Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee  
Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee  
[Volume:616;Page:11753] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on this Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill. It is one that the National Party supports because at its heart is the intent to minimise costs to business and reduce barriers to innovation. However the National Party has some grave reservations about the process used by the Government in coming to the final conclusion of this bill’s passage through the House. Unfortunately the Government called for submissions over the Christmas break and was due to have the deliberations very shortly after that which really did not allow time for appropriate consideration. I think that on a bill such as this which is highly technical in nature and for which there is large approval across the parties it is important for the Labour Government to be prepared to go through a process that is well considered so that the optimal result might eventuate. Unfortunately the Government fell short of that. 
The purpose of the bill is to facilitate the smooth transfer of hazardous substances from transitional controls to the appropriate control regime under the principal Act. There are a huge number of substances. In fact out of 80000 substances only 8000 have been previously regulated. The Environmental Risk Management Authority had a huge task before it and there was no doubt that appropriate efficient and effective regulations to achieve it were sorely needed. I think it is important to point out the huge range of hazardous substances covered by this bill because they include just about anything that can be thought of from explosive substances to flammable oxidisable corrosive toxic or eco-toxic substances and the list goes on. That demonstrates the highly technical nature of the movement of something like 72000 of these substances into categories appropriate for their very different natures. That is what this bill does 
:  
it 
enables the application of cost-effective controls to hazardous substances; and facilitates their transfer from transitional controls to the controls under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act by changing the legal processes and constraints. 
That is the reason we have supported the bill. We recognise that minimising business costs is a very refreshing change from what this Labour Government usually does. In some of the other hazardous substances and new organisms legislation we have seen only more difficult regulatory regimes be put into place that have caused difficulties for everyday research institutes around the country. We saw just yesterday the Rubicon group point out that it was stopping its genetic research because the regulations recently put in place by the Labour Government were too onerous for it. That is a hugely worrisome thing for New Zealand; clearly as a country we stand to gain so much from the economic growth possibilities that arise from the innovation that research and wise regulations around it can bring.