Smith Nick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Smith Nick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18775] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 National will support the referral of this bill to a select committee because we are of the view that the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation is in need of substantive change if it is going to work practically for the large number of New Zealand industries that use the whole wide range of pesticides hazardous substances and new organisms. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is one of New Zealand’s key environmental statutes alongside the Resource Management Act. It is vitally important not just to the protection of New Zealand’s environment but to the efficiency of our primary industries which remain the backbone of our country. We are disappointed that this bill is the fourth hazardous substances and new organisms amendment introduced into the House by the Hon Marian Hobbs. When she introduced the previous amending bill we said she did not have a bolter’s hope of registering the 70000 chemicals and substances that were required to be registered by the deadline. We still remain disappointed that 5 years after she was appointed as Minister the Act is still not in force. That is another failure by Marian Hobbs Minister for the Environment. 
I express some scepticism that this legislation will result in a reduction in costs. I remember that only a few months ago her Associate Minister David Benson-Pope introduced a resource management bill that he had promised would reduce costs—the enormous costs associated with applications under the Resource Management Act. We have out there in New Zealand right now a universal condemnation whether it is by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand by councils or by business groups of that Government bill. People are saying that it will treble costs. So we had that Minister introduce a bill just prior to Christmas and already it is discredited. Already all the sector groups are saying it will not reduce costs but will treble them. That is the reason that National has some scepticism about whether this bill also will live up to that claim. 
The part of this bill that is seriously missing is this. If New Zealand is to be competitive and if we are to be able to provide a cost-effective way of registering chemicals—and it is a huge number that our industry is involved with—common sense points to our moving to a trans-Tasman arrangement. In respect of food the previous National Government set up the Australia New Zealand Food Authority. The organisation was successful in providing a line of effective regulation for food to ensure that it is safe while at the same time minimising the compliance costs. We have to recognise that in areas like the key industries that are affected by this legislation we are increasingly part of a trans-Tasman environment. The notion for instance that if one is going to import Sellotape to New Zealand one has to go separately to the Australian authorities and get approval for it and then go to New Zealand and do it all over again—and not just for Sellotape but for the tens of thousands of chemicals—does not make sense. It is common sense for New Zealand to do those approvals in a consistent way with Australia. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that takes us down that path yet the call of industry and of common-sense New Zealanders is to have a common trans-Tasman arrangement in that regard. 
I also note that the Minister wants to send this bill to the education select committee. Well I have looked all the way through the bill and I have to ask what on earth it has to do with education. We know that right now we have a crisis in education. We have the worst situation in 50 years in respect of the botch-up that this Government has made of school qualifications. Tens of thousands of teachers and students want the education select committee to be focused in its efforts on making sure that we do not get a repeat next year of the botched 2004 examinations. And what is the Government going to do? It will refer to that select committee a very detailed complex environmental bill so as to distract the committee from that essential task. I ask why the Government would want to refer this hazardous substances and new organisms bill to the Education and Science Committee and not to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
All the way through this bill it refers to the interrelationship with the Resource Management Act. That makes good sense: hazardous substances and resource management need to be closely knitted together. In fact this bill makes a number of changes to the Resource Management Act. The Local Government and Environment Committee has before it right now a resource management amendment bill. Would it not make sense for the same committee that has been dealing with that bill to deal with this environmental law? Why does this Government want to bury it in the education select committee which should rightly be focusing its energies and efforts on fixing up Trevor Mallard’s mess with regard to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement? Or is it that the Government wants to distract the committee from the role of assuring some accountability for that mess and is simply using an environmental bill for its latest lot of political skulduggery? Is that what the Government’s agenda is? National will be moving an amendment that states this bill should go where the main bill went. Of course the original hazardous substances and new organisms legislation was dealt with by the Local Government and Environment Committee. So why would amendments to that Act not also be dealt with by that select committee? 
Then we come to the Minister’s motion to have the bill fast-tracked. The Minister having held her ministerial warrant for over 5 years and having made a mess of this area of legislation now wants Parliament to rush this bill through so it can be reported back as she said by 3 June. I say to the Government that the reason it keeps getting into trouble and botching up New Zealanders’ lives is that it does not allow its legislation to be properly scrutinised. It is little wonder that this is the fourth hazardous substances and new organisms amendment bill—the fourth go that this Minister has had at getting that legislation right. And she wants to rush it again! I say to the Minister that she is mistaken. I say to Parliament that it is far better to do the job once and do it right than to have another rushed bill that will result in getting things wrong again in this very complex area of law. I will bet any Government member that if this bill is rushed through within a period of 12 months we will have another hazardous substances amendment bill to fix up another batch of the Minister’s mistakes. 
I say let us do it right. Let us not rush. Let us have the right select committee—the Local Government and Environment Committee—deal with this bill so that we can indeed ensure that New Zealanders have a hazardous substances law that works for our key industries and export industries and that also protects the environment of New Zealand which is so special.