Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7008] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: The National Party supports the aims of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. We believe they are very important because as has been stated the whole purpose of the Stockholm Convention is undoubtedly to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutant chemicals. Those substances are affectionately known as “POPs”—not to be confused in any way with elderly people but referred to in that way because they are environmentally persistent toxic bioaccumulative and able to be transported by the movement of air water and migratory species to places far from their point of origin. They are significant and of concern and it is appropriate that New Zealand is a signatory to this convention. 
But what has troubled me about this bill is the way the Labour Government has been dilatory in bringing it into the House. The convention was signed up over 2 years ago and the bill has been on the Order Paper since 21 May 2002. Here is a Labour Government that says it is interested in the environment and in the United Nations yet it has been extremely dilatory in bringing this important bill which is relevant to two of its key pieces of rhetoric to the House. It has been absolutely slow in progressing the bill and here we are in urgency finally bringing through this necessary legislation. I have been troubled by the way the Labour Government has once again been dilatory both in ensuring that environmental issues are addressed and in ensuring that international obligations to do with the United Nations are being addressed. 
The other area that has troubled me is the lack of attention to detail that this Labour Government has applied to the process. There were three important submissions. One was from Geocycle Ltd which is related to Holcim New Zealand. Holcim Cement is one of the largest if not the largest cement supplier in the world. Geocycle’s focus in New Zealand is on the collection and uses of oil nationwide. It supported the bill but was very concerned about the requirements for the unintentional production of dioxins and furans and how New Zealand applied these within this bill. 
Geocycle was particularly concerned about the development of national environmental standards and in fact requested the Government to develop national environmental standards that provide for the use of waste and hazardous waste in the manufacture of cement and lime saying that where appropriate environmental standards can be achieved. Geocycle went on to say that it would be very important for the Government to develop national guidelines for dioxin emissions under the Resource Management Act because they are enforced variably and there is a lack of consistency under Part 5 Annex C of the bill before us. 
 As we see in the commentary to this bill one of the unfortunate parts of these deliberations is that because dioxins are a by-product of some combustion processes and not a substance used in those processes they are not included in this bill. We are therefore left up in the air as to what the Government will do in terms of enforcing national environmental standards. I am sure that Sue Kedgley from the Greens will be deeply concerned about that particular issue. 
The second submission came from Transpower New Zealand. Again it is highly relevant because Transpower wished to ensure that the provisions for the continued use of polychlorinated biphenyls—which are critical to Transpower and are under exemption for a specified period of time—were accommodated by this bill. Transpower has in the order of $30 million of equipment that it hopes to phase out over 16 years. I am pleased to report to the Committee that most of Transpower’s wishes were granted and accommodated within this bill. 
But because of this Labour Government’s lack of attention to detail the third submission which came from the National Council of Women of New Zealand has not been satisfactorily accommodated by this bill—despite the willingness of the Opposition parties which include the ACT party New Zealand First and National to make very constructive amendments to try to sort out the problems. To give members an example the point is made in the schedules that it is extremely important for there to be an international understanding regarding research monitoring and development of persistent organic pollutants. We pointed out that that the bill consistently refers to “small-scale” research as does the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. All that would have been required was to have removed “small-scale” and we would have had consistency and consensus but the Government was just not willing to do that. 
The National Council of Women’s submission pointed out how important research was to New Zealand. It pointed out that it was important both to have funding for research into the management and remediation of toxic waste and to anticipate new ways to get rid of persistent organic pollutants such as phytoremediation. My great concern is that despite pointing out to the Government that we could overcome the regulatory hurdles that this bill has imposed technically this dilatory and now inattentive Labour Government has just failed to respond to the very constructive amendments of the Opposition parties. We believe that the environment is very important and that international efforts such as this are very important—as does the National Council of Women. It was very disappointing that the Government did not respond to the suggestions of the submitters or of the Opposition parties in these important detailed areas. 
Again I was concerned when with regard to Dr Lockwood Smith’s very important amendment regarding the relevancy of clause 8 and his suggestion that research into persistent organic pollutants might be excluded by this bill the Minister rose and said that members should look at clause 7 and that if one went back to the principal Act it was actually tidied up by the wording there. 
Dail Jones 
: Was that clause 8? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: No it was clause 7 that he referred to. However if one looks—