Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): There is an obvious sign of abject fear and panic on the Government side of the House and we've seen that today. They think that the process of delivering is just talking faster and louder. Talking faster and louder is their response to actually delivering anything. Well I'll tell you what the public and people of New Zealand can see through it. They know there has been no delivery and they know that this is a Government that likes to talk big but delivers very little if anything at all. One of the strange things is that occasionally when the Government does try and do something perverse outcomes occur. So a year or so ago they announced that they were going to make a compulsory ban on the issuing of supermarket single-use plastic bags and there was a whole lot of debate about that. There was a whole lot of discussion about it. Some people liked the idea; some people didn't. Interestingly enough about 75 percent of plastic bags at supermarkets were being phased out already by a voluntary programme introduced by the previous Government and other retailers would have done it. But no this is a Government that likes to ban things. When you ban things perverse outcomes sometimes occur and in plastic bags we've seen a very good example of that having occurred. I've had in my inbox some information and some data from a very credible source: nothing less than an outfit called Information Resources Inc. (IRI). They are the market-edge grocery survey people who provide data and information to the grocery and supermarket operators of the country and they provide information about which products are selling and which products are moving fast and which ones aren't. In their report from September of this year just two months after the supermarket plastic bag ban was in place IRI reported that unit growth in what's referred to as general merchandise—which is largely made up of amongst other things reusable plastic bags—was up a whopping 489 percent. So what's happened is that instead of taking your single-use plastic bag and reusing it in your waste bin or something like that people have decided to buy plastic bags instead—heavier-grade plastic bags. Many people have done that and the supermarkets have gained. The IRI report indicates a massive growth in revenue as a result of this—some 118 percent growth in revenue on the sale of plastic bags. So here's a Government that forces a compulsory ban on single-use plastic bags and then the supermarkets think This is very very good news because no longer do we have to provide something at a cost to our business for free for our customers and instead what will happen is that our customers will in turn buy something from the supermarket at a profit at a margin and that will increase the sales that the supermarket makes." It's a perfect business model for supermarkets. It does absolutely nothing for the greater good of our environment. In fact arguably it makes things worse because the bags that are being purchased—a nearly 500 percent increase in the amount of plastic bags being purchased and sold through supermarkets—eventually of course end up in landfill. They're heavier-grade bags and they cause more harm than what has been provided in the past. So this is the kind of perverse outcome when an ideological approach is taken rather than a science-based approach to environmental matters. But this is a Government that likes to ban things likes to tax things and likes to make things compulsory. That is their go-to position on almost every policy matter. Ban it tax it or make it compulsory—those are really the only three policy options or initiatives that they take on any matter. You'll remember members that this was a Government that promised to do a whole lot of things including putting a royalty on the export of bottled water. Have we heard anything about that lately? Not a jot. They said that they were going to get young people without jobs working on cleaning up the country's waterways. Has any of that occurred? Not a single piece. They promised to introduce programmes to reduce waste going to landfill. What have they done? Set up a working group—set up a working group—and that's about it. Then they're going to put a tax on tipping: so going from $10 a tonne up to maybe $60 a tonne—a tax on tipping that will just mean more fly-dumping in electorates like mine around the Coromandel. So perverse outcomes come from a Government that likes to talk a big game but actually deliver very little and when they do deliver perverse outcomes are achieved."