faced with totally unreasonable regulations that prohibit the growth of its business. In one instance the bakery is expected to comply with the same wash-down regulations as a slaughterhouse. This company has flour on the floor and on its conveyer belts. That regulation is absolutely nuts. In another instance it was necessary to build an entirely new corridor so that a trolley of raw meat could be pushed down one corridor and one of cooked meat down another corridor. The compliance costs—the actual costs of this company getting an export licence—were absolutely ludicrous. 
If we are serious in this country about growing our per capita income and about growing the nation we need to focus on legislation that will actually reduce compliance costs and make it easier for our nation’s businesses to export goods and to achieve wider economic growth. It is points such as that that I hope this bill is addressing to actually reduce compliance costs for our businesses overall and allow them to grow on a wider basis. At all times we must remember that New Zealand is a microeconomy catering to many different economies of a much larger nature. Removing barriers to innovation and to sustainable economic growth are critical to driving this country forward. National supports this bill on that basis and hopes it will go some way to reducing the bureaucracy around hazardous substances and in fact new organisms. 
In particular I support firstly the provision of a new approval mechanism known as the group standards which I spoke to earlier in the Committee stage. Secondly and also important I support the adoption of international standards for exposure of chemicals so that we do not have to assess each pesticide ourselves as it comes into the country which again creates major costs. These seem to me to be common-sense measures. To follow on from New Zealand First’s tirade about the introduction of the Act in 1996 that did in fact tidy up three or four Acts that had become intertwined.