Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on this the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill. I'd just like to start off by doing a little bit of a recap as I am the second to last speaker on this bill.The Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill is a member's bill in the name of Hon Scott Simpson and I'd just like to acknowledge the member for bringing this bill to the House also too acknowledging my members and colleagues from both sides of the House who are on the Environment Committee. Generally we work very collegially together with the environment at the heart of the work that we're doing in that hard-working committee—also too making note of the committee being well chaired by the chair from Labour Dr Deborah Russell. So I just acknowledge everyone in the committee and this bill and what it sets out to do—amending the Litter Act 1979—to increase that maximum fine for infringements from $400 to $1000. Through the select committee process we heard from 13 submitters. Of those 13 submissions we heard oral evidence from three of the submitters. That happened in Wellington in July 2018; so some six months ago now. The Ministry for the Environment also provided the committee with advice and I'll come to that advice in just a moment.During the Christmas holidays previously in my former incarnation working in a newsroom we would spend the summertime particularly over the Christmas and New Year period wondering what kind of fluffy animal story we would be able to write that day to fill up the bulletin. This year over the summertime newsrooms all around the country were particularly obsessed as the rest of New Zealand became obsessed as it hit the headlines here and overseas. You probably may have read or heard or seen about the path of minor destruction that was caused by a British family on holiday as they wreaked havoc through Auckland then down to Hamilton into Levin. Even Levin's mayor had Levin on high alert.This unruly family—unruly tourists" as they were dubbed—certainly held the attention of most New Zealanders. They probably didn't realise that it was the rubbish that they spread at Takapuna that really raised our ire because people of my generation were raised to be a tidy Kiwi. Now this was an education campaign all about picking up litter making sure that if there was litter on the ground we actually went and picked it up. At school we were on litter duty. So it became part of our collective consciousness to actually be tidy and to pick up litter. So the unruly tourists actually didn't realise how much New Zealanders actually hate rubbish because it has been well entrenched into our psyche to be tidy Kiwis. So it's about this education. That is really the strength of how we can change behaviour and doing that when we are young informs a type of behaviour that sticks with us through our lives and it certainly has with me.Coming back to the select committee I mentioned that the Ministry for the Environment came to us and talked about this bill and their advice was that raising the fee to $1000 would be "unusual and inconsistent with the infringement fees that exist for more serious offending."—such as the discharging of a contaminant into the environment from maybe industry or trade premises. "In addition given the issues around enforcement there is no certainty that a larger infringement fee would result in a greater or any deterrent for littering."—this is the Ministry for the Environment; this is their advice that they gave to the committee. And they also said that "proportionality is an important factor and … there are other policy tools available to communicate the seriousness of littering".Auckland Council made a submission and they had in the year 2017-18 received and investigated 1644 complaints regarding littering and illegal dumping which is at the other end of the scale and "of these 1644 investigations for various reasons only 67 infringement fines were issued." And the total of those 67 fines netted them $8500. So they also explained to us why they believe that simply raising the fine would not necessarily resolve the problem of littering. We heard from Graeme Edgeler. He came and made a verbal submission and he suggested also that the $1000 infringement fee for littering is actually "out of all proportion with the offense of littering and out of line with infringement fees for other infringement offences at a similar level. Local authorities"—and I'm quoting now—"do not need the power to adopt bylaws providing for a $1000 infringement fee for littering. They already have sufficient powers under the current legislation." And then he made note later in has submission that "An increase in the infringement fee to $1000 would see low-level littering punished with an infringement fee much higher than those imposed for driving 49km/h over the speed limit or drink-driving in respect of the new lower limit is clearly disproportionate." Also Diana Duncan made note that we need to not just think about littering but also "reduce the production and importation of single use plastics across New Zealand."Reduce reuse recycle: those are words we're hearing a lot at the moment. So what is the Government doing? Because littering as we heard the Minister Hon Eugenie Sage mention is only one small section in this whole great waste minimisation and how we're dealing with our waste across the board.So there are four projects that the Government is currently working on: the Keep New Zealand Beautiful project "Do the right thing"—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! It is about reporting back what came from the select committee rather than saying what is general Government policy. So come back to the bill if you could.JENNY MARCROFT: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Of course New Zealand First—we do support reasonable measures to clean up New Zealand. However we actually feel that the suggested $1000 fine that's set out in the bill is actually excessive. So by and large applying a punitive approach in and of itself actually does not and will not achieve stopping of this littering behaviour. We believe it's actually all about education. It's about educating the next generation just like we were educated to be tidy Kiwis. So that's what we need to do. We need to bring back those types of campaigns. We need to teach our young people to be tidy. So this Keep New Zealand Beautiful campaign which was originally founded back in 1969 that's all about litter reduction. It's about waste minimisation. Hon Gerry Brownlee: National Government!JENNY MARCROFT: You did have some averagely OK ideas so let's bring some new ones forward which this Government is doing.I'd like to finish off by just concluding that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We did not support it at first reading and we continue to not support it now but on that I'd like to say kia ora koutou katoa."