Smith Nick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Smith Nick: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:3659] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 National members will be supporting the referral of this bill to a select committee and we welcome the fact that the two bills that are closely related will both be dealt with by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.  
I want to challenge the Minister on a number of issues of process that are quite untidy and sloppy. Again the first is the issue of timing. I think it reasonable to expect that when bills come before this House there is some accuracy associated with them. With both this bill and the previous bill debated by the House we have an oxymoron on the very first page. The second paragraph of this bill states: “The enactment of the Bill (together with certain amendments to the Import Control Act 1988) will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm Convention before or at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August-September 2002.” That is a nonsense. How can the Minister come to this House 6 months later and say that that is what the Government will do? 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Because the bill was sitting waiting and ready to go. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well is it not too much to ask— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Sit down and keep it rocking. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member for Dunedin South Mr Benson-Pope wants to stand up for the great parliamentary process but tells me not to bother reading it. The fact that the bill is a bloody nonsense—excuse my French—should have no impact at all; we should just forget about it! Frankly I would be being derelict in my duties as a member of Parliament. If the bill presented to the House is a nonsense our duty is to point that out and hold the Government to account. It is not too much to expect that a bill presented before the House makes some logical sense and this one does not. Further than that I wonder whether the member Mr Benson-Pope has read the regulatory impact statement that is provided in the bill. 
David Benson-Pope 
: I have seen the one on Meridian. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member does not want to talk about the bill; he wants to talk about everything else. He wants to talk about irrelevancies and he wants to get into personality attacks—as he did yesterday. I asked him to address the bill before the House and I ask him whether he has read the regulatory impact statement. 
David Benson-Pope 
: It is my duty. Don’t waste your time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: If the member had bothered to do his job and read the regulatory impact statement contained in this bill he would know that it is a nonsense. He would know what the statement was meant to do. As members would well know the whole purpose of regulatory impact statements is to try to ensure that costs of compliance are addressed and are not a total nonsense. The analysis of benefits and costs is grossly deficient and we on this side of the House say it is simply not good enough. If the process of regulatory impact statements is just going to produce that sort of garbage all we are doing is bowling over trees for no good purpose.  
I want to challenge the Minister further on timing because this Minister has a bad habit. Time after time we are seeing timetables slip behind in important environmental areas. Take the Resource Management Amendment Bill which we were promised would be dealt with in October 2001. October 2001 came and went. The Minister responsible for that bill then told us it would be passed in October last year. October 2002 came and went. The reason the Minister has given for the delays on the Resource Management Amendment Bill is that there is no House time. Anybody who knows some of the issues associated with resource management knows that that bill has a far higher priority than this one. I want to know why the Minister would put this bill as her No. 1 legislative priority albeit it—like the Resource Management Amendment Bill—is months and years late.  
This bill and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants are sound and well-based conventions. I made a point earlier with regard to chemicals in New Zealand that are outdated and need to be disposed of. There are shocking stories of shonky businesses buying up dangerous chemicals taking them out on the high seas and tipping them overboard. Every single New Zealander and every citizen of this globe knows that that sort of conduct is totally irresponsible and that we need conventions like the Stockholm convention to be able to deal to that sort of behaviour and ensure the proper management of such chemicals.  
We have a concern that we want to explore with officials in the select committee and that is the provisions that allow the Cabinet by Order in Council to add to the list of prohibited chemicals provided for in schedule 2. We do not have a difficulty with those that are specifically listed in schedule 2 but if for instance a new chemical—a pesticide or an industrial chemical—is going to be added to the list of prohibited chemicals we need to be careful that there is a proper process around it. There needs to be some consultation and we need to be satisfied that there will be a thorough process around adding those chemicals to the schedule and to this legislation.  
So National members say yes good job but we need to have clear rules around those particularly dangerous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants—because they are toxic and biocumulative and because they are persistent. We think this is a pretty good framework for doing it but we wish to pursue some fine points in the select committee and make sure that we get it right. I challenge the next member of the Government to provide some explanation for the completely illogical statement on page one of the bill. I cannot believe any Minister would want to come to the House with such a statement which given its timing is a nonsense