Carter David: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Carter David: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18782] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the National Party to support the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill going to a select committee. But I hasten to add that I certainly will be supporting the motion moved by my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith that the bill should go to the appropriate select committee—the Local Government and Environment Committee—and not to the Education and Science Committee. I will come back to that shortly. 
If the bill does indeed improve the workability of the original Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act of 1996 as it states it will everybody would be prepared to support it. I was staggered to hear in Nick Smith’s contribution that this is the fourth amendment bill to the original Act that Minister Hobbs has brought into the House in 5 years. I would have thought that the main purpose of any of those bills would be to improve the fundamental workability of the original legislation which was complex indeed. I acknowledge that. When I first came into this place I happened to sit on the smaller subcommittee that worked on the original legislation. The legislation is very very complex. 
It is interesting to note that that bill went to the Local Government and Environment Committee. Therefore I think Nick Smith was absolutely right when he acknowledged in the House today the very reason that this bill has suddenly been rushed on to the Order Paper. The Government hopes to send it to the Education and Science Committee. Whether that motion survives the vote that will be held at the conclusion of this debate will be very interesting. 
That vote will certainly put some focus on United Future yet again. United Future will have to make a decision in the very near future as to whether it will support the Government. We know from the front page of the  
Independent 
 this week that there is a lot of tension and dissension in United Future as the various members realise that most of them are about to give their valedictory speeches. In fact Bernie Ogilvy may already have done that only 10 minutes ago. When that member comes to cast his vote as to where this legislation should go he will need to think very cautiously about that. We know that National will obviously be voting for it to go to the appropriate select committee and we know that ACT and the Greens will vote for it to go to the appropriate select committee. So I say to Bernie Ogilvy that if he wants to have one last stand in this place he should think seriously about whether he will just automatically support the Government and send the bill to the Education and Science Committee. 
I think Bernie Ogilvy also needs to realise that if he does support such a motion he is giving the Government the chance to take that select committee’s eye off its real job. Its real job is to tidy up the debacle that Trevor Mallard has made out of school examinations. It is an absolute mess and thousands of young New Zealanders who are in secondary school at the moment know that their whole school careers are at risk because of the debacle caused by the Hon Trevor Mallard and now supported by the Hon David Benson-Pope. 
That is only one issue before that select committee. Very shortly we will have the issue regarding the wananga to which Trevor Mallard has given half a billion dollars—Mr Mallard has overseen half a billion dollars being given to that wananga—yet he had the audacity to say in the House yesterday that he was not too sure whether he had confidence in its spending. 
So that is another issue that should be going to the Education and Science Committee. Marian Hobbs knows it but she and her colleagues have made a very cunning move today. They have rushed this legislation on to the Order Paper. They will now send it to the Education and Science Committee. Members should note that they will move not to adhere to the Standing Order that gives the select committee 6 months to consider this complex legislation. No no they will force that select committee to take its eye off those other two extremely important issues and to get on to this because they will give the committee members the guillotine treatment and tell them they have to report back before 4 June. 
I say to Bernie Ogilvy that he should make sure when he stands to vote automatically with the Government—like United Future has done now for month after month which is why it is polling at 1 percent; it has been subsumed by the Labour Party and no longer has any identity at all—and when the vote comes on Nick Smith’s amendment that he thinks carefully. If he and the other United Future members vote for this legislation to go to the Education and Science Committee they will be removing the ability of that select committee—which is chaired by the Hon Brian Donnelly and I have no criticism of that at all—to do its job of trying to help out the thousands of young New Zealanders in school at the moment who are about to face the National Certificate of Educational Achievement and the debacle that the Labour Government has created. So I ask Mr Bernie Ogilvy to think carefully. 
I also want to speak about the very aim of the bill. It aims to improve the workability of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and is designed to reduce costs. If it was in anybody else’s name but that of the Hon Marian Hobbs I might be inclined to accept it. But that Minister has had this portfolio for 5 long years and in the dying days of this decaying Labour Government has put this amendment legislation before the House. I am not convinced that under the stewardship of Marian Hobbs this legislation will reduce costs at all. So I say that the select committee has an important job to do. 
I refer the Minister to a report that she has no doubt received that was prepared by Meat and Wool New Zealand Dairy InSight Deer Industry New Zealand the Foundation for Arable Research and Federated Farmers of New Zealand. It is a detailed report. It tries to examine the cost that the New Zealand farmer faces because of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. I say to Marian Hobbs that we have only to look at the first few paragraphs of the executive summary to know that there is a huge problem with this legislation. That report suggests that the direct costs alone to the farmers of New Zealand in order to obtain their approved handling certificates test certification storage signage and all the other things required by that legislation are $106 million. The report then suggests that a further $92 million can be added from indirect costs associated with the huge amount of record-keeping and documentation and the labour associated with that. 
Farmers are already under enough pressure with the compliance costs that are being heaped on them by the Labour Government. Now a report prepared by recognised organisations representing New Zealand and New Zealand agriculture states that the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is about to impose on each and every farmer in New Zealand an additional compliance cost of $4222. I accept that there are issues around the safe handling of hazardous organisms but to establish legislation that imposes costs of $4000 on each and every farmer in New Zealand is plainly ridiculous. 
The farmers of this country have enough to cope with. They are coping with a silent Minister of Agriculture Jim Sutton. The only way he gets his name in the paper now is when branches of Federated Farmers around this country move votes of no confidence in him. So I say to Marian Hobbs Labour members and United Future that as they move that this legislation be referred to the incorrect select committee they should think seriously about the costs being imposed now by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act on New Zealand agriculture.