Roy Eric: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Roy Eric: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:840] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I would like to take a brief call on the title and commencement. I do not have any particular great issues with the title that is here—the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. But because we have had a number of modifications to this bill over time it occurs to me that probably we should have just started numbering them: the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill (No 1) (No 2) and (No 3) or whatever. Because I will make this prediction: this will not be the last time that this House debates amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I see the Hon Brian Donnelly smiling I think in agreement about that. He did make the point that this was a National bill. Before New Zealand First was a twinkle in the eye of the Rt Hon Winston Peters this bill went through the House— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: In 1996 we had two members in. 
ERIC ROY 
: It was still a twinkle in those days. Let me say there was a high degree of unanimity about the need for hazardous substances and new organisms legislation. Not only that a special select committee was set up to deal with the legislation and it sat mostly on Fridays to deal with this separately. So to say that all the errors in this one are due to National is an extension of reality when in fact there was a great degree of unanimity about the process by which the original bill became an Act. 
As we reflect—we are getting near the closing of the Committee stage on this bill—I think we are kind of locked into some problematic situations. Consumers and our international markets have a standard of assurance that is getting higher and higher and higher. The implications of this is complexity in cost at our end. [ 
Interruption 
] Someone called out: “How do you undo that?”—I do not know. Somehow or other we need to get together in the same way that we had unanimity about doing this and be able to provide that assurance without the ongoing cost. 
I reflected on an earlier trip to the European Union. There could be coming for us as a nation a passport for each animal slaughtered and exported with a required diary of every intervention animal health procedure and every chemical applied. The whole thing is coming towards us. We say that assurance is important—and we are kind of dead at selling our products if we do not have it—but I think we need to take stock a little bit and apply our very capable minds to finding a process where we can give assurance and engage in the process without this ongoing complexity and this ongoing cost. 
I am amused and fascinated that in Part 1 the section that I do not think anyone spoke on the Chief of Defence Force—[ 
Interruption 
] The member covered the Chief of Defence Force did he? I am sorry I do not want to repeat what the honourable member might have said. Again it is an example of how complex it is getting. The Chief of Defence Force has to ensure methods of controlling any hazardous substance he might have of handling any weapon of mass destruction anywhere in the world that could come into New Zealand yet we have to have a process label. I wonder whether the terrorists or the rebels who might impose this somewhere in the world are operating under the same set of rules. I have to suggest that they are not but again it says that this is getting complex and is getting almost nonsensical in some elements. 
But if we fall away from it and say we are not there then we get an opportunity for any kind of non-tariff barrier to come up and ask what our process on this is and say that no they are not taking our product. We are locked in the horns of a very very difficult dilemma. Yes we need the protection; yes we need the assurance; but at some stage we will have to address the problem which is becoming more and more complex. 
Let me give members another example. When patients went into a hospital they used to have a couple of pages to fill out before an operation and now they have 24—about what happens to their organs what happens with liability and there is a whole range of things. Again this is symptomatic of the complex assurance nature of the things we are involved in. The House has to address the issue of ongoing cost and complexity while retaining assurance.