Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6978] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: I am pleased to speak to Part 1 of this important bill which includes the commencement and the purpose clauses. The way that the Labour Government has handled both those issues has troubled me considerably with regard to this very important bill. Firstly we should go to clause 2 “Commencement” which obviously states that the Act comes into force on a day to be appointed by the Governor-General. As the Hon Dr Nick Smith has pointed out the Stockholm convention was signed 2 years ago. But perhaps even more relevant is the fact that this bill was put on the Order Paper on 21 May 2002. 
Here we are in urgency dealing with a bill that has languished because of this dilatory Labour Government unnecessarily for a great deal of time. We have a Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs who says that she is interested in environmental concerns yet she has been extraordinarily dilatory when it comes to progressing New Zealand’s involvement with the Stockholm convention a convention which does enjoy an almost unparalleled level of support amongst United Nations countries. So here we are with a dilatory Labour Government and a lackadaisical Minister who is really just cruising along. I must say that in the earlier part of this debate the Hon Peter Dunne from the United Future party was concerned that I might have been critical of him for not progressing this bill. That is not the case at all. Mr Dunne is a highly competent chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. Once he finally got the bill in February he made sure that it was progressed expeditiously. It is undoubtedly the Government a Government that purports to be interested in the environment that has unfortunately delayed this bill’s passage and finally out of sheer convenience has suddenly after a knee-jerk reaction—and we cannot understand why—decided to bring it through under urgency. 
But more important than that is the purpose of the bill. Again I ask as did the Hon Dr Nick Smith whether the chance is available for New Zealanders to have a say if the Stockholm convention is changed. After all we are a sovereign nation. Surely as the Parliament of a sovereign nation it is absolutely important that where international conventions that we are signatory to are passed through our Parliament and there are changes to the parent convention we in this country are able to have a say in those situations if the changes are significant to us—and when a convention is to do with importing and exporting that can be profoundly significant to us. I hope that the Minister who has shown a fair amount of dilatoriness in terms of bringing this important bill to the Committee will take a call and assure us that that will be possible. 
The purpose of this bill is to enable New Zealand to comply with the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. I believe that my colleague Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith will move an important amendment—and I will not go on to say very much about it—to insert after the word “with” the words “certain requirements of” because the purpose here is inflexible. It means in many respects that we would have to abide by the whole Stockholm convention whether or not it applied to New Zealand. I hope the Minister will take notice of that important amendment.