Heatley Phil: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6967] 
PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei) 
: I too am interested in clause 6 “Interpretation” and I know my colleague from Auckland Judith Collins put in an amendment to that clause. I would love to have a copy of that amendment before me but I have just loaned it to a colleague. The amendment seeks to delete paragraph (e) of clause 6(1). It is a one-sentence amendment but I believe it is of huge significance to this Parliament. Clause 6(1) seeks to amend section 2(1) of the principal Act “by inserting in their appropriate alphabetical order the following definitions” relating to “international obligation”. The obligation that this Labour Government wants us to sign up to is in paragraph (e) and states that: “any other international obligation that is or becomes binding on New Zealand and that provides for the restriction on or the prohibition of the exportation of certain chemicals products organisms wastes or other substances that pose a risk to human health or to the environment”. 
Members opposite will know that we are supporting this bill. We certainly want a prohibition on the exportation of certain chemicals products organisms wastes or other substances that pose a risk to human health—we have no argument with that. However we say let us see the mischief first because paragraph (e) refers to “any other international obligation that is or becomes binding on New Zealand …”. In other words a treaty will be signed overseas—presumably by a Minister on the advice of officials—and because of this legislation it will automatically become binding on New Zealand through the statutory process. It will go straight through the executive but it will not pass through Parliament at all. No one in this Parliament will get to look at it—members may not even be aware of it unless they are particularly vigilant and dig around to find what Ministers are doing when they traipse overseas to attend various conventions. 
Any protocol that is signed up to regarding the restriction of such chemicals and organisms could provide an opportunity for a non-tariff trade barrier which would mean other nations trading with New Zealand putting up barriers to us exporting our products and making a dollar overseas. Such conventions could be used and if this particular subsection passes they would not undergo any scrutiny in this Parliament. There might be essential chemicals that pose a health risk to people to a greater or lesser degree but it might be a lesser degree and it might be a far greater mischief if the chemical were not used and was not present in export products. One could quite easily argue that certain chemicals are used to increase the life of a product. The damage they do in terms of health risk might be very minimal and if such chemicals were not used at all the health risk could be quite excessive. Yet with this measure if someone overseas did a deal and signed certain chemicals off in a heated moment—and mercury is one such chemical—this Parliament would not get to scrutinise that action and I am concerned about that. Not only could a protocol be passed automatically before concerned members of Parliament got to see what had been signed up to but also we could not unwind it very easily. We cannot unwind those obligations. 
 I would hope the Ministers overseas traipsing about the world signing up to this that and the other thing as this Labour Government has done would take it very very seriously; that signing up to something is one thing but passing it through legislation statutory requirements is quite another. To unwind on those obligations is quite a task. To have it automatically passed through this Parliament via this clause is of great concern. Process is very very important.