Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill—what a name. I just wanted to acknowledge my colleague Eugenie Sage who I'm sure would have been delighted to deliver this third reading speech. She's the chair of the Environment Committee and someone technological so are the other members across the House who I understand have worked in a very collegial and constructive manner to get to this place where we can celebrate in some time the passing of this bill.The intention of this bill is to reduce time cost and complexity of assessment and reassessment that can delay the introduction of safer chemicals as well as delay reassessment of chemicals in use that may not be fit for purpose. I think for a lot of us when we read the term hazardous substance" I think it can be quite nebulous but there is a definition to it which is basically chemicals mixes of chemicals that can be explosive flammable corrosive have the capacity to oxidise and/or to be toxic to people and the environment. When we see the definition so clearly laid out it is why this bill has such a key role in ensuring that the assessment of the substances is fit for purpose. There are over 200000 substances across the region that are considered to fit this definition.There are several elements of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act—HASNO Act—that are supposed to protect the environment and the health and safety of people. This bill focuses specifically on the assessment of these substances. While we do really support this bill I did want to note a couple of points around some of the areas that we need to continue working on in order to have a really good regime. So one of those is around the need for more work in other areas to improve regulation and management of hazardous substances in the region. In order for this bill to be effective what we say is that we need more funding and Ministry for the Environment (MFE) staff time too and prioritise to simplify the regime ensure agencies are clear about their roles and bridge major gaps such as lack of track and trace systems because sometimes one element is having a really good piece of legislation and the other one is then what needs to happen to ensure that the purpose of this legislation is met. The Environmental Protection Authority the EPA will play a key role.There's heaps of things to like about this bill. One of them is about enabling the EPA to make better use of information from what its counterparts overseas are doing and other trusted regulators in other jurisdictions. There's other elements that we quite like such as making it easier to update hazard classifications when the EPA has done a recent reassessment of a related hazardous substance and also to have a simpler process for the EPA to update hazard classifications for substances and controls on them using information from international regulators as well as basically allowing the EPA to temporarily restrict certain uses of hazardous substances.These are all really important measures that we need to take. While we welcome the use of overseas data in order for us to have a good regime I think that we also need to ensure that we are taking a very Aotearoa-specific context when these decisions are being made. We have a very unique ecology and so therefore decisions being made around what is hazardous and not needs to be made in the context of our own region.It's also important that we're not relying on data and research that is produced by chemical companies themselves as a basis for assessing impact. I think it's important that we also use independent and robust sources that have come through rigorous scientific methods. I mean we can't rely on basically the industry itself to tell us what is hazardous or otherwise. This is why we must continue using a broader range of information. Also it's important that we continue demanding more transparency from applicants and agrichemical companies. We should only be accessing data that is used by trusted regulators overseas.So with that we're pretty pleased to support this bill. Again we're really calling on the Government to make sure this bill is as effective as possible. I know that the previous National speaker talked about how there is broad consensus on this bill. So now's the time to ensure that our environment and our people are protected from substances that could cause them harm. Kia ora."