Norman Russel William: Waste Minimisation Bill — Third Reading 
Norman Russel William: Waste Minimisation Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:18833] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Waste Minimisation Bill is perhaps the most comprehensive and significant piece of waste legislation to come before Parliament and it is about time. 
About 3.2 million tonnes of waste goes to landfills each year in New Zealand and according to the Ministry for the Environment each year we throw away about $250 million worth of potentially reusable resources. Not only is this a huge waste of resources but also landfills contribute to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and are a significant source of toxic leachate—particularly as we have seen in places like Horowhenua. 
This bill is not a silver bullet. It is more an enabling bill than anything else as it provides a framework through which these problems can be addressed. The bill creates a framework for the Government to respond to the growing waste problem but that work has already begun. It is worth acknowledging that individuals councils communities and businesses have already begun this process as best they can. The Ministry for the Environment has also contributed to the response despite the absence of this legislation. But with this bill Parliament and the Government are playing catch-up. 
The bill has three key elements. The first is the levy. The levy disincentivises waste generation. Effectively it internalises some of the costs that waste generates. The Greens believe that using price signals is an important part—but it is only one part—of dealing to the waste problem. The second part is product stewardship which requires producers and importers to take more responsibility for end-of-life collection diversion and disposal. More important it will motivate manufacturers to redesign their products and packaging to reduce the amount of waste created in the first place—at the beginning of the pipe. We need to redesign production and packaging so that fewer materials are used and we need to ensure that products can actually be recycled. The bill allows the Minister for the Environment to regulate to create mandatory product stewardship schemes where needed and to provide stricter targets for existing industry-sponsored schemes. We are behind the ball in this area and this provides an opportunity for us to speed up. 
The bill establishes the Waste Advisory Board. Some people asked why we need a new organisation when we have the Ministry for the Environment. The ministry is currently giving a lot of attention to waste but that has not always been the case and it will not necessarily continue to be the case so it is good to have a board that drives it along. The ministry’s work programme depends to some degree on the tastes of the Minister and the chief executive officer so it is subject to variation. In addition like all Government departments the ministry has a significant turnover and has some difficulty holding on to institutional knowledge. Although I share the fear of establishing a self-perpetuating bureaucracy I am still convinced that a small independent organisation with representation from different sectors involved in waste minimisation and able to play a leadership and advocacy role will be enormously useful. 
This bill is now a Government bill but it did not start that way. It was drafted by my colleague Mike Ward and it was guided by Nandor Tanczos from the ballot to its second reading. I took the bill through its Committee of the whole House stage and now the Government has adopted the bill to ensure that it is passed before the election. 
A number of amendments were made at the Committee stage and it is worth talking about them briefly. The Minister and the Greens made some minor drafting changes to Part 1 including the heading and to clause 62. We clarified clause 54 and added a new clause 97 to allow the Waste Advisory Board nomination process to begin prior to the Act’s commencement and that has been handy. National MP Nicky Wagner also tabled a number of amendments. Two minor amendments were made one of which extended the stockpile time frame to 6 months and one of which amends clause 30 to protect private enterprise schemes from competitive disadvantage. The Committee unanimously accepted these amendments once they were redrafted by officials. 
A more significant National Party amendment put forward on Supplementary Order Paper 218 would have delayed the commencement of the whole Act until July 2009. Waste is an urgent problem that needs urgent action so we were very glad that Nicky Wagner withdrew that amendment after discussion. There was a more contentious amendment around the title of the bill but on the advice of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and because we did not see any particular need for the amendment we did not support it. 
Nicky Wagner put forward a major amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 219 to the definition of “waste” that would have had a very significant effect; we were concerned that it would scuttle the whole bill. The bill was designed to provide tools to address the whole waste sphere including the waste industry because the whole purpose is to reduce the generation of waste reduce the waste that goes to landfills and maximise recovered waste. Our officials’ advice was that the National Party amendment would have had severe ramifications including preventing the spending of levy money on recycling because waste minimisation would no longer include recovered materials. We were disappointed that such a far-reaching amendment was put forward at very short notice during the Committee stage and we wished that more advice had been sought from officials and local government earlier on. 
To save the bill we negotiated during the adjournment with Nicky Wagner Ministry for the Environment officials and the scrap metal industry. We negotiated a compromise amendment that would address the specific concerns of some industries while keeping the bill intact. Diverted materials were split off from waste and the definition of “waste minimisation” was altered to include both. Industries that trade in waste material can therefore consider their material to be diverted material rather than waste. However as a consequence local government has reduced powers to license and to collect information. It can do this only for waste and not for diverted materials. Fortunately the Ministry for the Environment can collect information on all materials whether discarded or diverted and we hope it actually does this and shares it with local government as appropriate so that local government can get the information it needs. 
I acknowledge the people who played a key role in this bill. One of the early minds behind this kind of legislation of course was Rod Donald who was a very keen recycler and ran many campaigns to reduce waste. I thank Mike Ward and Nandor Tanczos. I also acknowledge Chris Teo-Sherrell who was important in the writing of the bill and Quentin Duthie who also played a very important role. I thank the 316 people who submitted on the original bill and the 125 who submitted on Supplementary Order Paper 150. The vast majority of submitters were very supportive of the intent of the bill if not of the detail. I thank the three successive Ministers for the Environment David Benson-Pope David Parker and Trevor Mallard as well as their staff and in particular Steve Hurring who played a key role. I thank the Community Recycling Network the Packaging Council the Waste Management Institute of New Zealand the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development local government and of course the scrap metal industry for their input and I would very much like to thank the officials from the Ministry for the Environment. 
The Green Party has a goal of achieving a waste-free Aotearoa New Zealand by 2020 with clear and significant progress by 2010. A waste-free society is essential to the well-being of people and the sustainability of the planet. Waste is not an inevitable part of production and consumption. Materials must be part of cycles rather than linear processes in which they are used once then discarded. Full social and environmental costs should be taken into account when making decisions about the creation management and disposal of wastes. We think this bill is a step along the path towards a waste-free Aotearoa New Zealand and we commend it to the House.