Good morning, and let me add my welcome to this workshop to that of our sponsors for today’s session, the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association. This is the first of five workshops designed to help us all come to grips with operating the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

The Act, as you know, takes effect for hazardous substances next month. In the short term, this will mean little change for most of you, particularly if you are managing hazardous substances properly right now. That's as it should be. Responsible industry should be able to do business as usual and work towards improvement as you have already been doing. In the longer term, this Act will mean a significant change in the way we manage hazardous substances for two reasons. First, when the transition to the new Act is complete, you will be able to introduce new technologies to manage hazardous substances without having to wait for regulation or law changes or having to get special permission from a government official.

That is provided of course the innovation does in fact maintain or improve the standard of safety that the community expects. Simple examples of this sort of thing might be lighter packages, which still meet the requirements for strength and so on, or improved labels that are still clearly readable and contain the right information. Second and more importantly, the Act treats chemical hazards in the environment the same as other hazards. Managing these substances to protect the environment is where we as a community have faltered. We are, as a society, well past the point where it is okay to tip hazardous chemicals into the environment harming the very fabric of life on which we all depend. It is not only when we throw things away but also when we use the likes of pesticides, printing inks, paints; or perhaps the substances needed to make the brilliant designs of our highly successful boat building industry, for example, a reality.

We as a society have also learned much about the effects of some of the chemical substances on our fellow human beings. We need to apply that knowledge and make sure that these substances are looked after in ways that protect our neighbours and ourselves. A moment ago I said that the HSNO Act will smooth the way for introducing new technologies. This recognises that in another sense we have grown up as a society. It is no longer reasonable for any Government to tell you exactly how to do things in your own business. After all, much of the day-to-day expertise for managing hazardous substances is in your hands. What we do need is the ability to evaluate the hazards openly and honestly. We must be able to set what the community thinks are acceptable limits for managing those hazards while ensuring the substances remain useful. You should then be able to decide how to meet those limits while running your business. You'll be aware that substances essential to our everyday lives contain risks that can be magnified by improper management. I travelled part of the way to this workshop in a car.

I was sitting on enough highly flammable and poisonous material which, given the right circumstances, could create a fireball injuring or killing as many as half the people in this room. That such a thing happens rarely if at all in real life (even if movie producers would have you believe otherwise) is a tribute to our ability to manage those substances. It is important that we extend that ability to all the hazardous substances we manage and particularly their effect on the environment and on people. That is where this Act comes in. It provides the framework for us to do just that; to honestly and openly evaluate the hazards and set what we as a community think are acceptable limits for managing them. The Act also quite deliberately sets out to give you, the people with the expertise in managing these substances, freedom to design new and improved ways to meet those standards. Acceptable standards do not appear from nowhere.

New Zealand is part of an international community managing hazardous substances. It is 10 years since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – the Rio Conference. New Zealand, with many other nations, is reviewing progress against the targets set by that programme. It is instructive to look at the targets set for the management of hazardous substances by that conference– chapter 19 of the conference report, known as Agenda 21. Chapter 19 establishes the following objectives:
* Expand and accelerate international assessment of chemical risks;
* Harmonise classification and labelling of chemicals;
* (improve) Information exchange on toxic chemicals and chemical risks;
* Establish risk reduction programmes;
* Strengthen national capabilities and capacities for management of chemicals
* Prevent illegal international traffic in toxic and dangerous products. From those objectives two issues in particular are important to me as Minister for the Environment,
* getting practical action to improve our environment, and
* involving a wide range of people in the community in decision making about our environment. New Zealand has been part of the programme to harmonise the classification and labelling of chemicals. This is a practical matter.

Knowing what we have and what its hazards are is essential in effectively managing hazardous substances. Doing this in a way that both enables you to communicate with our international neighbours and helps us all to understand those hazards is simple, common sense. Common sense underlies the regulations that form the core of managing hazardous substances under the HSNO Act. I am aware that some say New Zealand is moving too soon to adopt these internationally agreed hazard classifications. I do not agree. More than that I think that, even over the short term, New Zealand will be the stronger for it – both in terms of good business and in terms of managing the environment.

I would also point out that under the new law these internationally agreed systems will be applied to the vast majority of hazardous substance, already used in New Zealand, in a careful and staged fashion over three years. I hardly call this going too fast. The HSNO regulatory framework – after long and careful discussions with a broad range of New Zealand industry – deliberately builds in best international practice wherever possible. Again this is a piece of practical common sense given that New Zealand trades with other parts of the world most of whom subscribe to these same practices. Let’s be absolutely clear! It's about making a practical difference to the environment.

You will be discussing today the tools to protect our environment and our health from hazardous substances; including good information available on a common basis, proper packaging, proper training and being prepared to deal with emergencies. Chapter 19 of Agenda 21 also sets objectives for risk reduction and strengthening capacity to manage hazardous chemicals. The Government, through the HSNO Act and the ERMA, has set out to respond quite explicitly to these objectives. However I don’t think this response can or should stop there.

Reducing risks and strengthening our capacity to manage these substances means involving people in the process
* the community at large,
* workers in the various industries that use hazardous substances (and there are few if any that do not) and
* the management of organisations supplying or using those substances. The people here this morning will, I suspect, fall largely into this last group. But I strongly recommend that you do not forget the other members of the community who are affected.

The HSNO Act certainly does not. It builds in participation in the assessment process when hazardous substances are looked at. There are those who say that this is an unnecessarily expensive way of doing things and that the costs fall unfairly on business. I disagree. The HSNO Act from next month provides a very necessary ability for people to have their say on how hazardous substances are assessed. I say very necessary because I get numerous examples of hazardous substances affecting the health of people and the environment across my desk every year. We only have to look back into history (sometimes not very far) to see real examples of substances which were once thought to be safe and which we now know must be treated with real caution. In some cases there are some we would rather not have had at all-- PCB’s for example were once regarded as the safest possible substances for electrical fittings. We are now actively trying to get rid of them.

DDT was once regarded as the best possible insecticide imaginable – now we know differently. Dynamite was invented as a safe explosive – yet we have extremely strict controls in place. Today the uses of substances may be different, but the adverse effects, as the Act calls them, are there and quite real. Community knowledge is part of the real knowledge and experience necessary for the risk reduction that the Agenda 21 document talks about. I accept that there is a cost in this; I also think that some of that cost must fall with the supplier of these substances. This needs a balance and that is why the Government is providing just over half the cost of undertaking such assessments.

The Government will also be funding the ERMA’s work in transferring hazardous substances from the current rules to control under the HSNO Act proper. However where there is poor information about substances already in New Zealand, the holders of that information may well be asked to help. After all obtaining it from anywhere else will be more expensive. In my view this is a fair and reasonable balance. I would also point out that, when the time comes to use the HSNO Act and obtain an approval for a new hazardous substance, there are ways you can use the Act to ensure least cost, or to be more expensive. The experts and the information are here today to help you with making those choices, but the choice is yours. New Zealand is also working on the other objectives from Agenda 21.

We are working to prevent the illegal traffic in dangerous products. This is particularly so with hazardous waste. New Zealand has ratified and works under the Basel Convention. In the Pacific region we are working with other nations within the Waigani Convention. We have also signed the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and will be using the machinery of the HSNO Act to help deal with the particularly environmentally damaging substances covered by that agreement. Finally however there is only so much that Governments or lawmakers can do. Finally, it comes back to practical action making a difference for the environment. Finally it comes back to using the laws and systems effectively, and that means both using them to manage the risks to our health and the environment and doing so in a businesslike fashion. Part of that businesslike fashion is being prepared for the start of the HSNO Act. This is not hard.

It means making sure your ‘house is in order’ in relation to the present laws. If you need a dangerous goods license make sure you have one. If you are using toxic substances make sure that they have been properly notified and you have the proper licenses and are obeying the present regulations. If your business deals in or manages explosives then make sure they are properly listed on the relevant order. None of this is difficult and there are people here today who can point you in the right direction on all these things. If you have your house in order you will find the transition to the HSNO Act easy to manage – and as I have already said, little will change in the short term.

I recommend you listen carefully to the information presented here today and think about how to apply it effectively in your business. This does mean you need to understand the substances you are dealing with, understand the hazards, and understand the expectations that the community has about managing those hazards. I also recommend you look for some other guidance material and seminars being put together by the Ministry for the Environment on how the HSNO Act works with the Resource Management Act. This will be available shortly after the Act is commenced and will I am sure remove some of the myths about the ‘problems’ with the interactions of these two pieces of law.

While not wanting to go too far into what is a technical area, can I simply observe that the HSNO Act manages hazardous substances irrespective of place while the RM Act refers to the management of land for specific places. In the meantime please remember that it is business as usual for the next little while and you will be talking to the same people you were before the second of July; that is those same health protection officers and dangerous goods inspectors that you talk to now. These people will be spending time over the next month coming up to speed on the HSNO Act and their role in it and will be there to help you. The organisers and sponsors of this event have assembled a wealth of expertise and information to help you with that task. Take the opportunities presented here today to tap in to that expertise. Thank you again for the opportunity to open this series, I am sure by the end of the day some of the myths that have built up over the long period it has taken to put this part of the Act together will be dispelled and we can move forward together.