NICKY WAGNER (National) : As the Committee knows, after lengthy debate and a series of successful Supplementary Order Papers, National supports this bill. But we are concerned that the title does not go far enough in signalling an important change to the way that people, organisations, and businesses think about waste. The title, the Waste Minimisation Bill, states what the bill does. It focuses on waste minimisation, which is admirable. But National would prefer to see a similar emphasis on resource recovery, so that the Act would become the “Waste Minimisation and Resource Recovery Act”. I seek the support of all parties for my Supplementary Order Paper 217, which adds “and Resource Recovery” to the title, and I think we will get that support.

Most people believe that we have to move beyond just waste minimisation; we have to understand the importance of recovering all resources from the waste stream. Indeed, Steve Chadwick herself, who was the chair of the select committee that looked at the Waste Minimisation Bill for most of that time, spoke about wanting a name change during earlier debate on the bill, and Nandor Tanczos who of course was the original proposer of the bill, was very supportive of a change. It will be only when the public realise and understand the value of the waste stream that they will fully focus on the recovery of all resources. It is only when they understand the value of the waste stream that we will have sustainable businesses mining those resources.

During the select committee process MPs visited waste management, waste recycling, waste recovery, and special treatment, plants. We were really impressed with the innovation and entrepreneurial skills that were being used to deal with the problems of waste. There were lots of new ideas, there were lots of new methods and new processes, and new ideas were being implemented everywhere we went. Some of our waste was actually being processed and exported overseas—something that had actually come from the waste stream was becoming very profitable and was adding to our export drive. Just today I had a phone call from a business that was increasing its focus on recycling, and was doing very well. The owner was keen to tell me that similar businesses in his area were struggling, but the shift in his business to increased recycling was underpinning the success of that business. When we have organisations and businesses that are seeing recycling and the recovery of resources as a means of running their businesses successfully, that is when we will be very happy.

It is hard to believe that a country that is so small and so far away from others has organisations that are innovative enough, and that are lean, mean, and efficient enough, to be able to export resources that would normally have gone into the tip in the past. In saying that, National is very conscious that this bill cannot be allowed to add costs to these pioneer recycling businesses, because for these businesses to be sustainable they must be able to operate as cheaply and efficiently as possible. It is really important that they can continue to get those markets overseas, and that their businesses can be profitable, because without profit those businesses will not be sustainable. National is also keen to highlight the success of these businesses and to focus on the value that can be derived from processing waste effectively.

If we really want to create long-term successful waste minimisation, we need New Zealanders to make a shift in their thinking. They have to shift their thinking from simply minimising waste—although of course that is very important—to looking at waste and to actively recovering as much as possible. I think that shift in thinking would be helped by changing the name of the bill from the Waste Minimisation Bill to the “Waste Minimisation and Resource Recovery Bill”. Once again, I seek support of all parties for my Supplementary Order Paper 217 to rename this very good—now that it has been thoroughly thrashed over—bill. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I call John Cla—oh, I nearly called you John Clark—John Carter.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) : Well, I answer to a good number of names, so another one would not matter. Hone Carter—

Hon Trevor Mallard: He has had occasions in this House where he has been much funnier than John Clark—a stunning member.

JOHN CARTER: Well, occasionally, that is true—how nice is that! Only a few of us would understand that, I tell Mr Mallard. But I think Eric Roy would; he was in the Chair at the time, I seem to remember.

It is a great pleasure to talk to the Waste Minimisation Bill. I start firstly by congratulating Nicky Wagner on all the work she has done. She has done a tremendous amount of work on this legislation, and she deserves to have that noted and to be congratulated on that. I also say to the select committee itself that it was a pleasure to work with all members of the committee, and with the staff and officials who worked with us on it, as well. As I have said before in this Chamber, but it is worth repeating, I approached this bill with an attitude developed from wearing a black bush singlet out the back of the Hokianga, thinking “Here’s a tree-hugging, greenie waste of time.” I must say my attitude has changed absolutely. As we went further into the bill, I realised that this issue deserved this House’s time and indeed the focus of not just the Parliament but of the country, and in that sense the Greens are to be congratulated on bringing this legislation into the Parliament so that it can be debated.

Having said that, I say that the bill is virtually a complete rewrite of what it was originally. I think the Greens also acknowledge that, as well.

Hon Trevor Mallard: A very good Minister.

JOHN CARTER: We certainly cannot congratulate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Trevor Mallard, on his input into this bill. I think it is fair to say that the Minister in the chair did not take a lot of notice of it until very recently, and only then did he start to change his attitude in the same way I did.

There are a couple of points that need to be debated and Nicky Wagner talked about what is probably the main issue around this bill. One of the problems and challenges in the select committee was that we continually talked about waste. The problem with that is that it sends the wrong signal. This is not a bill concerning waste, or a waste bill; it is about a resource. It is about finding a way to address the resources we have that others have finished with or want to dispose of. One of the challenges was trying to find an appropriate title for the bill. One of the titles we came up was the “Resource Management Bill”, but then we thought that probably would not go down too well, given that we already have a Resource Management Act, and it would conjure up a whole lot of negatives in people’s minds. It was not appropriate to call this bill the “Resource Management Bill (No 2)” or some other take on that title. There is a need for us to shift people’s minds to understand that we have a tremendous amount of resource that we continually just throw away, and that is stupid, quite honestly. The committee took a lot of time to try to find ways to address this.

Of course, what happens at the moment is that waste management, or resource waste management, or whatever we are now going to call it—waste and resource management—has become the responsibility of local government. As a consequence, it is the ratepayers of this country generally who end up footing the bill. That means it is the end-user, or in a lot of cases not even the end-user, who ends up carrying the financial responsibility. An argument has been put forward, and it is one I support, that the cost should be up front. The reason is that we would then get a total change in attitude and responsibility. It means that the people who are producing a lot of the stuff that currently is called waste would suddenly take a different look at it. One of the things we have talked about is product stewardship, which has become a major issue that this House and this Parliament need to address—and we have addressed it, to some extent, in this bill. But the fact is that those people who produce and make the products—the wrapping, all the stuff that is associated with current waste—need to change the way in which they address it.

To be fair, a number of manufacturers who came before the select committee suggested they were quite happy to become involved. I remember the car manufacturers, for example, came before the committee to say that they would be quite happy if a voluntary levy—$500 for a start—was put on each new car they sold. That levy could then stay in a fund somewhere during the life of the car, and when the car finally reached the end of its life, instead of it being taken into the bush, chucked over a cliff, burnt out, left on the side of the road, or whatever, it would have a value that the final owner could go and redeem. The vehicle itself then would be recycled and reused. That, to me, makes a whole lot of sense. It means that several things would happen. All of a sudden there would be a fund of money to help us to be involved in better investigations, science, and the systems around waste management and resource recovery. It would take the pressure off local government so that ratepayers were not responsible for it. It would also mean that the resource now had a value, so that the end-user, the final person who ended its life, had something of value. But just as important, the country would have an opportunity to utilise the resource, and lots of businesses—probably smaller businesses—would be established. It would mean, in that particular case, giving financial security to the people who are in the resource-recovery game. That, to me, is the nub of this whole debate. We would be ensuring that those good people who are already in the system have the financial means, the cash flow, to ensure that their businesses are sustainable. It would also mean that we can encourage others to get involved in resource recovery.

For that reason, the title suggested by Nicky Wagner makes a whole lot of common sense. Nicky and I took the opportunity to go to South Australia to look at the system there. I must confess that I certainly was impressed with their system, and I think Nicky learnt a lot from that visit as well, as did a number of the officials who went with us. It showed that the system could work. We discovered in South Australia that, for example, the Scout Association—just to name one organisation—now has a turnover of some $13 million a year and it has made a profit of about $2 million a year out of the system it has. This is all based on the fact that it has a product stewardship system and a levy that allows for that financial recovery to be made. Those things are important in this legislation. We will continue to debate those things as we make progress on the matter, and as it becomes more acceptable in this country. It already is acceptable, but it still has a way to go. We will find that those sorts of attitudes will become part of our society.

The one thing that the committee was concerned about, on the way through, was that we did not just set up a system that would develop another bureaucracy. The last thing we need in this country is more bureaucrats, and we certainly do not need them in this area. One of the things that we were very careful to try to achieve was that we did not set up a structure that became over-bureaucratic. We did not want to also put in a system that caused more cost to local government. I think that at this stage we have found a happy medium with this bill. I think that, as we move forward in this debate, and as the bill is implemented and reviewed from time to time by the Minister who is in charge of it—whoever that may be—we will find that further amendments are necessary. This will not be because the bill does not work, but because it is time to expand the bill, and this will become the norm for us. I think that is a very good thing indeed.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) : I should perhaps first explain why the Waste Minimisation Bill, which began as a member’s bill in Mike Ward’s name, then continued in Nandor Tanczos’ name and in my name, is now a Government bill. Basically, on the last members’ day the Waste Minimisation Bill could not get through in the allotted time. Although we tried to minimise waste, National unfortunately wasted a lot of time and we were not able to get the bill through. The Greens have been very supportive of National members’ contributions to this bill and have thanked them for their contribution throughout, but it would have been much better had we been able to get through the bill in members’ time so that it could have stayed as a member’s bill with all parties behind it. But we also appreciate what the Government is doing in picking up the bill and making sure that it gets through. Although we would have preferred that the bill stayed a member’s bill—which would have been, I think, the best way to get it through—none the less, we appreciate that it is being picked up as a Government bill.

In terms of the title change that is being proposed, I tell the Committee that we do not support that change. We just do not think it is necessary. We think that the definition of “waste minimisation” in the bill includes resource recovery. “Resource recovery” is also not defined in the bill, so to put those words in the title is slightly confusing for that reason. We define “recovery”, but we do not define “resource recovery”.

In terms of Mr Carter’s argument, which I certainly subscribe to, that one of the purposes is to shift minds—that is, to win people over—I am not sure that changing the title of the legislation will necessarily do that. Although we in this Chamber may like to think that people out there spend a lot of time reading the title of the bills we pass through the House, I suspect they do not. [Interruption] Well, I think that what we actually want to do is shift people’s minds away from waste and towards resource recovery, and I do not think that changing the title of the bill will make a lot of difference to that. So at this stage I do not see any particular reason to support the title change.

In terms of the broader picture, I tell the Committee that we want to get this bill through before the election so that it can be up and running. That is our key approach at the moment, and we look forward to the support of the House so we can get it going.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : I was disappointed to hear Mr Norman say he is not going to support this name change, because I believe he gave an assurance to our member Nicky Wagner that he would, and I find that lack of integrity disappointing. I also find it interesting that Mr Norman stood up and said that it was sad the bill never made it through on a members’ day, because I can remember sitting here not too long ago on a members’ night and hearing both him and a certain Minister in the chair filibustering quite obviously through that members’ night to prevent us from getting through the Committee stage. That was disappointing and is probably why we are here now still in the Committee stage of the bill and not debating the third reading and completing its passage.

It is interesting also that Mr Norman talked about the fact that the bill is now a Government bill. It was probably damn near a year ago—it seems like it was forever ago—that we on this side of the Chamber suggested that the bill should be a Government bill. That was probably the time when the big changes were made. From memory, that was in 2006—no, that was the first reading. It was the time when the changes were made so dramatically that we suggested it should become a Government bill. We felt there was a lot of work that should be done on the bill, including cost benefits, and so on. To be honest, when a bill is a Government bill it has a lot more resource thrown at it than a member’s bill has, and we felt this legislation was important enough to have that resource thrown at it.

All that aside, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the process of this bill. I enjoyed working with the bill and the interaction with the other members on the Local Government and Environment Committee. I enjoyed the way the public became so involved in the bill and the fact that we went out and about and saw and learnt so much. We learnt a heck of a lot about waste and waste minimisation. As I said, I applaud the public who are so passionate about this area and about the environment. It was a pleasure to meet and see them. I suppose it is because of the passion and commitment of those who came before the select committee that I totally buy into the fact that Supplementary Order Paper 217, put forward by Nicky Wagner, should be voted on and approved.

Most of the people who came before the select committee talked about the recovery of waste and how a resource once used should be ready to be used again. So many of those people talked about ways they could reuse the waste and do something constructive with it—how they could utilise the waste and even make money out of the waste rather than the waste going into the big bad landfill. National members on the committee took significant notice of the way those people talked about waste. The submitters were using the word “recovery”; they wanted to recover the waste and reuse it. Hence the Supplementary Order Paper put forward that should, I hope, be supported by the Committee. In going through my notes from the select committee, I found I had a comment from a gentleman by the name of Professor Storey from Victoria University who came before the select committee. I wrote his words down, and they were: “Waste is just a resource in the wrong space. The trick is to find a way to divert and support it.” Waste is just a resource in the wrong space, and when we think about waste in that way we understand the power of the word “recovery” and the need therefore to support Nicky Wagner’s Supplementary Order Paper.

Also, whilst we were out and about looking at various submitters’ and other waste minimisation sources and uses, we visited the factory that Nicky Wagner referred to. It is called Astron Plastics in Christchurch, or maybe it was Auckland. Anyway, it collects waste plastic, smashes it, granulates it, and separates it out. It was fascinating to see how it could take plastic in many different forms, granulate it, pack it up, and ship it off. The fascinating part of that was that the factory had to buy it from Australia because not enough plastic was being collected and recovered from the streets in New Zealand. So it buys plastic from Australia, processes it, then, lo and behold, sells it to China. So here we have this factory in New Zealand buying plastic from Australia, granulating it, then selling it to China. Now, if that is not helping the carbon credits, I do not know what is. That is just superb.

The other factory that led us to support the name change Nicky Wagner proposes on her Supplementary Order Paper is a company in Christchurch called TerraNova. This is an incredible company that literally collects waste in the big trucks and after it arrives at the factory big metal-crunchers and machines very cleverly separate out various parts of the waste. The factory sorts the plastic, utilises it, and literally makes money out of it. It recovers an asset out of the waste and uses it to make itself a fine profit.

The examples of those three who came before the select committee gave us the confidence, if you like, to propose a name change, to put the Supplementary Order Paper forward, and to say that the bill is all about recovery. It is what the public, the Waiheke Islanders, the small community set-ups, and the passionate people who were doing it for their community were calling it. They were doing their bit—putting their mark in the sand, if you like—for the environment. They were so proud of the fact that they were recovering household and other commercial rubbish and using it. They were so proud of it. Our support for those people is in the amendment on the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by Nicky Wagner, which I hope will be picked up by the other side and voted on accordingly. And I hope that Mr Norman sees the error of his ways and actually understands the trade-off, and the deal that was done, and the integrity that should be shown in respect of Nicky Wagner. Nicky has dealt with this bill in a very positive way. She has been positive and has tried to find a path through this bill—which has been complicated—that actually meets the requirements of all of us. So I think the Greens’ support for this would be more than fitting. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : We know that the Government is falling apart at the seams, when we have these sorts of desperate—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Clause 1.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Madam Chair—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): The member will take his seat, please. I want to say this very clearly. This is a debate in the Committee. It is a very limited debate on clause 1. [Interruption] Do not talk while I am talking. It is a limited debate on the title. So far it has been carried out with integrity. Please may that continue.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My point is simply with respect to a very important amendment that has been put forward by my colleague Nicky Wagner that attempts to amend the title of this bill. Now the Leader of the House, Dr Cullen, has informed the National Party that Labour will vote for the amendment if we stop the debate. I ask the members opposite whether the principles of this Government, the desperation of it falling apart, and the basis of it voting or not voting for amendments, have now come down to the desperation of the Government wanting to shut down the debate. I just think that that is the most extraordinary thing that I have seen in 18 years as a member of Parliament. This Clark-Peters Government is falling apart at the seams, with deals being offered across the Chamber about amendments.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Is the deal about the bill?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes it is. It is about an amendment, Madam Chair, if you had listened.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I have listened. Take a seat please, because I really am concerned at the games that are being played. This bill has been worked out in such good spirits that to have this last speech about whether one is taking leave, and not concentrating on the arguments about a change or no change to the bill, but on process, is actually taking away the intent of this argument. I ask the member to come to the intent of the argument—[Interruption] Sorry, sit down please, because I am still ruling. Would you come to the intent of this debate, which is about whether we should have this change, and not on the process to close down the debate.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. You are engaging yourself in the debate. The facts are absolutely clear. Nicky Wagner has moved an amendment. Dr Cullen has informed National that it will vote for that amendment if we shut down the debate. It is perfectly proper, in debate, for me to refer to that sort of deal, because I think it is a very poor way in which this Parliament should pass the law of the land.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am not involving myself in debate.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: You are.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Withdraw please. Do not tell me what I am or am not doing.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): No, I am on my feet right now. You actually criticised me while I was on my feet responding to your point of order. Please take a seat. I have been reading the Standing Orders quite carefully, and the Speakers’ rulings. My job is to maintain the rules of the House. The rules of the House state that in Committee we debate what is in front of us. We do not debate process. You are bringing in—and I could see exactly what was happening—a debate on process. The debate that is before the Committee is an amendment by Nicky Wagner on the title of the bill, not on the reasons for who is voting for that title, or why, but on the actual title of the bill and the arguments behind resource recovery or waste minimisation. I ask you—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Could you clarify, in the light of what I think would be a unique ruling from the Chair, in a debate about whether Nicky Wagner’s amendment is passed, reference to a deal that has been offered by the Government that it would support that amendment if National stopped taking calls is a perfectly proper thing to refer to in debate? It seems to me that it would be extraordinary if the Chairperson is now to rule that such matters of fact—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you, take a seat please. I refer to the argument’s relevancy. In the Committee of the whole House it is the Chairperson’s job to allocate and to rule on relevancy. I say that a debate on procedure is not relevant to this particular debate, and my rule is final.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I just think we have an extraordinary state in Parliament where we have—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: It is always extraordinary for you, Nick!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, we know that Dr Cullen’s Government is falling apart, and we know that this New Zealand First - Labour Government is in serious pickle with the events today. We know how desperate the Government is to try to advance the last bits of legislation. National says to the Government that the principle over the title of a bill has now come to the point of simply the casual deals that Dr Cullen, in his dying days as Leader of the House, is trying to advance.

Nathan Guy: The gagging clause!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is the gagging clause, as my colleague Nathan Guy would want to present it. This Government really is in its dying days, and it goes into this compromising of standards over an amendment! We should be having a debate about the merits of my colleague Nicky Wagner’s amendments—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I agree.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I would be interested, but the Government has not taken a single call. Its members have simply told us they will vote for the bill if it is advanced as quickly as possible.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Would you come to the point, please.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh, the point, Madam Speaker, is this—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Madam Chair!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Madam Chair, Nicky Wagner has done an outstanding job as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee and during the Committee stage of this bill, to knock this bill into legislation that will be workable. National seeks the support of the Labour Party for Nicky Wagner’s amendment, not on the basis of some backroom deal, but on the basis that it is a perfectly sensible and proper amendment. This amendment from my colleague Nicky Wagner is about including the concept of resource recovery. It is National’s view, and an important part of implementing this bill, that in the regulatory processes being put in place around product stewardship, around the waste levy, and the like, we take care not to cut across the very good work that is going on all over New Zealand both by local government and small business.

By changing the title of the bill and making it plain that it is about resource recovery, as well as waste minimisation, we think that is a constructive change to the bill that this Committee should adopt. We want an approach around this legislation that actually supports and does not undermine the efforts of many of our councils. It is interesting that many of our smaller councils have taken a far stronger lead around issues of waste in supporting the efforts of many enterprises, like those in the scrap metal industry that are doing very good work around resource recovery.

So I tell Dr Cullen that I seek the support of the Labour Party for Nicky Wagner’s perfectly sensible amendment. We seek its support on the basis that the amendment makes a better bill. We do not seek that support on the basis of some procedural issue that Dr Cullen wishes to wind up in respect of the Committee. So I say that Nicky Wagner’s amendment is one of which this Committee should support—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: One of which we should support!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes it is; she has advanced—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: You should study the English language—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Order!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh well, it is interesting that the Chair thinks that such interjections about the—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I said “Order.” I called for order; please continue.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I thank you for that. Nicky Wagner has advanced a whole series of very sensible amendments to this legislation, and we would like to get the support of the Committee for this further amendment to the title that will include the concept of resource recovery, which we believe is the right sort of philosophy to adopt when advancing law in this area.

I hope that members of this Committee will choose to support Nicky Wagner’s amendment and ensure that we give this bill the best title possible.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : I would like to take a short call on clause 1. I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee for a small part of the time that this bill was being considered. I note that Dr Norman says that it was National’s delay that caused this bill to take some time to come back to the House. But I think it must be almost a world record that the bill has had three sponsors. Mike Ward was the sponsor of the bill during the period when I was taking unplanned sabbatical leave and was not in the House, so there was certainly a period then that it could have been advanced if it had been adequately drafted.

I spent 1 year on the select committee, and I do not recall that we spent very much time on the bill during that year. We were dealing with other matters, and then, subsequent to that, it took a couple of years to get it here. I think comment has been made that the bill, in the form that it was originally drafted, was not gathering a great deal of support. However, in the caring, sharing environment of the select committee, and with the good work of Nicky Wagner, it has been made into a bill that we are happy to vote for.

I approach this whole matter, I guess, from a pragmatic viewpoint. One cannot help but look at history and look at civilisations that do not—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Not all of history, please.

ERIC ROY: Does the Chairperson not want to hear my contribution and the relevance of it?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I do not want to hear the entire history. We are debating clause 1, and we are talking about an amendment.

ERIC ROY: For goodness’ sake! The point is simply this, Madam Chairperson. One looks at civilisations that no longer exist—the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Mayas, the Incas, and a whole range of others—and one has to ask whether history will look at the age of industrialisation and mark it down in the future as a time that might have lasted for a significantly shorter period than some of these other civilisations. That is the point. That is why we cannot continue to utilise or to waste resources that we are harvesting and mining from the ground, and to expect that to go on ad infinitum. This bill is a common-sense approach, but in a way it does not embrace what is required as a resolution of the issue of how long the industrialised age will last. When we consider this we realise that recycling and waste minimisation are just two items. There is also the use of sustainable inputs, the modifying of lifestyles, and a whole raft of things we need to embrace.

This bill is but a step forward. What I like about Supplementary Order Paper 217 in the name of Nicky Wagner is that it says we should actually embrace the issue more widely and treat waste as a resource. That lifts the game a little bit more in terms of broadening our application of practices that will make the industrial age more sustainable. That, quite frankly, is the point I start from when we consider this legislation.

Throughout the Committee stage I have said a couple of times that although I am happy to embrace the bill and say we are voting for it, I feel that it tends to be, in places, a little bit prescriptive from a central government point of view and that it does not do enough to sell the package of engaging local bodies and individuals. In some places the setting of fees and levies is certainly very prescriptive, and it is my view that more progress could be made if local government and individuals and businesses were required to consider just their responses.

I grew up reading the writings of Alvin Toffler, Rachel Carson, and a whole lot of writings that really impressed upon me the need to respond as individuals and as a nation, and this bill does a little bit of that. It is important that we embrace practices that will make the industrialised age something that looks after us into the future and continues to provide for us. Our continual harvesting and mining of resources out of the earth, and our expectation that that can go on ad infinitum, cannot continue.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): The question is that the question will now be put.

Nathan Guy: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am sorry, I began—

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Either you are drinking or you are walking around a corner. I am sorry; that was a reference to another time we had.

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I cannot believe that you are addressing a member of this House like that. I take offence at that comment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am sorry. Could you sit down and I will explain. When I have started a process and then put the question, twice now you have jumped up. Both times you have used an excuse: either you had been drinking a glass of water or you had been moving around the seats. That was the slightly humorous point I was making to you. It was not a necessary point, but the thing is that you do not actually get in before I speak. I took a deep silence, I then moved, and then you called the point of order. I am sorry, but when I start to move the motion, that is it.

Now, I am putting the motion—

Nathan Guy: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): No, I am putting the motion. I am sorry; it is as I explained it to you.

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. Under Standing Order 137(3) my understanding is that it has to be reasonable for the Chair to put the motion. I have been listening to the debate today; we have made very good contributions on this Waste Minimisation Bill, and we still have further comments to make on the title. I would like you to please acknowledge that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am going to continue to put the motion. The reason, as I have already explained to you before, is that I take notes. I have taken notes throughout, I have given a number of people extended periods to talk, and I have not finished off their speeches right on 5 minutes so they could complete their arguments. We have covered the point about resource recovery versus waste, and we have given a number of examples that have been repeated.

The question is that the motion will be put.