[Not government policy]
7. If a decision was taken to develop and introduce a national waste levy
If government were of a mind to develop and introduce a national waste levy, my first recommendation would be that it should be done without delay. Uncertainty and indecision have bedeviled this subject to date and have caused enough unnecessary work for different parties. The public dislikes waste and wastage and supports recycling and reuse. Significant parts of the waste sector have been asking for a national levy for over five years and for some much longer. Until it believed it was directed into other means, so did local government. There has been a lot of discussion and analysis by officials. They could act quickly if instructed now to do so.
Hypothecation would need to be set at a high percentage of the levy and enacting legislation would need to make the level difficult to change.
Decisions on the nature of the organisation to be used (new or existing) to collect and distribute the levy income and the use to which it could be put, should be taken in an open process led by a group of sector leaders and other suitably knowledgeable individuals. Such a group could be quickly convened with a focused mandate and a demanding completion date.
The work could be undertaken alongside a refreshed mandate to address other parts of the New Zealand Waste Strategy such as a more determined approach to the large waste streams that are not being reduced such as green wastes and putrescibles.
Changes to the Local Government Act would be necessary irrespective of the outcome of the judicial review to restrict the use of by-laws for local waste levy purposes pending, but conditional on, the introduction of a national waste levy.
If the Green Party Waste Minimisation Bill was drawn from the ballot in the next few months, it would provide both a rallying point for debate on this issue and an opportunity for the government to act. As a rallying point for national levy supporters it may extend the current ‘coalition’ of business supporters for action.
The CEOs of two of the major waste companies reported that they would come out publicly in support of a government initiative to pursue a national waste disposal levy.
Garry Moore, Rob Fenwick, Ann Magee, Tim Combs and Lucy White might form the core of such a group.
