Hobbs Marian: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hobbs Marian: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18773] 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Approvals and Enforcement) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be considered by the Education and Science Committee and that the committee report the bill finally to the House by 3 June 2005. In June 2003 the Government announced its strategy to improve the workability of the hazardous substances provisions of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The strategy was developed in close consultation with industry leaders and focused on improving workability to achieve the purpose of the Act—that is to protect the environment and the health and safety of people and their communities by preventing or managing the adverse effects of hazardous substances. The bill is the second of two legislative actions identified in the strategy. This bill like the first one deals only with hazardous substances. The first legislative change the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Transitional Provisions and Controls) Amendment Bill was passed in early 2004. It focused on removing immediate barriers to the transfer of hazardous substance management from the old regime to the new hazardous substances and new organisms regime. The main barrier then was the requirement to transfer substances by regulation. Transfer can now happen by  
Gazette 
 notice. 
At the time when that legislation passed last year I flagged the need for a further more detailed amendment to the hazardous substances and new organisms regime in order to improve the workability of the Act and remove barriers to innovation and sustainable economic growth. The key amendment in this current bill is the provision of a new approval mechanism known as a “group standard”. When the Environmental Risk Management Authority is satisfied that a group standard is an efficient and effective way of managing the risks it will be able to group substances based on similar type use or risks—for example groups for paints cosmetics and animal vaccines—and to set user-friendly conditions for the group. 
Because this bill will improve the workability of the Act it will reduce costs to industry and to the Government while continuing to protect the environment and the health and safety of people and their communities. The group standards mechanism will reduce costs to industry by reducing the number of applications that businesses need to make to the Environmental Risk Management Authority and by providing simpler prescriptive alternatives to the technical controls in regulations which small and medium enterprises have found very difficult to implement. Through this legislation a group standard could state what ought to be on a label and how that label should look. That will give businesses a lot more certainty. The group standards mechanisms will reduce costs to Government by providing the Environmental Risk Management Authority with an efficient way to transfer the vast majority of approximately 70000 notified toxic substances to the full hazardous substances and new organisms regime by June 2006. Without group standards it is anticipated that transfer would cost the Government in the order of an extra $2 million. 
There is an additional aspect of the group standards mechanism that I believe is very important. Many wastes and some manufactured articles have hazardous characteristics that exceed hazardous substance and new organism thresholds. In other words they really should be regulated under the hazardous substances and new organisms regime as they are for instance corrosive eco-toxic or flammable. However hazardous substance and new organism controls cannot be applied at present because those controls are linked to a hazardous substances and new organisms approval and an approval is needed only if someone intends to manufacture or import a hazardous substance. Obviously waste by-products such as toxic wastes from the pulp and paper and tannery industries are not manufactured or imported so to date hazardous substance and new organism controls could not be applied to them. This bill changes that. 
Waste by-products can be very dangerous and should be controlled. The existing legislation goes only so far in doing that. The Resource Management Act controls the discharge of waste but does not sufficiently manage the hazards posed by those wastes or articles particularly during storage or transport. We have only to think of the examples that have occurred down the Kaikoura coastline with rat poison going over into the sea. Nor does the Resource Management Act provide for the tracking of such materials. A new group standard on tanning waste for instance would be able to control the containment and labelling of that waste prior to transport treatment and disposal. Bringing such wastes into the ambit of the hazardous substances and new organisms regime is a significant advance in environmental risk management and supports the initiatives of the New Zealand waste strategy. 
Because hazardous wastes are not currently controlled by the hazardous substances and new organisms regime a group standard for a hazardous waste may potentially increase costs to the businesses that produce the waste. However the process of developing a group standard includes public consultation so that businesses and industry will have the chance to have their say on whether the benefits of managing that waste outweigh the costs of doing so. 
I would now like to turn to two other key proposals in this bill. Firstly the Government has become aware that there are gaps in the enforcement of hazardous substance and new organism controls particularly in the environmental area. The bill identifies regional councils as an agency that may enforce hazardous substance and new organism controls thus gaining from the skills and experience regional councils have in environmental monitoring and enforcement providing opportunities for efficiency gains and promoting more comprehensive environmental protection regimes. This bill will also enable regional councils to cost recover their checking for compliance with the hazardous substances and new organisms regime. 
Secondly for hazardous substances such as pesticides the Act currently provides exposure limits as a key method to ensure safe use. However very few exposure limits have been set because the process of establishing such limits is prescriptive and overly onerous to undertake at the same time as the substance is being approved. This bill increases flexibility so the Environmental Risk Management Authority can adopt an international value and we do not have to do each pesticide for example ourselves. The values the authority sets can be used by regional councils as guidelines so they can then be adjusted for local conditions. Exposure limits will also be able to be set and applied for substances after the substance has been approved or transferred. 
This bill also contains amendments to make the hazardous substances and new organisms regime work better in specific cases for enforcement agencies for businesses for research institutes and for the New Zealand Defence Force. I was going to list those for the information of the House but with the aim of getting this first reading through I will not. 
In conclusion this bill includes a number of provisions some of which represent a significant innovation in the hazardous substances and new organisms regime and some of which are targeted to address very specific barriers. Overall these provisions will greatly increase the workability of the Act providing meaningful reductions in costs to industry and the Government while not compromising the level of protection provided to the environment and the health and safety of people and their communities. Further for the first time there will be provision to manage the effects of hazardous wastes and articles. This bill will ensure that the hazardous substances provisions of the Act work better to deliver the key outcome the Act was intended to contribute to: a healthy environment for all New Zealanders. 
I have asked that the bill be reported by 3 June. The Environmental Risk Management Authority needs a year to organise and consult with people with regard to the group standards in order for the transfer to be completed by July 2006. If the House could pass this bill by August we would be helping businesses in New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.