Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) Link to this
I move, That the Waste Minimisation Bill be now read a third time. I speak in support of the Waste Minimisation Bill. It is time to substantially change the way we deal with waste in New Zealand. Our population and consumption are predicted to grow, which makes it imperative that we tackle the volumes of waste that are now being produced.
NICKY WAGNER (National) Link to this
I rise to support the Waste Minimisation Bill. It has been a long, long journey, but we have finally made it. National voted against the legislation at its first reading. We voted against it because it was excessively detailed and overly prescriptive. We voted against it because it tended to focus on how things should be done, rather than on the outcomes we need to achieve. We were also concerned about excessive costs in terms of compliance and enforcement and layer after layer of new bureaucracy.
However, during the select committee process, which included a series of visits to recycling and resource-recovery businesses throughout the country, and two submission processes, the bill was completely and comprehensively reworked. The Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard on the definitions required for the bill, and we got them right in most instances. There was a large amount of debate about the definition of waste. It seemed to be very difficult to find a definition that was neither too wide nor too narrow. We finally decided on a wider definition, which includes any thing that “is no longer required for its original purpose and, but for commercial or other waste minimisation activities, would be disposed of or discarded;”. Once the bill was reported back, we had representations from several organisations that highlighted unintended consequences of the original wider definition. They believed that the wider definition would create disincentives for recycling and could jeopardise New Zealand’s significant export of waste resources.
When we designed the bill, we aimed to encourage the extraction of valuable commodities from the waste stream, but this wider definition could have had a perverse effect, as it included materials that were never intended for the waste stream. The recyclers were also concerned that the wider definition could unnecessarily increase administrative and compliance costs for recycling businesses, and that would have hindered the bill’s objective of encouraging waste minimisation activities. Furthermore, any suggestion that recyclables such as scrap metal were considered to be waste by the New Zealand Government had the potential to influence importers from other countries, and New Zealand exports could have become subject to more rigorous import controls.
I came to the conclusion that unless we reworked the definition of “waste”, we could cause problems for the people and organisations that had been the most proactive in the minimisation of waste and had spearheaded the recovery of valuable resources from the waste stream. We want to attract businesses and operators to work in this area, not kick them in the shins when they have been proactive. I therefore proposed an amendment, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 219, that narrows the definition of “waste” by excluding recyclables and recoverable resources. It would have solved the recyclers’ problem and ensured that pioneer recyclers and resource-recovery businesses—such as scrap-metal merchants, paper recyclers, and organic and green-waste collectors—were not disadvantaged by the bill.
However, the Ministry for the Environment and representatives from local government were concerned that this narrower definition would impact on the ability of local councils to fulfil their responsibilities under the Local Government Act. That did not seem ideal, either. So over the adjournment I worked with Russel Norman, and with the help of the ministry and local government representatives, we came up with a compromise that everyone can live with. I am very pleased that we have been able to come up with this compromise, because we are actually all on the same side in this issue. It is important that both businesses and communities that drive waste minimisation are on board and that councils can fulfil their responsibilities.
I have to say that the process of working through the bill with the select committee, and even the process of managing the Supplementary Order Papers, which is a difficult one, has worked well. My only disappointment is that Russel Norman of the Greens, who gave his word to support my last Supplementary Order Paper but reneged after they had got everything they wanted—[Interruption] Throughout the process I worked closely and well with Nandor Tanczos, even after he had left Parliament, and it is a pity that Russel Norman does not appear to understand that a member is expected to be honourable and to keep his word.
Madam SPEAKERI withdraw and apologise, Madam Speaker.
New Zealanders are conscious that the disposal of waste, however carefully managed, does harm to our environment. Although modern landfills utilise new technologies to protect the receding environment, we still need to minimise the volume of waste we dispose of. Even transporting waste is destructive and increases our carbon footprint. So the bill introduces some new tools.
I believe that the establishment of product stewardship schemes is perhaps one of the most important parts of the bill. Although some very successful voluntary product stewardship schemes are in existence already, their inclusion in the bill will highlight the need for these schemes and encourage their development. The big advantage of a product stewardship scheme is that manufacturers and distributors of a product are incentivised to think about the product’s whole life cycle. They are in a position to redesign the product in light of its future use and its final disposal. Too often when products are created, no thought is given to their final disposal. We need manufacturers to make smart decisions at the beginning of the design process.
It is easy to make good decisions—such as the use of recyclable material rather than non-recyclable material—at the beginning of a product’s life cycle. The worst products are those that are a mixture of different materials, as they are almost impossible to recycle. Some very successful voluntary schemes are in place, such as those of Resene Paints and Fisher and Paykel—and we have made sure that they are eligible for accreditation under this bill. The Minister can also declare certain products to be priority products, and they must become part of a product stewardship scheme. For that to happen, the waste from the product must cause significant environmental harm, there must be benefits from reusing, reducing, recycling, or recovering the product, and the waste must be able to be managed effectively under a product stewardship scheme.
We heard at the Local Government and Environment Committee that many companies and industry sectors were being very proactive in managing their wastes, but some industries were struggling to get all of their members involved. It is the same old story. The majority of people in organisations are prepared to do the right thing, but there is a minority of free-riders who are not prepared to contribute. In these cases a mandated scheme will ensure that everyone is included, and it will be beneficial for those who are already carrying the costs of managing their waste responsibly.
The imposition of a waste disposal levy was a hot topic for debate in our caucus, but we finally decided that, as a user-pays fee and an economic instrument designed to encourage waste minimisation, it would be useful. We wanted to reward people and companies for minimising their waste and penalise those who do not, and as everyone is already looking for a cheaper way, those who make the effort to minimise their waste can save money.
We were also keen to find a way to finance capital expenditure for waste minimisation projects. At present most projects are paid for by the ratepayer via local government, and again, everyone, regardless of his or her waste behaviour, pays the same. Proceeds from the waste levy will be split fifty-fifty between territorial authorities, on a population basis, and a centralised contestable fund for waste minimisation projects. The contestable fund will be available to any business or organisation with a waste minimisation project.
Territorial authorities can spend levy money only to promote or achieve waste minimisation in accordance with their waste management and minimisation plan. My Supplementary Order Paper—No 221—includes a third criterion that requires territorial authorities, when funding waste services through the levy, to treat private enterprise, council-controlled organisations, and their own in-house operations on an equal basis. This is to deal with an issue raised by waste service operators. They were concerned that councils could use the levy to subsidise council services that may unfairly undercut private enterprise schemes.
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
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.
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) Link to this
It gives me great pleasure to have an opportunity to speak in the third reading debate on the Waste Minimisation Bill. I want to compliment one or two people. Firstly, I say that of all the select committees I have been involved in, the Local Government and Environment Committee members worked the most productively together. Our politics were put aside and we grappled with the issue. For the likes of me, coming from the back of the Hokianga where we chop down trees and dig things, my whole attitude to this issue has changed significantly. It has been a steep learning curve for me. I thank the select committee generally, but I compliment Nicky Wagner, who has done a tremendous amount of work on this legislation. She deserves to be recognised for the work she has done. I also say to the chairperson of the committee, Moana Mackey, that she did a good job.
Other members of the committee who need to be recognised as we go through this third reading debate include Mike Ward, who introduced the bill, although I have to say he did not do a lot of work on it because, of course, he left Parliament, if that is the polite way to put it. But the one who did do a lot of work on it was Nandor Tanczos, and we need to recognise the work he did. Having him on the select committee with me was also a steep learning curve, because he is not the sort of person I would normally have a close association with. But I found that the more one gets to know Nandor, the more one gets to like him. We established quite a good friendship during that time and when we were at a couple of conferences together, and I suspect that that friendship will be enduring. For all the people who may think that Parliament is a strange place—and it is—I tell them that lots of good work actually gets done in Parliament, particularly in the select committees, and that we can have friendships across parties. So I just make those points in speaking to the third reading.
The other thing I would like to have recorded in my address is my belief that on these sorts of issues New Zealand has come a long way but still has a long way to go. This bill is but a first step towards our actually addressing an issue that needs more public focus. One of the unfortunate things that happens in our society, mainly through ignorance, is that we waste a lot of resource, and I must say that it was a shame that Nicky’s amendment was not accepted and the title was not changed to the “Waste Minimisation and Resource Recovery Bill”. All the committee recognised that we are talking about the use of our resources—the better use of our resources. One of the things that struck me—and it changed my mind on this whole issue—was that there is so much more that can be done and should be done.
The unfortunate thing in the way in which we implement our waste management at the moment is that the ratepayers and the public—but the ratepayers specifically—pay for the cost of our disposal of waste, and that is quite a huge burden on the ratepayers of this country. One of the things that fascinated me when I went to South Australia to study its system of waste disposal, where it uses container deposit legislation as the base of its resource recovery, was that that state has the lowest “per ratepayer cost” of all states right across Australia. I think, from memory, that the cost is less than half of that for every other state. That is because South Australia has a system whereby more emphasis is put on the upfront responsibility than on the end-user. That makes manufacturers and producers of items far more responsible, and it also gives small businesses an opportunity to have a cash flow. Most of us will remember the days when we used to get 2c for returning a lemonade bottle, the Boy Scout and Girl Guide bottle drives, and those other things we used to do. That is the sort of system that is run in South Australia.
I mentioned yesterday in the Committee debate that car manufacturers came to the select committee and said they would like to see us put a $500 extra cost on to every new car, which could be deposited so that at the end use of the car, rather than have it disposed of by being chucked over a bank, burnt out in a bush somewhere, or left on the side of the road, the car would have a value of at least $500, which would be meaningful to some people. Most people would want to redeem that, and this is the sort of system that can happen when we have container deposit legislation. I think that in time we will move more and more towards that sort of system. The framework is here for that to happen. At the moment it works only on priority products, but I see a time when we will move to that whole system right across the country, and, quite honestly, I for one will be supportive of it. I would encourage it to happen as rapidly as it can.
One controversial issue was the levy. A whole lot of people wanted the levy, such as local government, the producers—the whole system. Everybody thought they should have it because they had the best reason for it. But the levy, actually, is just a step. Its whole purpose is to impose a cost on people who want to dispose of their waste rather than reuse it. So it is a punitive measure, in that regard. It is designed to try to encourage people to understand that if we do not treat our waste as a resource, there is a cost for having that attitude. Its whole purpose is to change the attitudes of the nation, and in time it will. I do see a time when the levy will continue to increase to a level where it will be very costly to dispose of our rubbish in a landfill, as opposed to having the opportunity to redeem that rubbish and probably get a return on it. When we get to that stage, this country will seriously be starting to make some progress on the proper system of resource recovery, rather than waste.
I for one look forward to the day when we get rid of the word “waste” in this context, and when we all look at the issue of waste as a resource and not as waste, at all. Quite honestly, when that happens, this nation will be able to proudly stand up and say that we are one of the leaders in the world in this regard. We are a way from that yet, but I do see the time coming when that will happen. South Australia, for example, and a number of countries, have already moved a lot further ahead than we have, but this framework gives us the opportunity to make great strides ahead.
Quite honestly, I am proud to have been one of the people who has been involved in this waste minimisation legislation. As I said, for me, personally, it has been a steep learning curve. I have enjoyed being involved in the whole issue of this legislation, and I conclude by thanking all the members on the select committee. Funnily enough, we did manage to put our politics aside and work constructively together to end up with legislation that is workable and will be good for this nation.
HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. In the world of discarded lifestyles, plastic wraparounds, high-impact packaging, and personal attacks in Parliament, the Waste Minimisation Bill is a breath of fresh air. On this day when we mourn the loss of life from 9/11 and the loss of liberty suffered in the police terrorism raids by those who are before the courts in Auckland, we recognise also the way in which the rampant exploitation of Papatūānuku and all her resources forces us to acknowledge our own fragile place on this earth, and the urgent need for us all to take a reality check on how we respect our world.
Let me extend my congratulations to my brother Nandor Tanczos on the effort he put into this bill to encourage us to reduce waste. Given how much waste is generated by this place, I can understand why he got out before he was suffocated by the garbage that often masquerades as parliamentary debate. I know that he had to put up with a lot of nit-picking from businesses that over-package products in order to enhance sales, from corporate entities that generate even more trash than product, and from politicians who must be getting a kickback for nodding when multinationals say they are already doing a lot to reduce waste, and to do even more would impact on the viability of their businesses. Yeah, right! I know too that because of some of those compromises, this bill is not exactly what he would have wanted, but I offer my congratulations to him anyway on pushing it, and pushing it to the point where this legislation is to become a reality.
We particularly like the product stewardship scheme to make producers responsible for their products right throughout a product’s life cycle. That will encourage producers to use more environmentally friendly products and discourage the huge waste that is part of our society today. Unlike the emissions trading scheme, where the big polluters will not have to pay for years, this bill will encourage everyone to reduce waste or pay for it from day one—be they big producers or small producers. That is future thinking, and we like it.
We like the waste streams idea of charging importers an extra $5 for every tyre that is brought into Aotearoa, to put the brakes on importers bringing in container-loads of second-hand tyres. That charge has to be a good idea, given that 5 million tyres are dumped in Aotearoa every year. Five million car, truck, and industrial tyres are dumped in landfills or chucked into our rivers and on to our paddocks. They are not just the nice little tyres that people use for flower gardens, worm farms, to hang over the swimming hole, to make into little rubber swan sculptures, or to use in the sandpit. I refer also to the big, ugly, thick rubber tyres that leach toxic waste into our rivers and landfills.
We know that the bill was changed a lot at the Local Government and Environment Committee and with a whole trash pile of Supplementary Order Papers. Although the extra amendments and changes may have reduced the bureaucracy and simplified the bill, unfortunately—and this is a bit like what occurred with regard to the emissions trading scheme—they have also held back some of the good bits as well. For instance, our councils actually wanted to have stronger legislation but felt their proposals had been watered down by extensive lobbying from commercial groups opposed to the idea that they should accept responsibility for the waste they create.
The Māori Party is happy to support this bill, because it is consistent with our long-term call for the Government to take responsibility for the dumping of toxic waste, which has caused dioxin poisoning in Taranaki and widespread health problems for the people of Paritūtū, including birth defects, behavioural problems, diabetes, and cancer. It will help to address some of the concerns we have raised about the contaminated former sawmill site at Minginui, and the likelihood of chemicals leaching from the landfill site into local waterways and streams, and give weight to the advocacy of Sawmill Workers Against Poison—people like Joe Harawira and Gwenda Paul, who have been fighting to repair the damage created at more than 600 former sawmills by chemicals that been proven to have adverse effects on our lands, our rivers, and our people. The bill fits in with our call for Kiwis to take responsibility for Aotearoa. It is a refreshing change and a step in the right direction. To that end, the Māori Party is pleased to support it at this third and final reading. Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker.
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this
It is a pleasure to take a brief call on the third reading of the Waste Minimisation Bill. I think it has all been said before here this afternoon, and in the previous readings as well. But I do want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee. Most of the processes we go through in that committee are just fine and we work together quite well, but it was particularly nice to be working on a bill towards a common purpose. We all agreed on the intent, and we all wanted to get the best outcome possible from the bill before us. The bill went through a rather dramatic transformation at the select committee. It was there for so long because, given the extent of the changes, we wanted to give submitters the opportunity to come back and submit on the extensive Supplementary Order Paper that ended up becoming part of the bill.
I pay tribute to all the former members of the Green Party under whose names this bill was registered. Mike Ward was one, and also Nandor Tanczos, who took the bill through the majority of the select committee hearings. I really do want to thank the select committee for the numerous meetings we had during adjournments so that we could get the bill passed before the election. I congratulate Russel Norman, whose name now heads this bill. Even though it is here as a Government bill, it is still a Green Party bill. We just want to make sure that the Government acknowledges that, and that the bill is passed.
This is a very important bill. I doubt whether this is the last Waste Minimisation Bill we will ever see before the House. This really is the first step. There will be further iterations, I am sure, as different needs arise and issues change. But it certainly is one of the most important bills we have seen go through this House. It marks a sea change in the way we deal with waste and the way we look at recycling. This is more than something that is feel-good; it is something that is good for the economy and good for the environment, and it needed to be taken a step further. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House. It is very pleasing to see it finally being passed.
MARK BLUMSKY (National) Link to this
This is probably the last time I will officially stand and speak outside my valedictory speech, and I feel very good about the fact that I am speaking in a very positive way about the Waste Minimisation Bill; it has been a very positive process. I acknowledge the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee—[ Interruption]—and I agree with Moana Mackey that it was good. We “did good”, I feel. We were an example to Parliament, and it is a pity that many of the others do not follow it—if I can be so bold. But this is not my valedictory speech, so I will not go there. The process was good and as a committee we worked very well. Also, the officials were brilliant. The advice we had from them through the transition was sharp and smart. All of them “did good”. They did us proud. So from that point of view I was impressed, as well.
It was nice to meet so many of the community through the whole submission process. I acknowledge the fact that the member John Carter was also on the committee—not that Mr Carter mentioned either me or you in his speech, Madam Assistant Speaker, but that is fine; we will pay him back later. Was it not wonderful, though, to meet the community, as we did? We met wonderful people who were passionate about the environment, about waste and the right way to handle it, and about the fact that we would be stuffing up the environment if we were not careful. I was in awe of that community. It made me feel very humble, actually, to see how people in the community out there really do care, get involved, do the hard yards, and get their hands really dirty in trying to right the wrongs. I also acknowledge that there are some businesses out there doing the same thing. We met quite a few in the business community who were also caring and working very hard to make a difference and to have an impact on the global issue of waste.
This bill had its first reading on 14 June 2006, so it has taken its time to get here. It has not been a quick process. As those who have been listening have heard, the bill is very different from what it was in 2006. It is good that we have stayed with it. Most people, at the end of the day, agreed with the objectives of the bill. People cared. And who would not? Waste is a problem. But waste is also an opportunity. I go back to quote Professor Storey at Victoria University, who said that waste is an opportunity; it is just a “resource in the wrong place”. That is one of those quotes that will stay with me.
Hon Dr Michael CullenI will acknowledge that, too! There were a lot of parts in the bill that were not so well liked, and we heard that through the 316 submissions. So off it went back into the kitchen, where there was a lot of cooking before it came out the other end in September last year, and 125 submitters then had the chance to comment. I was reading Nandor’s second reading speech, and he made a comment that I actually liked and noted. The new bill that came through, to quote his words “keeps the bones of the original bill and alters the flesh.” It certainly did that. It was great to see that the community was very supportive and even business, in its commentary through the submission process, admitted that the time has come for something to be done.
From my point of view, on the things that were not changed, I am a fan of the financial driver, the levy; I think the levy is a good tool. The levy, as members would have heard, starts at $10 a tonne and will be reviewed in 2 years—that was a change we made in the select committee process—and then every 3 years. I personally agree with the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, which says that $30 is the fee that the levy should be hit at, not $10. I think $30 will have an impact, and it is an impact that we need. So from my point of view I am glad the review is there in 2 years and it is nice to see the review come along every 3 years.
It was wonderful talking about the levy, because all sides told us that they could spend it. My colleague John Carter covered that beautifully. We set it on a 50:50 split, which I think was a fair way. Local government gets 50 percent of the levy and a contestable fund gets 50 percent of the levy. We saw through the select committee process that some territorial local authorities are doing wonderful work in this area. But there are some that should be ashamed of themselves and need to revisit their whole attitude towards waste and look to the better ones—and I will not mention them—for best practice and for an example of the way forward.
I, as I said, was very pleased that the levy ended up being split, and, even more important, that it can be spent only on waste minimisation initiatives and is not to be used for councils to put in the big pot and then diverted into other ways of spending. We need to be very careful in monitoring the review process, so that the money allocated is spent for the right reasons by local bodies, and is not used, if you like, to subsidise rates, because that actually is not the purpose. It is to minimise waste. The levy will be used for research through the contestable fund. Those who want to do research can apply. Those who want to do capital projects can apply. We had through the submission process a number of rather significant businesses wanting to do big projects that felt that a start-up ability—a funding ability—would generate a lot more enthusiasm from their shareholders. There is also seed funding. At the select committee we saw some wonderful community initiatives that, if they had some seed funding, would grow; we must applaud those.
One of the things we have to be careful of, and I think Nicky Wagner mentioned it, is that we cannot let local authorities use the levy to bump out the providers who are doing a good job. We talked about that a number of times. The levy is not there to bump out companies like Green Fingers that are doing a fantastic job. They are not to be bumped out by a local authority using a levy to subsidise competition in that area.
I am a huge fan of the product stewardship that came through the bill. I think it makes the producers, the importers, the retailers, the consumers and others take responsibility for the environmental effects of products. Hearing John Carter talk again about the container deposit, I tell members that we came close, very close, to putting container deposit through the bill by name. There was certainly a lot of commentary from the business community about that, for sure. I personally am a fan; I think it does make a difference and will make a difference. I hope the framework allows container deposit legislation to be brought in, so that community groups will have a funding stream that is not often available. Kiwis want to see recycling and want to see practical measures to tackle the issue of waste. The recovery side of the process will enable that. There is an issue about recovery; we are not good at it. We will be better at it. This bill has enabled a focus on it.
As I say, to finish on, it is nice to stand here having worked through something with a group of people I enjoyed working with to make a positive impact, and I look forward, over time, to seeing waste being minimised.
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) Link to this
I will possibly take 10 minutes, but may take less time. The Waste Minimisation Bill will significantly alter the way we deal with waste, and will encourage the sustainable use of resources.
I acknowledge the huge quantum leap in this area over the past few years. Indeed, I congratulate the awardees at last night’s Waikato Sustainable Business Network Awards—a major gala occasion in my city of Hamilton. Sadly, I was not able to be there, for which I apologise. I think those awards are indicative that businesses around the country are doing cutting-edge work in this area, and that is excellent.
It was a great pleasure to be a substitute member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, which considered the original bill. What an incredible eye-opener it was for me personally to see the amazing waste minimisation enterprises that are now out there. I believe that, as a country, we are taking a quantum leap through this bill and other measures to realise the truth, hopefully, of New Zealand’s clean, green image. I think, to a degree, there has been an element of myth to it. Hopefully, this bill will give our self-image—the image we as a country want—a degree of truth.
Finally, as a Waikato member of Parliament I reiterate my appreciation of the huge contribution in terms of leadership that Nandor Tanczos showed in this area. I believe that it will be one of the lasting legacies of his time in this Parliament. Frankly, we in the Waikato are very, very proud of Nandor and his wonderful contribution. I am equally proud of this Government, which took a member’s bill and turned it into a Government bill, and I am equally proud of the very good work of the Local Government and Environment Committee, which was led by my good colleague and friend Moana Mackey. I commend the bill to the House.
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) Link to this
I seek leave of the House—and I have just checked this with the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee and with the Minister in charge of the Waste Minimisation Bill—to table a paper that I forgot to table in my third reading speech. It is to do with the solids produced from waste-water treatment; it is a short statement about how the bill affects that.