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:833] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 3 deals particularly with enforcement of the Act. There are a variety of concerns about this part of the bill. Firstly clause 21 amends subparagraph (iii) of section 97(h) of the principal Act by omitting the words “local authority” and substituting the words “territorial authority”. I do know that Federated Farmers in their submission were deeply concerned about the cost implications of what local government and regional government could impose on them by not ensuring that their interests were taken care of and were a bit more concerned that central government itself should be held to account rather than a whole variety of bodies around New Zealand with different enforcement interpretations and different imposition of costs on to working New Zealanders. 
But I also note there is great concern about the liability framework around this bill and one of the points again made by the Sustainability Council was that agents making use of hazardous substances need to be financially fit in order to meet costs arising from any breach of the controls relating to hazardous substances or third-party claims for damages. They are making a very salutary and relevant point because more and more some of those companies that produce toxic substances shelter under shell companies when they are not sure as to whether the liabilities they could incur are able to be fulfilled by them. This is a mechanism that I would again like the Minister to take a call on and say whether he has thought about the situation whereby companies and manufacturers involved with toxic companies do not have the financial backing to be able to clean up the problems after a toxic accident or are not insured enough or insured appropriately for that to occur. 
The second point was that no liability for damages arises as long as the user of a hazardous substance abides by controls set by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. That is a very important aspect because even at the point that such a control is breached there is no strict liability for harm caused be it economic environmental or to human health. Again the required remedy is that developers and users be made strictly liable under the Act for damage resulting from the use of hazardous substances and further unless firms face the full social costs of their activity they will have the incentive to overexpand those activities at the cost of the wider economy. That balance is obviously one that has to be very carefully worked out so that the compliance costs are kept to a minimum and that is vital yet on the other hand the liability framework must be robust enough to ensure that those companies that are not abiding by the framework and are responsible for inappropriate toxic damage can be brought to justice and that there are sufficient liabilities. So it is important that the Minister assures the New Zealand public that those aspects are indeed fulfilled by Part 3. 
I would like to comment on new section 97B “Enforcement of Act in respect of hazardous substances in place of work”. Again we have the situation of Occupational Safety and Health officers going into workplaces and manufacturers’ premises and on to farms and enforcing their will sometimes extremely inappropriately. The submission from Federated Farmers stated that toxic substance is such a specialised area that those officers should be specially trained. Unfortunately the bill makes no provision for special training.