Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. First of all Madam Speaker if you'll indulge me: tuatahi māku ki tōku whāea ki a Moana Sinclair kua riro atu ki roto i te rangi kua pahure ake nei. Ki tōku whāea ki a Hinerangi Puru kua riro atu ki te pō. Kotahi tonu te kōrero ki a rāua tahi: haere mai hāere.[Firstly for me to acknowledge Moana Sinclair who has recently passed away. And to my aunt Hinerangi Puru who has travelled to the night. There is only but one thing to say to you both: welcome and farewell.]First I wanted to acknowledge Moana Sinclair a lawyer and a staunch advocate for Māori rights who sadly passed away in the past two days and also Hinerangi Puru who for many of us and all of us that have been to Waitangi is one of those special kuia who you know where she stands on matters—she's very direct and very upfront up how she feels.Why is it important to acknowledge both of them but in particular for me coming from up north Hinerangi Puru? Hinerangi is the daughter of Dame Whina Cooper. Dame Whina Cooper of course led the famous land march here to Parliament leaving her home in Pānguru in the Far North and made the march all the way down here. The slogan and the kōrero that she gave everyone that marched with her was Not one more acre." Now people think that's just simply an acre of land. That's a far too simplistic way to look at a very complex and intelligent woman. "Not one more acre" meant looking after the land too. It meant let's care for our environment; let's make sure that if we aren't losing any more acreage that we leave it in a better state for our tamariki and our mokopuna. So I want to acknowledge Hinerangi Puru who passed away sadly and will be on her marae this evening in Pānguru. That's important because I stand to oppose the Waste Minimisation (Waste Disposal Levy) Amendment Bill.Once upon a time I was a civil defence Minister—Hon Dr Megan Woods: That's right—a very good one.Hon PEENI HENARE: Thank you very much. I thoroughly enjoyed the role. Nobody enjoys being in places where emergencies and tragedies are happening but it was a role that I relished and I enjoyed meeting amazing people who did amazing things. One of the fallouts though was that it wasn't just the event itself.Many of the people in this House will remember when the flood took place in the West Coast and an old landfill ended up washing into the river. Many people from the South Island know what needs to happen with a matter called "dross": where it goes what happens if it touches water and how it impacts people. For those people in that township down in the South Island—where poor waste management policies and poor waste management practices by corporate bodies in this country continue to affect our communities far and wide. So my point to this Minister for the Environment is: it's no good just looking at the levy. Let's have a good hard look at all the suites of policies and legislation that can allow communities to do the right things with their waste.Of course Mr Foster has said that he's a little confused. All the parties on this side of the House have clearly said we're happy for the levy to go up but what we don't want to see it do is be spread even more thin right across the country. It's got to be far more specific and far more deliberate or what's going to happen is we're going to have more and more cases like dross in Mataura.Hon Penny Simmonds: Removed years ago.Hon PEENI HENARE: We're going to have more and more riverbank washouts in the West Coast.And Penny Simmonds might bark back from the other side of the House but that Minister needs to know that very soon those things will come home to roost. Without good planning and without consultation with the public and the community what's going to happen is through this bill the pūtea or the levy will be spread even further and far afield. It'll be a case of giving with one hand and punching you in the puku with the other. That's what's going to happen.Sadly what it also does is it blurs what's good investment—it's not deliberate enough. It says "Oh we're going to invest in this because we think it's good for the environment." That's not good enough. We need this to go towards more waste minimisation initiatives—ones that are already set up; ones that are working well in our community to further support the work that's being done. My colleagues right across this side of the House have given fantastic examples.So my final words are: to the whānau out there who do this mahi thank you. Don't lose hope. We're here for you. You might not have been able to find your voice on this particular bill because it's being ran through unnecessarily but here we are standing up for you. I oppose this bill. I'm really saddened that the Minister had the opportunity to work constructively with this side of the House and failed to take it. It's because of that we're going to go even harder into the evening. I do not commend this bill to the House."