Worth Richard: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6975] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: Mr Chairman I would like to join in your general round of condemnation of members who chat idly in the Chamber when issues such as the title to a bill are being discussed. It is not often the case that we are drawn to look at legislation of this importance nor that we are drawn into a debate touching on the critical importance of a title. In starting any discussion on the issue of a title one would surely start with the proposition that the title should first be legally accurate and secondly that it be factually appropriate. As other speakers have said there are real doubts in this regard about this title. I am frankly surprised with the calibre of the members who were on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which reported back on the bill that insufficient or perhaps no time at all was given to consideration of the title. If one looks at page 7 of the explanatory note to see who those members were—and I instance the Hon Peter Dunne and Graham Kelly—one would have thought this would be a consideration at the very forefront of their minds. Instead it is not the subject of commentary in the bill and the issue comes before us afresh or as lawyers would say on a de novo basis. 
So how is it that this title fits within those two tests that I have suggested? Is it legally accurate? I would say no. Is it factually appropriate? Clearly it is not. Other members have made the good and strong point that the full title of the bill is misleading and that is because it is titled Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. And one looks in vain I suggest in the content of the bill to find any reference at all to new organisms. 
Sure there are preliminary provisions. Sure there are amendments to the principal Act made by Part 2. Sure there are two schedules. But not in any of that material is there reference to new organisms. That is really the first point. 
The second point I would like to make is the reference to the Stockholm convention. As a starting point there have been a number of conventions in Stockholm in the last few years and they have ranged across considerable activity in that country. There have been meetings convened and called for a wide variety of purposes which have a convention quality. In looking at the use of the phrase “Stockholm Convention” in this case I would have thought that the Government would go to the trouble to identify which particular convention in Stockholm had been singled out for reference in this bill. That is not done in the heading and instead one needs to grope—I suggest that that is the appropriate word—through the legislation to Part 2 to see that “Stockholm Convention” is given a starkly narrowed meaning. 
 It has been defined there as meaning the Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants done at Stockholm on 23 May 2001 and the annexes to the convention—a copy of the English text of which is set out in schedule 1AA. So the drafters have gone to some trouble it seems to identify in this particular paragraph—albeit not in the title of the bill—the convention that is to be accorded recognition in the context of the legislation. What this bill does and what should be reflected in the title should be drawn from clause 3. It is apparent reading clause 3 that the purpose of the Act is to enable New Zealand to comply with the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Why does the title not say that? This is simply a piece of domestic legislation that incorporates a foreign treaty instrument.