Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill

The debate on this part includes schedules 1A to 4.

What a disappointment it was that the Minister of Energy and Resources himself declined leave for this bill to go back to the Commerce Committee so that the proper scrutiny could be applied to Supplementary Order Paper 205, which the Minister decided to produce on Easter Sunday, a mere couple of weeks after the committee had reported back to this House. The Minister, of course, has then gone on to say that he has been thinking about this for a long time and that it was well flagged. My question to the Minister in the chair is, why was it not flagged at all with the select committee? At no point during the process was the select committee told that this was being worked on, that this was being proposed, or that this was needed. Why, when the Local Government and Environment Committee was considering the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill, where we had broad-ranging discussions about our international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, was this never raised as an issue in terms of being compliant with our international obligations? Why was the select committee not given the ability to scrutinise this particular Supplementary Order Paper? What was the Minister afraid of, that he needed to hold on to this, keep it secret, until the select committee had reported back to the House? Well, I think we know the answer to this. It is an utter dog of a Supplementary Order Paper. There really is no other description for it.

We have got this National Government, which presided over the worst economic record in 51 years and which has no plan for the economy apart from oil and gas exploration, and mining. That is it. Regardless of what you might think of those activities, it makes sense to be doing other things as well. This is the problem the National Government has. It has put all its eggs in this one basket. If this does not fly—and so far it has not flown in the way that National thought it would. We have had Exxon Mobil pull out, we have had Petrobras pull out, and we have had Apache Corporation pull out. This is a high-risk area. The likelihood of finding commercial returns is very small. It is incredibly risky. In fact, the Government is negligent in its duty to the people of this country by putting all its eggs in this one basket. This is all the Government has in terms of economic development. It is not doing anything else. So if this does not work, then the Government is kind of stuffed and it knows that.

What the Government is doing is attempting to grease the wheels as much as it can to reduce standards, to reduce, not even the difficulty, but to make it as easy as possible for these activities to go ahead, regardless of the outcomes. So the environmental impacts do not matter. Safety does not matter. Regardless of the outcomes, this National Government is ripping the guts out of existing legislation and is introducing new legislation to make it as permissive as possible a regulatory environment for these activities to go ahead. We have only to look in our own country at what happened in terms of Pike River, overseas in terms of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, and our own ability to clean up after the Rena disaster. It was not because of a mining activity, but oil in the water is oil in the water, and no matter where it comes from we need to be able to deal with that. You have only to look at those risks to realise that what we need is robust, effective legislation. What we need is legislation that protects the environment and ensures as much as we can that where this activity goes ahead it is done safely and it is done to the absolute highest standards.

Instead, what we have in the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill is the opposite. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 205, which is about stopping people from protesting against oil and gas exploration in the exclusive economic zone, is an absolute outrage of a Supplementary Order Paper. If it was not, then the Minister would not have announced it on Easter Sunday and he would have sent it to the select committee. His own behaviour shows us that this is not something that he wanted to be scrutinised on. He has consistently refused to front up to media, to do interviews on it, to talk about it—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: He’s on the TV all the time. Every time you switch it on he’s there. What are you talking about?

Jonathan Coleman is jealous that apparently Simon Bridges is getting too much TV time. Unfortunately, Mr Coleman, Mr Bridges is not talking about the issue of Supplementary Order Paper 205, which is what people wanted to talk to him about.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Who’s interested in that, for God’s sake?

Who is interested in that? How about the 10,000 people who have signed up in support of the Greenpeace legal opinion in 24 hours?

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: The sad lefties.

Mr Coleman calls them the sad lefties. People who want to protect the right to protest are sad lefties. They are probably knuckleheads as well. Well, that shows the arrogance of this National-led Government. I see the Attorney-General hovering there, ready to jump to his feet, no doubt in some defence of Minister Bridges. But the reality is that when you look at the legal minds who have said that this is an outrage, it is clear—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The honourable Moana Mackey.

Thank you—a very good decision, Mr Chair. When you look at the legal opinion that Greenpeace produced, it is clear that at the very least this Supplementary Order Paper needs to go back to the select committee so it can have proper scrutiny. If this was about safety—the Minister says it is about two things. It is about safety and it is about meeting our international obligations.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Yep.

Well, if that was the case, Mr Coleman, why would we not extend the Maritime Transport Act and the Crimes Act, which cover this activity in our territorial waters, into the exclusive economic zone? Then it would cover all vessels and all dangerous and illegal behaviour, for any reason. Oh, now he is reading something. He is pretending to read. I am sorry. I will not interrupt you. I will not interrupt you while you are pretending to read, Mr Coleman.

But the reality is that this applies only to protest vessels, and it applies only to protest vessels that are protesting against oil and gas exploration. Yesterday when the Minister was doorstopped by the media, he said as much. “I don’t know why they’re complaining that this is a breach of people’s rights, because it is only protesting against oil and gas exploration that we are stopping. The anti-whaling stuff can go ahead. The antinuclear stuff can go ahead.” Well, actually that is the problem. If this is about safety and if this is about bridging a gap in our international obligations—apparently the Minister thinks that we are not compliant with the convention. Well, actually the convention talks only about installations. It does not talk about vessels at all. The convention is also very, very strong on the rights of navigation. So what the Minister is doing here with his 500-metre zones where these boats cannot go in is actually contrary to the convention. But in reality the National Government really does not care about the convention, otherwise it would not have passed the exclusive economic zone legislation. We know that that is just a smokescreen.

But here is a very simple question, Minister. If this is about safety and our international obligations, why would we not extend the regime that exists in our territorial waters into the exclusive economic zone and cover every vessel and every incidence of dangerous or reckless behaviour? That absolutely should be addressed. Why are we targeting only one group of vessels? Silence—there is absolute silence. The reason we are targeting only one particular group of vessels is that this is all about sending a very strong message to the oil and gas industry that this Government is prepared to do anything for investment. We have legislation for sale, once again. The Minister said that, yes, he had been lobbied about this and he had met with companies that had complained to him about what had happened around Petrobras on the East Coast.

I tell you what. No one from the Government ever fronted up on the East Coast to the public meetings or to the community forums. One was run by the chamber of commerce—hardly a left-wing or green organisation—and no one from Government, not even our local MP, would turn up to those meetings. There have been plenty of protests onshore. Minister Bridges said we should go and protest at Petrobras’ headquarters. Well, they are in Brazil, so it is a little bit difficult. There have been protests. There have been numerous attempts to get the Government to listen, and the arrogance of this National-led Government has meant that not a single Minister or MP has fronted up to those community forums. So then, yes, protesters have taken their protests to the seas to try to get the Government’s attention, and to tell the Government that they are concerned that the regulatory regime under which these activities are going to be operating is not sufficient to protect our marine environment, to protect our local economies—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Why don’t they just send an email?

Minister Coleman says they should just send an email. Well, they did actually. They have been sending hundreds and hundreds of emails, telling people they are concerned about this, but the phone is off the hook with this National-led Government because this is all they have. This is it. All the eggs are in this basket.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

As I was saying before the dinner break, this is bad legislation made worse by a very bad Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Minister of Energy and Resources, Simon Bridges. Why Labour objects to this legislation—we did welcome the approaches that were made to us by the previous Minister of Energy and Resources, Phil Heatley, to try to see whether we could find some common ground on this, because we would like to be able to get as much certainty as possible, but we were unable to, for a number of reasons. The main ones being that the shared decision-making power between the Minister of Energy and Resources and the Minister of Conservation is, we believe, entirely inappropriate.

Once again, as I was saying before the dinner break, the National Government has no other plan—other than oil and gas exploration, and mining. That is it. That is the sum total of its economic development plan, and if it does not work, it has nothing else. So this is not about not liking oil and gas exploration or not liking mining; this is about saying that we need to be doing other things as well, in case this does not pan out. As I said, we have had Exxon Mobil Corporation leave, we have had Petrobras leave, and we have had Apache Corporation leave. This is not an area where we are certain that, firstly, they are going to find anything or, secondly, that what they find is going to be in commercial amounts that are able to be exploited. So a sensible Government, even if it was as keen on oil and gas and mineral exploration—

I was most interested in that florid contribution by Moana Mackey before the dinner break in this debate on the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. I have been very interested also in comments about the Minister of Energy and Resources’ Supplementary Order Paper 205 that have been advanced by some of our most distinguished and leading citizens who say that the proposed amendments breach international law and attack our democratic freedoms. When I heard that I thought, well, we had better have a good look at that because they are very serious allegations.

I then found out who were the authors of the statement. They were Dame Anne Salmond, who wrote a most interesting book on Captain Cook, which clearly qualified her to speak about the high seas, and former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who could only be described as a sort of apotheosis of constitutional virtue, whose voice was particularly quiet when the foreshore and seabed legislation was being debated in this House, mainly—I think, probably—because he was acting for the marine farming institution, and it was very quiet when the dreadful Stalinist electoral finance legislation was going through the House. But it is great to hear that he has found his constitutional voice again and has been opining at great length, in between talking to Sir Bruce Ferguson, presumably about Government Communications Security Bureau matters, on Lambton Quay this afternoon.

I took a good look at the legislation and was immediately drawn back to Sir Geoffrey’s lectures in 1975, when he taught me Legal System, because Sir Geoffrey, the great teacher that he was, said how important it was to focus on the wording of the legislation. I can recall a lawyer appearing in the Court of Appeal many years ago, telling the Court of Appeal that there were 12 possible interpretations of a section of an Act. After about 2½ hours of driving Their Honours nuts, the President of the Court of Appeal, then Sir Robin Cooke, said: “Well, there’s the 13th.” The fellow said: “Well, what is that, Sir?”. He said: “The plain meaning.” I really think that this is a situation where if one gets away from the hyperbole, if one gets away from the purple prose and the waffle and the politically inspired criticism of the Supplementary Order Paper and focuses rather on the wording of the legislation, one sees that the answer is tolerably clear.

I come to new section 101B in new clause 46A and note that it has nothing whatsoever to do with protest. People are fully entitled to exercise their democratic right to protest. What that clause, which my friend the Minister of Energy and Resources is seeking to introduce here, deals with is the commission of an offence if damage is caused under subclause (a), “damage to, or interference with, any equipment ...” under subclause (b), or “interference with any operations or activities ...” under subclause (c).

So the proposed amendments, which have excited the great and the good of the area inside the beltway—as I say, these apotheoses of constitutional virtue, Sir Geoffrey and Dame Anne, and other members of the great and good—relate to damage or interference, not protest. There is no reason at all why people cannot exercise their democratic right to protest, but it has to be protest that does not result in damage to or interference with—for example, under subclause (a)—the structure or the ship. So it is quite a straightforward matter—

💬 Moana Mackey: How embarrassing—this is the Attorney-General.

—and I hear the creatures on the other side yelling out: “How embarrassing!”, but I think that Sir Geoffrey always said, when he was teaching me law, to “Focus on the words—focus on the plain meaning.” He did not say it like that. He was acting like some ranting Jehovah, wandering over desks, as he used to do, because it was more important to create an impression rather than teach at times. But focus on the words—focus on the words—is the suggestion that I make to members on the other side of the Chamber. Get away from the purple prose; get away from the hyperbole. This afternoon we have experienced some tragically hyperbolic speeches on the Government Communications Security Bureau. It is all so very simple. Focus on the plain meaning, focus on the words, and the answer will become tolerably clear.

That is why I believe that Sir Geoffrey and Dame Anne, great people though they are, have got it wrong, and their statements about the amendments breaching international law, although which particular principle of international law is not immediately clear to me, or “attacking our democratic freedoms”—you can just imagine Sir Geoffrey declaiming on that theme—I am sorry, it is just plain wrong. If Sir Geoffrey followed the advice that he gave to me in 1975 when he suggested that we focus on the words of the statute, the words of the bill, then I think we can get to a very happy place very quickly indeed.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If the Minister has a legal opinion, I would ask that he table it.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: That is not a point of order. It was a very positive contribution and—

Order! Well, if the member is actually quoting from the legal opinion and has the piece of paper, then, yes, it is in order, but I do not believe he is doing that. I think he was just speaking from notes, and so—[Interruption] He was speaking off the cuff—all right. So the point of order is not upheld.

I do not wish to dwell on this too much in the short time I have, but I would like to note that as the previous speaker, Hon Chris Finlayson, has said, words are incredibly important and the words on the page are very important. But delivering sarcasm and dripping bile and venom against people who are not in this Chamber to defend themselves is not what one would call parliamentary behaviour. And I think that that kind of behaviour against people of great standing—let us just remember that just recently Dame Anne Salmond was made New Zealander of the Year. I did not hear the Attorney-General object to that, and I think it was a very appropriate award to give her. To come into this Chamber and use that style of venom, to which we are accustomed from that member, is beneath him, and that patronising attitude that he takes does not advance the words on the page, to which I come.

I come to the words on the page because the words on the page are inadequate. Let me speak about this. I want to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 205 in the name of the Minister of Energy and Resources, and I want to draw attention to a possible interpretation of Supplementary Order Paper 205 that I do not believe the Supplementary Order Paper intends or covers adequately. It comes to the words on the page, Mr Finlayson. The words on the page that I am reading, which is printed in the Bills Digest, say: “the area of the non-interference zone to which the activity relates”—and we are talking about the banning of protest activity within this non-interference zone of structures or ships to which the activity relates; in other words, those that are working at oil exploration and such activities—“(which may be up to 500 metres from any point on the outer edge of the structure or ship to which the activity relates or, if there is any equipment attached to the structure or ship, 500 metres from any point on the outer edge of the equipment);”.

Given that the National Party is so well-endowed with lawyers, I wonder whether the Minister could address the issue of this non-interference area of 500 metres. If, for example, Greenpeace, in the course of its lawful activity, protesting against oil or mineral exploration in the deep sea, were to pull up within 500 metres of a ship that was engaging in that activity, and that ship itself decided to breach the 500-metre limit and move towards Greenpeace in a threatening manner, as we have seen Japanese whaling ships do in the face of protests on the high seas, then where is the Minister’s law and words on the page? Who is breaching the 500-metre limit in that instance?

If they try to provoke democratic and legitimate protesters into activities that they will not resile from—in other words, they have done what the law says and pulled up within 500 metres of a ship that is carrying out this activity—and that ship itself then broaches the 500-metre limit, who is at fault? Who gets the $100,000 fine? Where does that responsibility lie and why has the Minister not got the words on the page right? He has got the “archbishop of words on the page” sitting on his right hand, and, really, quite frankly, I would think—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Cardinal.

Cardinal-something—cardinal-something. I might come to that in a later speech on another subject, perhaps—cardinal-something. However, on this matter, the man who sets himself up as the one with the greatest knowledge of the words on the page should surely have counselled his junior colleague and said: “I’m sorry. You haven’t got the words on the page quite right.” But in addition to that carelessness, that sloppiness of drafting, what we see from this—because the words on the page are not accurate, are not sufficient—is the actual design of this Supplementary Order Paper 205.

I would have supported Gareth Hughes’ procedural motion earlier this evening, which was not allowed by the Committee, to have this Supplementary Order Paper referred back to the Commerce Committee so that people could tease it out and see whether or not it was appropriate. But this Minister clearly did not want public scrutiny of this, because, as Paul Buchanan said of the Prime Minister just last week when he was talking about the Prime Minister and his poor oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau: “This behaviour may be appropriate—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Members can use examples, but I just need to say right at the start that we are actually debating the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, and we are not going to extend into other debates.

I was not intending to. I simply wanted to quote Paul Buchanan, because he said that the Prime Minister’s cavalier behaviour might be appropriate for the chief executive officer of a private company, but it is not appropriate for the Prime Minister of a democratic nation. I think this is the point that the Minister is missing with this Supplementary Order Paper. He thinks—because he is being tutored by his colleagues, by some who think that the private sector rules and that the private sector rules are OK—that it is adequate to put up a curtailing of legitimate democratic expression without taking it to the public for comment, without putting it through a select committee process where the public can make submissions, and to bring it in through the side door because he might have had a phone call from a company that said: “Oh, by the way, we’ll come and prospect and drill for oil around your borders, in your economic zone, if you make it easy for us, because we’ve heard from our friends at Warner Bros and we’ve heard from our friends at Skycity that this is how the New Zealand Government does business.” It is really just one private chief executive officer talking to another private chief executive officer.

Well, if this junior Minister thinks that that is the way to run a country, somebody needs to tell him that it is not the case. There are democratic principles at stake and there are democratic rights of protest that people have. Yes, there should be safety on the high seas, and, in that case, why does this Supplementary Order Paper not morph into a piece of legislation that applies to every vessel on the high seas, and not simply to those who are going about their business of protesting legitimately in a difficult area?

Of course we do not want accidents at sea. We do not want Japanese whalers splitting protest boats in half. We do not want them threatening life. We do not want that kind of lack of safety on the high seas. But if it is good enough to bring this in for protest boats, it should be good enough for every vessel on the high seas. There should not be any tolerance of health and safety threats on the high seas.

So I would ask that the Minister goes back and gets the words on the page right, tutored by his superior counsel—superior in so many ways—Chris Finlayson. I would ask that he gets some advice about how to write this properly to say what he means, to mean what he says, and to make sure that this is not simply an isolated exception, which could be something applied to every vessel on the high seas.

This is a democratic country. We do prize our democratic right to protest. We do guard that jealously. This is not a private company to have rules dictated by the chief executive officer. This is a democratic country, and it should be run with that in mind.

Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am delighted to take a call in the Committee stage of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, which was a bad bill to start with and has got only worse, in quite an astonishing way, really. It was bad enough at the Commerce Committee, going through clause after clause of facilitating mining—and Part 1 is extremely focused on assisting the mining industry—and promoting the role of the Minister, not as a regulator but as a facilitator and great attractor of industry. But then to have Supplementary Order Paper 205 sprung upon us on Easter Day was another extraordinary experience that has made this bill, which was bad enough, a whole lot worse. My colleagues will speak more about this Supplementary Order Paper.

As to my own experience of what can happen, I would say, looking around the Chamber, that I am probably the most experienced protester in this Chamber. I have had more experience of non-violent protest than many of you have had hot dinners. I have experienced what can happen on the high seas. I have had experience of what non-violence means and how the law can be misinterpreted to privilege certain industries.

Once when we were the Cook Strait in Greenpeace, protesting against a whaling supply vessel, it was really interesting because our own people were thrown off that vessel by the port police from Wellington, who were assisting the Japanese whalers to throw people into the Cook Strait, 40 kilometres off the coast. I remember thinking at the time that it was not very safe, but, of course, health and safety was not the concern of the Japanese whalers or the New Zealand police in that situation. Fortunately, our people were picked up by some very skilled captains of inflatables, who saved their lives. When I read Supplementary Order Paper 205 I thought: “Great, it’s all about those who dare to challenge, but it is not about the behaviour of people who believe that their right to extract a resource is under challenge.” So it is a very concerning Supplementary Order Paper.

Basically, when you have been in the front line of this, you know that it is not necessarily like the lawyers think it is going to be and it is not just words on the page. It is about what happens to human beings who non-violently challenge the right of others to rip off resources. It can be extremely dangerous if the rules are not fair to everybody, and this Supplementary Order Paper demonstrates that it is actually dangerous.

I was astonished at the Minister of Energy and Resources saying in the Chamber: “No, I don’t need to consult the Attorney-General. No, I don’t need to think about international law. No, I don’t even need to answer this question.”, because I think that will come back to bite him in the future. People in this country, including the New Zealander of the Year, are watching, and those people are there because they are concerned about what we pass on to mokopuna, what we pass on to future generations. They do not regard this as something to be treated with lightness or contempt in any way.

But I want to talk about Part 1 in terms of another Supplementary Order Paper, which is Supplementary Order Paper 211 in my name. I want to talk about this one because this is about another bad aspect of this bill, which is the ambiguities around the use of schedule 4. This needs to be clarified once and for all, and this bill is a positive opportunity, I believe, to do that.

In my Supplementary Order Paper what I am suggesting for section 25, in clause 16, is to insert after subsection (6): “(6AA) The Minister must not grant a permit of any kind in respect of a Crown owned mineral or petroleum in any Crown owned land described in Schedule 4,” and then it goes on to describe the land and water. The purpose of this is to make it crystal clear to anybody that schedule 4 land is not open to mining, and it is not open to exploration and prospecting either, because exploration and prospecting are being carried out for mining.

We know that, because if you go to the Coromandel right now, and you go to the Coromandel Harbour, you will find a mining company that has made public statements about its intention to mine that exact piece of harbour—that exact piece of harbour—for tailings. It is not looking to get a grid picture or an aerial magnetic survey; it is there to mine that exact spot. So we need to clarify for it and also for the Broken Hill mining company over at Tairua, which has a mining permit application in front of the Minister at the moment, that this area in schedule 4 was set aside by Governments, by people—and we had 30,000 people march on this issue—to protect it.

So what my Supplementary Order Paper does is clarify that there is no point in playing games, it is time for clarity. Let us say schedule 4 is OK if you want to fossick for gold with your kids for fun, but it is not for anything else. It is not for prospecting and exploration in order to facilitate your access for mining. Otherwise the Government is playing games with the miners and the miners are confused.

So I am hoping that the Committee will see the clarity and the logic of what I am proposing here, because it would be very straightforward if we could then say to everybody concerned: “You can have certainty. There will be no mining on schedule 4, so don’t bother to waste your resources looking for it in those exact spots where you want to mine, because you are not going to be allowed to.” That kind of clarity would be welcomed by the public of this country, and that is why I have put up this Supplementary Order Paper—it is an opportunity to clarify this once and for all.

The whole issue in this bill is, unfortunately, not towards creating certainty for the public; it is for creating certainly for industry. That is why the Supplementary Order Paper that Minister Bridges put up at Easter was written as well. It was to make sure that industry had certainty. But industry probably did not have to complain. I would not be at all surprised if it did not. Why would it need to? A Government that will let Warner Bros write legislation does not really need much incentive to write legislation to facilitate people like Petrobras. It did not even have to hear from Petrobras. It may have, but it did not have to, because actually it was very, very upset.

The plain truth of what happened in Te Whānau-a-Apanui is that Elvis Teddy and Te Whānau-a Apanui, with Greenpeace, went out there and said: “No, we do not accept this in our waters. We do not care what you call them, but these are our waters, this is our rohe—you can call it what you like—but we are not having deep sea oil. We are not having it off the East Coast.” And do you know what? They won in the court and that, of course, is completely unacceptable!

Imagine—a rural iwi and Greenpeace actually beating a Brazilian mining company that the Government had facilitated to come into their waters. It was not acceptable and that is why we have got Supplementary Order Paper 205—because, apparently, we cannot have that kind of thing going on in this country, and we cannot have legitimate protest by tangata whenua about their right within their own fishing waters to say no to an industry that has the risk of polluting their fishing waters.

That is what it is about and that is why Dame Anne Salmond from the East Coast is standing with those people, because that is where she comes from, and that is what she stands for. You will find that she is standing up more and more on environmental issues since she moved on from the Historic Places Trust, because some people at some time in their life will take a stand and say “No, it is not all right.” She has got to that point where now it is not about getting successful, it is not about being approved of by everybody—strangely, for New Zealander of the Year—but actually standing up for something worthwhile, which is our environment, because without it we are nothing—we are nothing. And that is what is so repellent about a Supplementary Order Paper that tries to take away from Elvis Teddy, Te Whānau-a-Apanui, and Greenpeace the right to stand up.

Interference can be interpreted in a million ways and it will be. Sometimes just standing there and breathing, or being in the water breathing in the right zone, is interference. I have been told we are interfering if we bear witness, if we stand in the way, if we put our bodies on the line. Some of the most important justice changes in the history of the world have come from people non-violently taking a stand. We stand proud in the tradition of non-violence, of taking a direct stand and putting our bodies between things that are acceptable and things that are not. We will continue to do that despite this Supplementary Order Paper. But this Supplementary Order Paper has been misjudged and it is misjudged by people who do not understand what it is to bear witness in that situation. It has not been designed to protect everybody’s rights. That is why there are all these people making a fuss.

💬 Hon Member: Oh, you’re making me cry.

However, there are lots of other aspects of this bill, and I am proud to stimulate emotion across the Chamber. This is actually an emotional issue for the people who are not the lawyers, who are not the clever people who sit in Parliament deciding what will be legal and what will not be, but who care about this country and whose true commitment to the environment is going to be what gets us through what is actually quite a dark time in terms of the environment.

So back to the bill; back to Part 1. Part 1 has a purpose that many people came to the select committee and objected to. They objected to the purpose of the bill, and what they objected to was this. Most people think that the Minister’s role is to be a regulator—to be a fair, unbiased regulator on behalf of the community, to represent the community, to represent a fair balance of issues. Instead, what we find in the purpose of this bill is that it is there for the efficient allocation of resources, supposedly for New Zealand’s benefit and also to be the great attractor—the attractor of permits.

I am proud that the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill is in my name. I am proud of that because this bill is about higher-paid jobs in the provinces—the provinces that some of those people on that side of the Chamber say they represent. But let me tell you that this bill is fundamentally about development and promoting development. To refer to the purpose in new section 1A(1) set out in clause 6: “The purpose of this Act is to promote prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand.” This bill is for the benefit of New Zealand.

The benefits from petroleum are immense in this country: royalties and taxes are 42c in every dollar of profit, billions of dollars to the Crown over the years that go to pay for the schools and the hospitals and the roads that, yes, even the Greens drive on in oil-filled cars. There is direct employment in the provinces and very high-paid jobs—I have seen them. Young men and women are earning $120,000, $150,000, and in some cases $200,000 a year—ordinary Kiwis in indirect jobs in terms of the architects, the engineers, the hoteliers, and the coffee-makers. It is quite clear in Taranaki where you see that.

Yet we have in the Green Party one Gareth Hughes, about whom this was reported in the media: “Citing changes to employment legislation made to mollify the makers of The Hobbit movies, and controversy over the SkyCity national convention centre, Hughes believed there was a trend to change rules to benefit a ‘corporate few’.” Well, I have contempt for that statement, because there are 4,000 New Zealanders in Taranaki making a living out of this industry in direct jobs and another 4,000 making it indirectly—the hoteliers and so on. They are not the corporate few, Mr Hughes. They are ordinary Kiwis of all ages and of all ethnicities. They are not corporates. They are just ordinary Kiwis who want to get ahead in this country and want to do well. They do not get a fair go from parties like the Green Party over there, which does not actually believe in sensible development that takes into account and protects health and safety and the environment, and that is exactly what this bill provides for. In fact, it ups the standards in those areas quite considerably, and yet we have the kinds of bogus claims we have seen from the other side.

Then we come to Supplementary Order Paper 205, which Labour, the Greens, and Moana Mackey go on and on and on about. What drivel they are speaking—what absolute drivel! When they read it—I know that is difficult for one or two of them—what is very clear is we are stopping criminal damage and criminal interference. Protest does not even come into it, and here is the problem with the Labour-Green position, effectively. I challenge Gareth Hughes when he takes a call. I understand that Damien O’Connor would have voted for this bill but he was muffled by his party. He would have voted for this bill but he was muffled by his party. Well, I say to Mr Hughes that here is the problem with your position. What Mr Hughes, Moana Mackey, and, sadly, Damien O’Connor—because he has to vote against this even though he does not want to—are saying is: “Yes to democratic rights for our mates, for people who share our political beliefs, actually our political prejudices, but not real rights for people who disagree with us.”

💬 Moana Mackey: Why doesn’t it apply to everyone?

I will tell you what I learnt at law school, Ms Mackey. It was that real rights are rights for people who disagree with you—not just your prejudices, Mr Hughes. Real rights are rights for people who disagree with you. So I ask Mr Hughes to give me an answer in this House to this question: do Kiwis working hard on those exploration vessels not have rights as well? Do they not have the right not to be subject to criminal damage, to interference, and, frankly, Mr Hughes, to some of your mates’ harassment? I reckon they do, and I reckon most New Zealanders believe they have actually got a right to a fair go as well.

💬 Moana Mackey: Why doesn’t it apply to everyone?

Rights are a two-way thing, Ms Mackey. So, Gareth Hughes, I want you to tell me whether they have rights as well. Or do their rights not count? What is quite clear over that side of the House is a view that says the ends justify the means, right? The ends justify the means. They are so clear in their smarmy little chardonnay socialist world that they are right that they do not care about other people’s rights—“Rights for our side; no rights for anyone else!”. Well, I will tell you, Mr Hughes, that business people in this country have rights too, actually, and talking about business and development is not a shameful thing. Actually, it is what makes the world go round and it is what pays for all your socialist ideas, frankly.

It has been good to take this brief call and to ask what is so wrong, actually, with these vessels going out exploring and seeing what lies underneath our feet hundreds of miles outside. Be very clear, Mr Hughes, that there are Kiwis on these vessels. I have met them. I met a chef from Invercargill on a seismic vessel, who loved the work, loved the people, and was proud of what he was doing. He was proud to be out there. So I say to Mr Hughes that, actually, this bill is about development, this bill is about higher-paying jobs in the provinces that National holds—because we actually care about the people out there—and also this bill is about rights not just for the trendy lefties that Mr Hughes and Ms Moana Mackey talk to but also for other people whom they happen to disagree with. That is the real test of rights—rights for those you disagree with.

It is astounding that we can hear a rant from a Minister about upholding rights, from a party that implements so many wrongs.

I object to this bill, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, exactly on the basis that the Minister of Energy and Resources speaks of—rights. If I were a mining company or a landowner in this country, I would be worried about this bill, because it does a couple of things. Firstly, it assumes that mining rights are above all else and that we should drive through anything to make sure mining occurs.

The last brainwave that the National Government had was “We should mine schedule 4 national parks.” Nick Smith agreed with it. National members thought that was going to save this economy and drive us forward. Well, we very quickly saw them turn tail and scarper off with their tails between their legs when they started to understand that New Zealanders, who also understand rights, know that there are some values in this country that need to be upheld. These are not just selfish property rights but responsibilities towards landowners.

The Minister of Conservation is a landowner on behalf of the rest of us. He probably does not appreciate the job he has, but that job is to protect conservation land. What this bill does, of course, is say that the landowner, the Minister of Conservation, does not have the right, because he—or she—has been irresponsible with that right and blocked mining. Well, I know that on my patch down there on the West Coast a lot of people make comments about the Department of Conservation, but I also know that Labour in Government, supported by the Greens—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Put mining in national parks.

—here he goes; he should keep his mouth shut—opened up and developed more mines, responsible mines, than this National Government has done in its whole time in Government. It makes lots of noise but it does not make much by way of progress. In fact, the mining industry was outraged by the inept and stupid way that the National Government handled the whole schedule 4 issue, because now what we have got is anyone who has any concern about mining jumping up and down and objecting to any sensible mining proposition. National has skewed the whole debate and the balance around mining.

What we have also seen here is that we have got property rights perhaps under threat, and that the Minister for Economic Development, Mr Joyce—well, good God, would you trust anything with Steven Joyce? I certainly would not trust my second-hand car with him, let alone the conservation estate of this country or the future drive of our economy.

We need mining. Labour supports mining. We appreciate the jobs and the benefit out in the regions, but we also know that it must be done responsibly. There are a number of proposals in the pipeline now, Bathurst being one of them. I think, with adjustment—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Do you support it?

Yeah, of course I have. I have always supported Bathurst.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Your colleague Maryan Street says “Leave the coal in the hole.”

No, we do not. Can I say that we support a process that is absolutely robust. I have been there and talked with people on the ground, and I got changes put in the proposition by the company to make sure we have better environmental outcomes, and I support it. That is under the current regime—a robust regime. This dumb Government thinks that it has got to tip it on its ear and hand all the rights to the Minister for Economic Development because he or she knows best.

We cannot trust the economy to this National Government. We are seeing what is happening now. It is flogging off the silver, selling it to its mates, and setting everything up to benefit a few people at the top at the expense of poor people who pay GST, who are trying to find a job, who are stuck on a benefit, and who are now going to be kicked around because the National Government thinks that if we kick these people into work, then the whole economy would be better off. There should be members at the back there ashamed at what is going to happen to people who want a job but who are now going to be forced out into a job of 10 hours a week.

Let us come back to mining. Let us bring things back down to earth. There have been some very pertinent points made by my colleagues about the Supplementary Order Paper that is coming in. I will stick to land for the moment. Let us take a look at the issue of property rights and the fact that the Government is now saying that the rights that the Minister of Conservation upholds and implements on behalf of each and every one of us over conservation land should be compromised by a mining company or a Minister who might be pressured by a mining company. I do not accept that.

I have seen the Minister of Conservation—under pressure, yes, no doubt—make changes, force changes, and implement trade-offs to ensure beneficial outcomes for conservation and to allow mining to proceed. That is the way it should be. It should not be for the Minister of Conservation to be bullied by some Minister who has got a mate who wants to set up a mining company. That is what is going on in this economy at the moment.

So I am not supporting the bill, because I do not want Auckland investors or Chinese investors or American investors to get absolute carte blanche and the right to come down to the West Coast, rape and pillage our region, and walk away and leave it. We need proper environmental safeguards. We need the Minister of Conservation to protect the conservation estate. We cannot rely on Nick Smith, so we are going to have to have robust laws that ensure that the next Minister of Conservation can protect areas like the West Coast, like Kahurangi National Park, like all the national parks around this country, because the National Government—through the back door, no doubt—will continue to try to open up the door for mining on schedule 4 areas. I can say that—

💬 Jonathan Young: Come on, Damien. Tell us the whole story.

No, no, no. I know what is going on here. I accept that, yes, there are provisions in this bill here to uphold some of the requirements and the protection for schedule 4 areas, but I also know that you are rolling over the Minister of Conservation. Yes, you are.

The bill does implement and insist on—we hope—some better standards of health and safety before any mining proposals go ahead, and we acknowledge that. It is needed, and no project—no prospecting—should go ahead without the most robust levels of health and safety. I am not going to go on. We all know why we need that, and it is a sad, sad outcome.

Let us go back to property rights. Farmers, up until 1992, of course, had no ability to object to mining. Up until 1992 the people who had the mining rights had the right to go and mine, regardless. The bill was changed—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Who changed that law? Who changed it?

National changed that.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Good job.

That is right. National changed that. It was a good job. It said that the owner of the land, be it the Minister of Conservation or a farmer, ultimately had the right to say no to a mining proposal on the land because they owned the land. The owner of the mineral rights under the land, which is the Crown, had no superior rights. That is the way it should be. We should ensure that, be it a farmer, be it the Minister of Conservation, or be it a State-owned enterprise, the person who owns the land should have the ultimate say as to whether or not the mining proposal goes ahead.

I think that whether it be Magna Carta rights, which I hear of from time to time, or normal property rights in more recent legislation—there will be a few over there in the National Party who probably refer back to the Magna Carta—I do not necessarily accept them as a mandate for property rights of today. Farmers now are looking at issues like pylons on their land, whereas in the past the Public Works Act ensured that the pylons could be put on land—a bit of goodwill and “She’s all right.” Now, farmers and the Minister of Conservation are looking at the rights on their land and judging them, assessing them, and protecting them.

As the Minister of Conservation now looks for more commercial opportunities on the conservation estate, and he cuts back the budget and fires people from the Department of Conservation, it is inevitable that the pressure will build to trade off those values for mining. There will be some in my West Coast electorate who do not like me saying that, but they do understand property rights, and they do understand—

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. Once again, New Zealand First will be the party in this house with a level sense of reasoning and balanced judgment on this bill, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill.

💬 Jonathan Young: Once again?

Once again. Because we tend to be the party that has the sensible, balanced, common-sense views on these things. We have said in the past that we see merit in aspects of this bill because we do understand that New Zealand is sitting on significant resources, significant natural resources, that the people of this nation can benefit from. I do not think any New Zealander really would say that we should not be doing the best by our people so that we are more prosperous than we are today and can pay for the services that are required of this nation.

Having said that, we have always said as a party, New Zealand First, that any such mining or any such taking of resources must be done in an environmentally sustainable way, and must be done so that the environment gets the benefit of the doubt, but that at the same time we do not give away economic opportunities in this country. Our party supported the exclusive economic zone bill; others did not. Again, we said that we had the fifth-largest economic zone in the world and we had to take advantage of the opportunities out there responsibly and take care of those opportunities.

But we are in two minds on some aspects of this bill, and we do wonder—and I have spoken to the Minister of Energy and Resources—why this particular aspect about protesting on the high seas has been put in under this particular bill, because we do have some concerns. Our caucus discussed this on Tuesday, and we just could not understand why it was put into this particular bill. We, New Zealand First, feel that it should really have gone in under the Maritime Transport Act and it should have been incorporated there. If there were going to be some provisions under controls on the high seas in some form or other, it should have been done under the Maritime Transport Act.

I have looked at the Maritime Transport Act, and there are already provisions in that in terms of duties of the master, where: “The master of a ship shall—be responsible for the safe operation of the ship on a voyage, the safety and wellbeing of all passengers and crew,” and, further, the master must “be responsible for compliance with all relevant requirements of this Act and regulations and maritime rules made under this Act,”. So there already are provisions that could have been beefed up to ensure that for anyone going to sea, the master of the vessel—I have got a small launch, and I know that if I take people on my launch, I am responsible for their safety, I am responsible for the vessel, and I am responsible for insurance on the vessel. I know that at the end of the day I carry the can. We cannot understand why the Government did not look to perhaps beef up some of the provisions of the Maritime Transport Act if it had concerns about this area. Furthermore, under the Maritime Transport Act, section 65 talks about dangerous activity involving ships or maritime products, and it says: “Every person commits an offence … which causes unnecessary danger or risk to any other person or to any property, irrespective of whether or not in fact any injury or damage occurs.”

These sorts of provisions are therefore there, and we feel that in a sense this is already covered. It is covered to a certain extent, but it could have been perhaps that that particular Act could have been amended. So we do have some concerns that this bill is perhaps being railroaded through for other purposes to do with mining or drilling or exploration offshore, and it could well be a little bit of a smokescreen to perhaps hide activities that are not necessarily in the interests of good, lawful, everyday protest.

I can remember—and I know the Hon Simon Bridges was born in 1976, so he cannot personally recall this—and we all remember the HMNZS Otago and the HMNZS Canterbury, or those of us of who are of that age, heading off to Mururoa atoll in 1973, when Simon was still the twinkle in his father’s eye—well, not even that, probably. I think as a nation we were all very proud of those two frigates going off to Mururoa to uphold our protest against nuclear testing. We, as a nation, said there was a right for us to go and protest on the high seas and make our voice known. I do not think anybody in this country would ever say that that was a wrong decision. We made it, and had we not done that—and the Minister has said: “Oh, well you can protest outside their head offices and go on the footpath outside their building.” We could have stood outside the French embassy here in Wellington or we could have gone to Paris and stood in the Champs Élysées, but it would not have had the same effect as having a New Zealand warship at Mururoa. That certainly really brought it home on the international stage.

Likewise, some of us were around at the time in Auckland in 1979 when the USS Haddo submarine came up the harbour and there was protest at that. Again, that was all around the antinuclear protest period, and, again, that was very effective because there was a sufficient protest on the harbour to say we did not want those nuclear vessels coming into port. That was a very strong message. Again, it would not have been the same just standing outside the US consulate and having a few flags and banners.

It is part of New Zealand’s psyche—the right and the freedom to protest, to be able to go wherever you wish, whether it be on land or sea, and have your say. But having said that, we agree it must be done in a safe manner and a responsible manner. The master of the vessel and the crew are responsible for the safety of those people on the vessel and it must be done in a responsible manner. We do feel that there needs to be a little bit more thought from the Government on this. Perhaps it needs to just think through the whole Maritime Transport Act. Perhaps it needs to withdraw this and take this out of this particular bill and look at how, perhaps, provisions can be rightly done so that responsible protest is not stopped in what we see as a law-abiding country, where we do uphold the right of law but we also uphold the right of free protest. So in that respect we are having difficulties with it.

Having said that, we support aspects in terms of the mining aspect, but we also say, as New Zealand First—and it has got a huge amount of support around New Zealand—that any resources taken, whether it be via the Crown or via private mining, must end up returning greater royalties to the place where they are taken from. We released a policy just a month ago where 25 percent of all royalties taken by the Crown in any part of New Zealand—25 percent of those royalties—must go back to the region from where they were taken, so that the people who are perhaps affected by any mining or any taking of resources actually get a benefit from it. It does not just all disappear into the central treasury in Wellington and the places that are affected by it do not see the benefits.

So at this point in time New Zealand First, regrettably, is not going to be able to support this bill unless the Government really has a bit of a rethink and really looks at it and decides what it is after here. Is it after responsible consideration of our very, very important minerals and resources in this country, or is it looking at other ways of stopping the rightful freedom of speech, freedom to protest, and the freedom of every New Zealander to go about their actions in a reasonable, law-abiding manner? At this stage, unfortunately, New Zealand First cannot now support this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.

New Zealanders love and want to protect the places in our country—our distinctive and unique and precious plants and wildlife, their habitats, and our quite dramatic landscapes. They do not want miners to have a go first, and that is why 50,000 people marched down Queen Street. So I am pleased to stand here for the Green Party to speak for nature and for those wild places that so many New Zealanders treasure, to speak for a smart and sustainable economic plan, and to oppose this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill.

The bill represents a profound change in the way conservation lands are managed, and the way in which mining applications are considered. It is a major change in our whole philosophy about the place of conservation in New Zealand. As Damien O’Connor noted, when those 1991 changes came in with the Crown Minerals Act and the Conservation Act in 1987 there was a recognition that as manager of conservation lands, holding them in trust for all New Zealanders, the Minister of Conservation had a right to say no to mining applications in the same way that private landowners through the Crown Minerals Act in 1991 were also given the right to say no. This bill makes a major change to that because it puts the Minister of Energy and Resources as the decision maker alongside the Minister of Conservation for any applications to prospect and mine on conservation land. By doing that it is failing to give adequate weight to the Crown’s other statutory responsibilities in the Conservation Act. But we know that this Government does not care about conservation, because it has cut the funding to the department, it has axed 140 jobs, and it is proposing new legislation to further change the Conservation Act, potentially to weaken it, so that it can “extract greater value” from conservation land. This is what the bill is all about, having conservation land opened up for mining, rather than for the preservation and protection of the species and landscapes that we value.

I would like to talk specifically about clauses 31 and 32 and the changes they make to section 61. It is there that we have got these changes that put the Minister of Energy and Resources inside alongside the Minister of Conservation as a joint decision-maker. There was a small change by the Commerce Committee to restrict this to tier 1 applications for exploration and mining. But, given that the threshold between tier 1 and tier 2 is how much the mining company estimates it will spend on its work programme for exploration permits, and what it estimates will be the annual production and royalty for mining permits, I imagine that most applicants will make sure that their estimated expenditure exceeds the $1.25 million threshold.

One of the very troubling things in this clause—that is, clause 31(1AA)—is that it is not only giving this joint decision-making power to new applications but also potentially making the law retrospective, because the joint decision-making power applies to a variation to an existing access arrangement if the purpose is to allow significant exploration or mining activities. So that means, as I read it, that any existing mining or exploration permit that has been granted can potentially be significantly expanded and the Minister of Energy and Resources will have a role in that decision, rather than just the Minister of Conservation. It is potentially allowing existing applications on conservation land, which the Minister may have decided to restrict to smaller areas with less impact, to actually significantly expand.

This whole joint decision-making power implies that the Minister of Conservation, as advised by the department, cannot be trusted and is not competent to assess the effects of mining applications and decide them. As submitters noted, and I would like to quote Linda Conning, who said: “it is an unwarranted increase in ministerial power where there is no … obligation to promote the purpose of conservation and it is an undesirable precedent for joint ministerial responsibility to enable interference in other portfolios.” We do not see the Minister of Conservation able to make decisions alongside the Minister for Primary Industries on the total allowable commercial catch regardless of the fact that fishing has a lot of impact on our wildlife and on marine biodiversity, so why should we have the Minister of Energy and Resources making decisions on conservation land? Are we going to see under the new changes to conservation legislation that have been highlighted in the briefing to the incoming Minister the Minister of Tourism having a joint role in decisions about tourism concession applications? It is showing the double standard that the Government is applying to the exploitation of our public protected lands that is at the heart of this bill.

It is interesting that when National amended the Resource Management Act in 2009 to remove the Minister of Conservation’s role in relation to restricted coastal activities, such as big reclamations or major dredging, that was done because it was seen to be inefficient to have two decision makers: the regional council and the Minister. Yet here, when we can encourage exploitation of our conservation lands, the National Government is quite happy to have joint decision-making. There is nothing in the legislation that highlights what happens when there is a difference of view between the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Energy and Resources, and, as Damien O’Connor noted, there will be significant pressure applied to the Minister of Conservation to do what the Minister for Economic Development, who is actually pulling all the strings here, wants. So we will have the Minister of Conservation, who is supposed to be the guardian of our protected conservation lands, not having control over what happens on those lands. As Mr Finlayson noted, words are important.

The Conservation Act is about the preservation and protection of natural resources. That is a completely different statutory test to the one in this bill about the promotion of mining. So where you get the Minister of Energy and Resources involved, it will be overriding protection and preservation, and overriding the fact that in 1987 the Conservation Act highlighted the views of all New Zealanders that these landscapes should be protected for present and future generations so that we could protect their intrinsic values and we could enjoy those lands, recreate in those areas, and enjoy wilderness. This bill actually cuts across that by opening up the conservation estate for much greater exploitation. The other way it does that is by the change in the decision-making criteria and the introduction of a new test of direct net economic benefits of the application. That will have to be weighed alongside the impacts of the application on conservation values and the impacts of the application on recreational use. But with economic benefits, as we all know, it is much easier to quantify jobs and much harder to quantify intrinsic values, so you will get the jobs that are potentially created—short-term jobs, often by people coming from offshore—trumping intrinsic values and trumping conservation values.

So there is a fundamental change in this bill that undermines the way in which conservation has been valued since 1987 through the establishment of the Department of Conservation and the protection of the conservation estate. That is because this Government has a very empty economic agenda, which is all about the exploitation of nature. It is not about sustainable economic growth; it is all about short-term dollars, setting aside areas that have been protected, just to allow companies like Bathurst Resources to come in. That is another noxious part of the bill, the transitional provisions, which mean that the Bathurst Resources application will potentially benefit from this joint decision-making. Where the Ministers, in answer to questions, have already flagged that they support this Bathurst Resources application, we potentially see those protected conservation lands on the Denniston Plateau, with those distinctive ecosystems, being opened up for large-scale mining, open-cast mining, which would destroy those pygmy pines, those quite special landscapes, just to provide a few short-term jobs for a Perth, Australia-based mining company. This bill is bad law because it reneges on the protection of conservation values, and the Green Party will oppose it.

It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. I want to begin by saying that I come from a region where minerals extraction, particularly of the hydrocarbon type, is common and long established. It is an area that has long needed an improvement in its road north, State Highway 3, which is the source of some mirth for the uncaring Government. It does not see the value of it and does not see any need to put any money into it. But it is a road that plays an essential and critical part of the mining industry in Taranaki as it is at the moment.

What I want to comment on is Supplementary Order Paper 205 and make the point that that Supplementary Order Paper ignores the genuine anxiety, even in places like Taranaki, which is quite familiar with mining and hydrocarbon extraction. Nevertheless, there is anxiety about where the future of oil and gas exploration and production is going, particularly with deep-sea oil drilling. That anxiety is felt in all parts of New Zealand, and just as much in Taranaki as anywhere else.

What the community is looking for is assurances—and I know the people of Taranaki, just as much as anybody else, are looking for assurances—not only from the industry itself but also, actually, from the Government, the regulator of the industry, that proper precautions are being taken when new permits are being let, particularly deep-sea oil exploration and drilling permits, and that the Government and the industry are taking seriously the concerns that people have. Those concerns and anxieties are real. People look around the rest of the world, see the mistakes that have been made, and, quite rightly, when it comes to their back doorstep, they are asking what precautions are being taken here.

In Taranaki, before the change of Government, we were on the cusp of having a rapid response unit for marine drilling, and that seems to have been shelved and has gone nowhere. That is an important issue. Indeed, when Maritime New Zealand was asked about it in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year, it knew nothing of it, but when you talk to the Mayor of New Plymouth, His Worship Harry Duynhoven, about it, he will tell you chapter and verse the work that had been done in preparation for a rapid response unit in the event of an incident or an accident offshore in Taranaki. Where is that sort of reassurance here?

What we have—the response of the Government—is that if anybody opposes this type of activity in our seas, there is something wrong with them and they are to be punished, they are to be shut down, and they are to be locked out of any legitimate protest activity. The Government would be better off, and the Minister of Energy and Resources, Mr Bridges, would be better off, to work with those in the industry and ensure that they are working with the communities and providing the information that gives them some reassurance that the risks are understood, that they have been properly assessed, and that they can be properly handled, and also to have the honesty to say that if those risks are too great, then they will not embark on that sort of work. We are entitled to nothing less.

It is a very sensitive issue, wherever you go. In Taranaki, whether it is exploration drilling and production or whether it is the seabed ironsand mining, these are legitimate issues that members of the local community have and are entitled to see reflected and respected by the Government in the legislation it passes. This legislation does not do it. This Supplementary Order Paper 205 does not do that. It rides roughshod over longstanding basic rights that people have, and ought to have, to raise their concerns and anxieties about this sort of activity, much of which is dependent on new and developing technology, and in many places it is untested. The waters off Taranaki are not the easiest to navigate or, indeed, to drill within, as has been proven over the last 30 or 40 years there.

This is an opportunity for the Government, if it has a mind to do so, to provide some reassurance, not simply to regulate for its ability to ride roughshod over those who have a different view and who are seeking that reassurance, and who want something different when it comes to this very sensitive sort of activity.

I just have to take a call to expose some of the bunkum and contradictions that I have heard from members opposite. You see, all year we listen to the argument that New Zealand needs to create jobs and wealth. There is wailing and moaning about the job opportunities in Australia and the number of people who are going there, particularly to Western Australia, and you have a Government that is committed to growing the mineral and the petroleum industries here in New Zealand, and on every one of those tests, members opposite say no—members opposite say no. I say to the Andrew Littles and the Damien O’Connors of the Labour Party—who I hoped would bring to this debate on the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill a little bit of common sense and a little bit of balance—that they have let down middle New Zealand, who are looking for jobs and looking for opportunities for wealth.

Let me go through a few of the contradictions. The first of those that I challenge Mr Little on is this: for the 9 years that Labour was in Government, there were no environmental rules about mining in the exclusive economic zone—zero. There were no environmental rules about mining in the exclusive economic zone. We did not hear a peep from the Greens or the Labour Party about this, and I am proud to be part of a National Government that has put in place a law that requires consents for petroleum exploration and other activity that occurs within the exclusive economic zone—absolutely. The challenge I have for Mr Little and others on Labour’s side is this: if somebody has gone and got a consent from the Environmental Protection Authority to be able to explore, to be able to do surveys of resources in those areas, will Labour defend the rights of people to use those rights? That is the question.

Let us read exactly what Supplementary Order Paper 205, which Mr Little objects to, says. It says that it will be an offence for people to interfere intentionally with a person who is out exploring. What the Labour Party is effectively saying is that it thinks it is OK for people to interfere in people going about their lawful exploration activities. What Mr Little said was this: if people legitimately think that they are right, they should be able to interfere. Well, I have to say to Mr Little that there are New Zealand citizens who quite properly believe that there should be no exploration of petroleum or minerals anywhere. I have met those people. So, because those people hold those legitimate views, Mr Little, are you saying that they can interfere and damage people’s property? I am proud to be part of a Government that says no.

You see—

💬 Andrew Little: Why are you breaching the Convention on the Law of the Sea?

It does not. It does not. I have read the Crown Law opinion that makes that point that Mr Little interjects with absolutely wrong—he is wrong. Let me put it this way. Let me put it just very simply for members about protest. It is absolutely their right for people to protest outside Parliament; it is absolutely the right of people to be able to protest outside my electorate office; but it is also the law set down very clearly in court decisions that they may not stop my legal right to be able to access Parliament or my legal right to be able to access my electorate office or other citizens, and that is what this law is intended to do.

Then I come to the contradictions. I stood on the electoral platform at the last election next to Maryan Street, Labour’s environment spokesperson, who said in respect of the Bathurst Resources mine on the West Coast: “Leave the coal in the hole.” That is what she said—“Leave the coal in the hole.” Now I have Damien O’Connor, who purports to represent that community, saying: “Oh no, no, no. They are in favour of Bathurst.” Well, I simply say to the Labour Party that it is no wonder it is in Opposition. It is no wonder the public has no confidence in it when it does not even know its position and it sends such contradictory messages on those sorts of issues.

The last point I would make is this: this bill provides for decisions made around minerals to be made jointly by me, as the Minister of Conservation, and the Minister of Energy and Resources. That is because we believe in balance. I will tell you something else. Actually, we are a Government that agrees to work together. We are a blue-green Government. We have a balance of both conservation interests and economic interests.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Yeah, right. Ask Guy Salmon about it.

Mr Goff says that actually he does not agree with balance in these decisions. Well, I actually stand up front as a Minister of Conservation who says this country needs prosperity, this country needs jobs, and we as a Government are going to make balanced decisions about how we create jobs, how we use resources wisely, and how we also ensure that we protect—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Balanced decisions, yeah—like mining in schedule 4 areas. That was balanced!

I hear Mr Goff interjecting. I have a question for Mr Goff. Given all the rhetoric that I have heard in speeches from members of the Labour Party that mining in national parks is absolutely sacrosanct, why did the Labour Government in 2006 approve the mine in the Paparoa National Park? I tabled the documents in Parliament where its Cabinet approved a mine in a national park, and then they get up in this Chamber and pretend that somehow that is absolutely sacrosanct.

This is a Government that is about jobs, this is a Government about balanced environmental protection, and this is a bill that is about New Zealand, in an environmentally responsible way, taking advantage of our minerals and our resources to create jobs and wealth, which this country has to do if it is going to be able to provide that sort of future for New Zealanders. Members of the Labour Party who scream about jobs and about wealth and about higher pay are absolutely contradictory, because every time a bill comes to this House to do anything to create jobs—whether it is the film industry, whether it is the mining industry, whether it is any area—Labour says no, and that is why it is completely out of touch with New Zealanders and their desire for growth and jobs in an environmentally responsible way.

I call Brendan Horan.

💬 Moana Mackey: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The Minister in the chair referred to a legal opinion that he had on Supplementary Order Paper 205. I ask that he table it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I do not recall that occurring.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I said very clearly in my speech that I had read an opinion. I did not quote it. The Standing Order is very clear, and, what is more, actually, the member is simply incorrect in the way in which she is quoting me.

New Zealand has a proud tradition of democracy. We have fought in wars—World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Viet Nam, Iraq, and we had representatives in Afghanistan. We fought for democracy. Then along comes the honourable member from Tauranga, and he decides “Let’s just redefine democracy, shall we? Let’s just tear it up.” If that member has his way, then people like Lucy Lawless, of Xena: Warrior Princess, would be languishing in jail for a peaceful protest. That is what democracy also means, because our forefathers fought for the right to peacefully protest. I wonder why the member would try to enact this Supplementary Order Paper 205. Then I thought about the Rena, that pimple on the rock, which is still on the rock from over a year and a half ago. Actually, it is more like a festering sore that is polluting and still leaking oil and who knows what else into our pristine, beautiful ocean. Did you know that the divers who go down off Astrolabe Reef have to wear special dive suits for protection? We wonder what chemicals still lie at the bottom of the ocean. But democracy has not been served here, because neither you nor I could go out and dive on Astrolabe Reef today or tomorrow, because of the exclusion zone that they have. So it is no wonder that that member from Tauranga thinks that he can tear up the word “democracy” or redefine it with that Supplementary Order Paper.

So I ask what the real reason is: is it drilling for oil? Well, it cannot possibly be, because this Government has proved that we cannot remove or clean up oil from a ship that is on a rock, let alone oil that would leak from 1,500 metres below sea level or, dare I say, 3,000 metres below sea level in earthquake-ridden areas. So what is it about our mineral wealth? Do the people of New Zealand really understand just how much mineral wealth we have? I think not, because it has accumulated over millions of years and it is down very deep. But this Government has decided to just give that away, and to give it away not necessarily to the highest bidder, but to companies such as Rio Tinto, which has a licence to mine there. And while we are talking about Rio Tinto, perhaps the Minister for State Owned Enterprises would like to apologise to New Zealand for being so helplessly and hopelessly outmanoeuvred when it comes to Tīwai Point and Rio Tinto.

But there is also Trans-Tasman Resources, which is about to start exploration, and who is the ex - National Party Prime Minister who is on that board?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: It’s that woman, isn’t it? The woman.

Yes, Jenny Shipley. Is she still getting $1,500 a day for the rebuild of Christchurch, by the way? That person is on so many boards that I get splinters just thinking about the amount of boards. There we have a company that is going to bring its ship and it is going to take what it says is iron ore, but what is it that it is really taking? And where are the checks and balances for that? And what is New Zealand going to get out of that—out of giving our mineral wealth away? Within that iron ore we have gold, and we have titanium, which is far more valuable than gold. We have all sorts of minerals that New Zealand could take and process itself with onshore facilities. But, no, this Government would rather give it to a company that will take it away to a foreign country, and then somehow the company is going to tell us what its net profit is and give us 1 percent. That sort of reminds me of the Tui ads, really, does it not? But I will speak more on that later.

What I would like to do is say that when I heard the honourable member from Tauranga speak in his flagrant, cliché-ridden abuse of the English language, that member did speak of employment. I would like to help that member—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Tim Horan.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Brendan.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Brendan.

Mr Chair, I wish I could play rugby as well as that player.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well, you might be able to one day.

I hope that with my return to the Parliamentary Rugby Team I may get that opportunity yet, but I fear it is a pipedream. What was I talking about? I was speaking about an error-ridden twist, a juxtaposition of puns and clichés from the Minister of Energy and Resources, Simon Bridges. But hidden beneath that dense foliage was the word “employment”. I would move that clause 12 of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill be amended by replacing the proposed new section 7(g) with the words: “ensuring that all activities conducted on land or at sea under this Act are only done so with at least 50% of the people working (whether employees, contractors, or otherwise) being New Zealand citizens or permanent residents”, and also by adding new section 7(h) with the words: “ensuring that all activities conducted on land or at sea under this Act are only done so with at least 50% of the payments made to people working (whether as employees, contractors, or otherwise) being payments made to New Zealand citizens or permanent residents”. This amendment would provide for 50 percent local content of labour working on all prospecting and mining under the Crown minerals legislation, so that at least some value will go back to New Zealand and the downstream of the dollar, and that the areas from which the minerals are raped and pillaged from our oceans have at least some benefit going back to some New Zealanders. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to take my first call on this matter, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. I want to talk this evening about a different aspect of Part 1 of the bill, and I intend to take a couple of calls at least. Yesterday I had the pleasure of being able to speak in favour of a Government bill. It was the Psychoactive Substances Bill. I began my contribution on that bill by remarking that we were all regulators now and that, actually, it was a bill that controlled a health and safety risk by means of regulation. In this generally awful bill we are debating now, there is an aspect that I find myself able to support. On 19 November 2010 the Pike River coalmine exploded, killing 29 people. The Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy was convened. It was the 12th commission of inquiry into a coalmining disaster in New Zealand—the 12th over the years. That royal commission reported in October of last year. For all of us who have been able to read that report, it is an extremely sobering report, and its recommendations were very widely supported indeed.

In all of the dross that makes up the rest of this bill, the one diamond is that this is the opportunity that the Government has taken to pass into law the legislation that is necessary to give effect to its commitment to enacting and implementing all of the royal commission’s findings, and it is that aspect that I want to talk about. I was a submitter to the royal commission and, indeed, attended many of the hearings in my home town of Greymouth. It was an extremely sobering and scary experience, because what was revealed was the most extraordinary list of failures. Some of them have been relayed in this House previously. I will give you some now. For example, members may recall the disastrous second exit from the mine, up the ventilation shaft, which would have required a sheer vertical climb—actually overhanging, for one part of it—up a 55-metre ladder, which Mines Rescue characterised as extremely difficult to use in normal circumstances, and impossible in a fire. Oh, and the ladder could support only eight people at one time, in contrast to the 60 people who could often be expected to be inside the mine. The inquiry heard about broken smoke lines, which miners use to find their way out of the mine when there is limited visibility. Methane gas sensors were disabled in the mine. There were very infrequent disaster training exercises and wholly inadequate gas drainage plans. Drilling in the mine occurred immediately adjacent to cavities filled with pressurised, flammable gas. There were reports of multiple ignitions inside the mine. Telephone and air supply was decommissioned to a fresh air base part-way along the drift, which is the tunnel leading from the portal into the mine, and the area inside the working mine that was called a fresh air base was not, in fact, a fresh air base, because it could not be sealed from the atmosphere in the mine itself. That is just a small selection. It was an appalling and sobering list.

The royal commission heard that the Pike River mining company, which is now facing charges under the Health and Safety in Employment Act—I will not say more about those particular matters—was a company that was cash-strapped, and that it was well behind on its production schedule. There was a good deal of evidence given to the royal commission about a number of short cuts taken in the health and safety area. The terms of reference that were set for the royal commission—and I give the Government credit for this, as well as for implementing these recommendations today—were broad. They were broad enough for the royal commission to look beyond the immediate in-the-mine causes of the explosion. That was very important. The royal commission heard from an expert in human factors involved in disasters—in fact, specialising in aircraft crashes—Dr Kathleen Callaghan. Dr Callaghan gave evidence about the importance of upstream factors, what we might think of as the causes of the causes. What she said was that although of course it is possible to reflect on the immediate in-the-mine causes of the explosion, a much more effective set of recommendations emerges by going further and further upstream to identify the causal factors and environments that enable those risk conditions to develop. That is what the commission of inquiry did. Dr Callaghan referred to James Reason’s Swiss cheese model. If I get another call I will talk a little bit more about that because it is very important in the context of this bill. She referred to the particular risk of process risk incidents. Process risks are ones that are very low frequency, so they do not get picked up by regular incident monitoring, but have high consequences. The type of explosion, coal dust or gas explosion, that can occur in a mine is precisely that kind of thing. That is why, she said, you need to get the regulatory framework right.

The royal commission identified the failings in precisely those upstream factors in the regulations that applied to the coalmining industry and in the inspectorate that was holding Pike River Coal to account in meeting its obligations under those regulations. In particular, the regulations included this test of practicability that is right in the heart of the Health and Safety in Employment Act. Practicability is all well and good. The example I used to give of a company that was very well resourced and able to implement all of the health and safety requirements was Solid Energy. Let us say that a notional coalmining company that is very well resourced would be able to implement all of the health and safety requirements, but a company that is cash-strapped, that says it cannot afford to build a proper second exit, actually finds that to be not practicable and is able to get away with that under the regulations that applied in that mine on that day. So that was one of the fundamental issues.

We heard too about the mines inspectors. There were, at the time of the disaster, two mines inspectors trying to inspect every mine and quarry in New Zealand, and that was an unmanageable workload. The royal commission heard from those inspectors that they had inadequate training. They had no training, for example, in systems approaches. They frequently appealed to their bosses in the Department of Labour for more resources, for more access to training, for more access to systems that would enable them to do their job, and they were turned down.

What we heard about was a complete failure of the regulatory framework and of the inspection framework. So where does that come from? Well, those failings found their origin in the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. What that Act did was move from prescriptive standards for health and safety to an approach that placed the onus on employers. Why that was disastrous was that the Government of the day completely failed to see that, actually, employers had incentives to cut corners—financial incentives. If they could reduce their costs by not doing something and no one would pick it up, that is what they would do. That is actually how economic theory works, and market theory. That is exactly the outcome that we would expect.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I hope Mr Hague gets his third call, because it was a substantive contribution. What he points out is that there are some strong health and safety aspects in this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill that the Green Party supports, but it is the dross, I think Mr Hague called it, the rest of the bill, that we are opposing. Unlike the Minister of Energy and Resources when he got up from the chair, I am going to dispassionately stick to the facts. What we saw from the Minister was an embarrassing display when he made up for a lack of substance with bombast, with bluster, with hyperbole, and with name-calling. It was an embarrassing display from a Minister clearly on the defensive, a Minister who is losing the public debate.

In this call what I want to talk about is Supplementary Order Paper 205, introduced on Easter Sunday by Simon Bridges. It has been called the “Petrobras law”. Greenpeace is calling it the “Anadarko amendment”. I think historians in the future will call it a bridge too far. It has not been a good day for the Government. We have got leaks. We have got privacy breaches. The Government is on the back foot when it comes to unlawfully spying on Kiwis. And here is the Government spending its scarce legislative time focusing on criminalising a human right—Kiwis’ freedom to protest on the sea. It is unneeded because we have got it going through the High Court at the moment. The Government is taking Elvis Teddy to the High Court. It is an overreaction because the penalties are far higher than what we have in the criminal statute. It restricts Kiwis’ freedom. It is a grotesque attack on Kiwis’ rights. I know that the Greens have a number of calls and I would like to apologise to Mr Hague. I have just realised that in fact it was not his second call; it was only his first. I hope to hear from him again. I apologise wholeheartedly.

In this call what I want to touch on is why it is a bad amendment, the shocking process we have seen it go through, and what the real agenda behind it is. First up, it is a bad amendment. This Supplementary Order Paper 205 amendment to Part 1 of the bill establishes five new criminal offences, including damaging and interfering with a structure or a ship, interfering with equipment, and interfering with operations, and sets up these new exclusion zones around the vessels. It is bad lawmaking because it is targeting one specific activity. It is targeting one specific industry. This quite legitimately opens up the Government to accusations. This is law for one industry, by one industry. It is lawmaking at its worst. What we see is not what Minister Bridges talked about—that the Greens are advocating for more rights for protesters. Protesters’ rights in New Zealand are the same rights all New Zealanders have. It is called the law. What Supplementary Order Paper 205 is doing is setting up specific penalties if you infringe one specific industry. If you do this to the fishing industry, you are not going to face these penalties. It is only if you impact the Government’s mates, its oil-driller mates, whom it is trying to bring down to the great waters of Aotearoa.

It is bad lawmaking because it is extending police powers to the military, and to the navy specifically. Extending powers of arrest and detention to the military should be used sparingly, and it should be used only in exceptional circumstances. What we are seeing here is the Government setting up the New Zealand Navy to be a private petroleum security company. We should not be passing laws like this one, with this amendment. It interferes with the freedom of navigation in the exclusive economic zone of New Zealand.

We have got a legal opinion from Duncan Currie, an eminent international legal expert, who points out that when you look at the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and, say, the Australian legislation, which Ministers Bridges and Heatley have modelled this Supplementary Order Paper on, the 500-metre exclusion zones relate only to installations and not to vessels. What this Supplementary Order Paper is doing is rewriting international law to suit one specific industry by having the 500-metre exclusion zone surround vessels. These are exactly the same types of tactics and dubious legal justifications that New Zealanders rightfully question when it comes to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. It is something our Government rightfully challenged when the French tried it on Mururoa and we sent our frigates to protest at their nuclear testing in our backyard. Quite rightfully, it is something that our officials criticise North Korea for doing—for making up laws like this on the fly. Mr Currie, I think quite rightfully, writes in the legal opinion, which the Government has treated with disdain, that “There is a good reason that UNCLOS does not allow safety zones around vessels. In contrast to installations such as oil rigs, which are subject to the exclusive justification of the coastal state, ships are principally subject to their flag State laws while sailing in the EEZ or on the high seas. Safety zones around vessels would create confusing zones of coastal state jurisdiction around foreign flagged vessels—a very confusing state of affairs which is not contemplated by UNCLOS or the law of the sea.” So here we see Minister Bridges with no legal advice.

I want first to comment on the extraordinary contributions made by Ministers in the chair tonight. First of all, we had an appalling attack from Chris Finlayson, the Attorney-General, denigrating people like Dame Anne Salmond, who has just become New Zealander of the Year, and Sir Geoffrey Palmer for reasons, it seemed, that Mr Finlayson did not like the lectures Sir Geoffrey gave when he was a year 1 student. I think it was jealousy or maybe it was just sheer bitchiness. Actually, I think that is the best way of describing it. But I regret the fact that when prominent New Zealanders who have contributed so much to this country speak out against a piece of legislation because they see that legislation as breaching fundamental rights set out in our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the response from the Government is to denigrate the people who complain about the right of protest being breached. And that man is the Attorney-General. He has the responsibility to uphold the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and yet he is supporting a piece of legislation that the Government did not have the guts to put before a select committee or to get the normally required submission from the Attorney-General as to whether this legislation is, in fact, in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Then we had an unbalanced contribution from the Hon Nick Smith—that is the only way I can describe it. He had the temerity to talk about jobs—

💬 Hon Member: Oh, come on. Below the belt—below the belt.

He talked about balance, and I will come to that in a minute. He talked about balance; this is a Government that destroyed the balance in the Resource Management Act. That balance once existed between conservation values and development, in a carefully crafted piece of legislation that has lasted through successive Governments and has been endorsed by successive Governments, which they are ripping apart to the extent that a prominent member of the National Party Guy Salmon, who actually does believe in conservation values, has said that it is an absolute disgrace that his National Government is putting through something like that. So Nick Smith has some cheek talking about balance in this House.

But then he came into this Chamber to talk about jobs. “This is all about jobs.”, he said. This is from a Government that has destroyed more jobs than it has created in the last 5 years—destroyed 30,000 more jobs than it has created. Government members are talking about mining. Mining is one of the areas where proportionately they have destroyed the most jobs. Then in the House today they said they were going to destroy another 1,300 jobs in the hospital wards so they could give frozen pre-cooked meals to sick patients, who need decent nutrition. Do not come in here, Dr Smith, and talk about balance and jobs, because you are on very weak grounds on both fronts.

But what I really want to object to in this bill—well, actually, there is another thing that I want to object to. It is about something that Simon Bridges said. You know, I think arrogance is often proportionate to youth, but Simon Bridges had the cheek to say that rights were a two-way process—a two-way process. You know, it is terrible that Government members have to protect those huge multinationals, with all of their resources and all of their wealth and all of their power, against the ordinary New Zealander who has no wealth, has no resources, and has no right other than the right of protest, and now they want to take away that right of protest. That is a disgrace. Do not come in here, Mr Bridges, and talk about rights being a two-way process, because what this Government is doing is simply being an apologist once again for the multinational companies that come to this country and want to take from this country rather than give to this country. You know, representatives from Warner Bros came here and they walked away laughing—laughing at the naivety and the amateurism of the Prime Minister, who handed out another $67 million to Warner Bros and then gave it a piece of law that his own legal advisers said was not even necessary.

So here we have another example. We have got Warner Bros. We have got Skycity, and now we have got the multinational oil companies. This Government has decided that it will bring in a law abrogating the longstanding right of protest on the seas in order to satisfy the big business that came along to them and said: “We want you to do this.” Simon Bridges, young and naive as he is, immediately brings into this Chamber a Supplementary Order Paper, which he never put before the select committee to judge whether it had substance and whether it was appropriate. The fundamental thing about democracy in this House is that legislation goes to a select committee and before the select committee ordinary New Zealanders can have their say. Simon Bridges has stopped ordinary New Zealanders having their say on this piece of legislation, and that is a disgrace. This is obnoxious legislation brought in by bad process, and—

I move, That the question be now put.

Just to continue my call from before, in the first section I talked about the first reason that I am opposed to Supplementary Order Paper 205, which is because of the substance. It is bad law. Eminent legal professionals have said that it breaches international law.

In this short slot I want to talk about the process, because that has been equally shocking. What we are seeing is lawmaking at its worst, by a new Minister of Energy and Resources and started by the previous Minister, Phil Heatley. Supplementary Order Paper 205—the “Petrobras amendment”, the “Anadarko amendment”—was announced on Easter Sunday on the television. This got absolutely no select committee scrutiny, because it has been introduced as a Supplementary Order Paper. Even this afternoon, when I put to the House a motion that we recommit this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill to the Commerce Committee to consider just this specific amendment—it could have had a constrained time—this Government refused to grant leave. It does not want to have select committee scrutiny. It does not want to put the detail in front of the public.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: They’re ashamed of it.

The Government is ashamed of it, Mr O’Rourke. It does not want to hear from the legal experts. It would rather keep its hands over its eyes and its fingers in its ears—blind to international legalities and law and blind to the experts—because it does not want to have the questions answered. So we have not seen any select committee process, which is traditional with something with such far-ranging constitutional, democratic, and human rights significance and implications. Of course, because it is an amendment, we have seen no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, which is traditional with first readings of legislation. We are avoiding that entirely, because it has been introduced as an amendment.

What we saw tonight was, I think, shameful for a democracy. We saw the Attorney-General crack a couple of jokes with the energy Minister in the chair. He said he had a quick perusal of it, and then went on to slander some of our most eminent legal professionals, including former Prime Ministers. I am sure they have got thick skins and they see the politics behind it, but I think it is a shameful display that the Attorney-General could treat such eminent New Zealanders, including a New Zealander of the Year, with such disdain. He is not even doing his job, which is, as Attorney-General, running a Human Rights Act – New Zealand Bill of Rights Act lens over legislation. I think we should have done that. Again in the Chamber the Minister declined my invitation that he invite the Attorney-General to run a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet across it. What we have seen instead is slander and impugning experts, which, I think, does those members no good.

What we have seen is an incredibly rushed process. This was introduced only on Easter Sunday, and now we could see it passed in a matter of weeks. The Minister could not even give examples of why this is needed. He says the industry had not been complaining about it and had not been requesting it. So what is the rush? Why can we not have a select committee hearing on it? Why can this not be introduced as a stand-alone piece of legislation with the appropriate, right select committee hearing and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet? But, I guess, this is the real question: what has the Minister got to fear? What is he worried about? What are the answers he is worried about hearing? Maybe that is the entire problem: he is worried about what the answers are, because the eminent legal professionals say it probably breaches international law and it is an attack on our key democratic rights. I guess the question for the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Courts, is whether the Minister bothered getting a Crown Law Office legal opinion. Did he go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and request its legal briefing over it? If he did, he should table it—he should have nothing to hide. If he did not, I think that, again, is a shocking abuse of a rushed process to support mates in the oil industry from afar. What it does, of course, is open up New Zealand to years, potentially, of legal cases as these dubious laws are challenged in the courts.

The third point I want to touch on is the agenda—what is driving the Supplementary Order Paper and is behind this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. Despite the grotesque, egregious nature of Supplementary Order Paper 205, you know what? I actually see this as a sign of fear from the Government benches. I see it as a sign of weakness. I see that the Government is actually losing the debate. The fact is that its oil-drilling plan for this country is in tatters. Apache Corporation is gone, Anadarko has delayed, Petrobras has gone, and Phil Heatley has gone. The Government is losing the debate. What Supplementary Order Paper 205 does is send a very clear message to New Zealanders, which is that protest is feared by the oil industry. The industry fears Kiwis standing up and exercising their democratic rights.

It sends a message to New Zealanders that protest works. We have seen it in the Southern Ocean this season, where Japan caught only 103 whales. It was trying for 1,000, but protesters stopped it. We have seen it in New Zealand when we stood up for Pacific nuclear test - free zones. We have seen it with bottom trawling when I did what the Government refused to do, to go out on the high seas and stop deep-sea bottom trawlers, and now that has been banned between New Zealand and Chile. Supplementary Order Paper 205 is a challenge to protesters. Protest works, the industry is fearful of it, and I think protesters are not going to step aside. I think they are going to just ramp up the actions, because what they love, which is our beaches and our marine environment, they want to protect. They are standing up for it. So, despite the Government doing everything it can—

I move, That the question be now put.

I have been in the Chamber listening to the debate on this bill, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, since 5.40 p.m., and this is the first time that the Chairperson of the Committee has acknowledged me in the many, many times that I have sought a call. So congratulations, Mr Chairman, I am very, very pleased about that.

I want to talk, first of all, about the fact that this is the biggest change that we have had in the way that our conservation estate is considered, the way our conservation values are respected, and the way that our Minister of Conservation is regarded as an advocate since the introduction of the Conservation Act in 1987. It is the biggest leap backwards in the conservation space that could be taken. The whole of Parliament should be ashamed that this bill is going through.

One of the many things that we love about our country is the pride that we have in, and the care that we take of, our public areas, our conservation estate. We feel a moral responsibility, if not a legal responsibility, to ensure that those precious areas are protected for future generations, and to be able to share those areas with the same passion and love that our generation has for them. This legislation says we now have a different regime. We have to somehow balance those values—they are more than policies, they are more than laws; they are human values—of our conservation estate against how much money we can make out of them. Actually, we, in the most generous sense—because it is actually not “we” as a nation that generally makes money out of the exploitation of our conservation estate, it is generally overseas interests. Leaving that aside, I do not think that it is a matter of weighing up our conservation values against making money. Actually, some things are too precious to sell, and our conservation estate is one of them.

We have moved, in this legislation, the advocacy role of the Minister of Conservation about as far down to the back of the bus as you can get. The Minister of Energy and Resources is now running the show and that is a tragedy. I held out quite a lot of hope when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was given the conservation portfolio, because I know that he has a passion for conservation values. I have no idea what agreements he made in order to be restored to that ministerial portfolio, but I have not seen any sign of his personal passion for conservation, let alone his advocacy skills, coming through tonight. In the earlier contribution that the Minister of Conservation made, I actually thought that he was speaking on behalf of the Minister of Energy and Resources. Not one word did he say about the protection and advocacy for the conservation estate and the values that New Zealanders have held so dear for so long.

Some things are just too precious. It is our responsibility to ensure that those precious parts of our country are maintained for future generations to enjoy and to be proud of, and it is for them, in turn, to maintain those areas for future generations. National is walking away from that responsibility and is putting in law an abdication of the supremacy of the decision-making power of the Minister of Conservation. This bill divides that decision-making role between the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Energy and Resources. So we are now saying that the conservation values can be just trampled over. I think that is a huge shame for this Parliament, and I look forward to being in a Parliament that reverses that and restores the advocacy role and the primacy of conservation values in our legislation.

I just want to briefly touch on another sadness that I felt tonight, and that was the immaturity with which both the Attorney-General and the Minister who was in the chair at the time, the Hon Simon Bridges, referred to other contributors in the debate, but, more important—because we do have the right of reply in this Chamber—the denigration to which they subjected Dame Anne Salmond and Sir Geoffrey Palmer. I do not think that that is necessary in this Chamber—

I move, That the question be now put.

It is very disturbing to see the changes that have been put forward in this bill, the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, particularly by Simon Bridges and his attempts to basically stifle free speech and the efforts of communities to look out for what is actually important to them, which they have proven to him is important to them. I will talk of Anadarko at this point. The Minister of Energy and Resources came to Kaikōura, which is sort of in my home turf, to talk to iwi and the local community, along with Anadarko and some of the officials who are basically from the minerals part of our bureaucracy. They came along and were theoretically there to listen and to make good sense of what the community’s concerns were. What did the Minister do? He came along and he then attempted to ensure that its voice, its protest in the future against such exploration and such attempts to do stuff that could have a devastating effect in its territory, was totally dumbed down. It is an atrocious part of his activity that he would go there, front up, attempt to charm the people, and then take away their rights, as such.

However, what is really concerning beyond that is that this bill does this throughout the country. It is not just for the areas around Kaikōura; it is for the areas that I am familiar with in the Marlborough Sounds, and it is right through areas of the Coromandel, too. It is just right through this country that this Government is prepared to really limit what can be protected in our environment.

It is interesting to see that the Department of Conservation is further reduced in its capacity through this, where it has been reduced consistently for some time. I will use some examples from the Marlborough Sounds area, where we have had significant help given to the community from the Department of Conservation to put some resources into identifying the biodiversity issues around aquaculture and into some of our precious places out there, and around Mount Stokes and the like, as well. But what has happened more and more, as its resources are being pooled and the Cabinet influence that we see is about to come in much harder in this bill, is that it has actually been reduced more and more, to the point that it was not even doing submissions on important applications that were definitely going to have effects on very important biodiversity areas in the Marlborough Sounds. For this bill, which actually reduces that further, to come up on top of the cuts that the Department of Conservation has just had is appalling. It is absolutely appalling.

What we had hoped and expected was that the Ministers who have spoken here previously, including Nick Smith, who speaks so strongly about balance out there—what is that balance? The balance is about bursting in over what the local community has said is important, when it has actually zoned areas to make sure that certain developments do not happen—after absolutely full consultation with the community, including industry, including different users, including tourism, including iwi. We have come to those conclusions, and what does this Government do? It comes in over the top, and allows and promotes development in areas where communities decided it was not appropriate. This is absolutely appalling, and we have got a further extension being moved here and in other bills that this Government seems to have forthcoming. I am not quite sure what the Government expects of the community when it keeps getting hounded like this.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is in relation to exactly what is included in Part 1. In the index of the bill, as we have on the Table of the House at the moment, on page 5 it refers to Part 2 including “Savings and transitional provisions”, new section 106, and clauses 51, 52, 53, 53A, 54, and 54A before going on to Part 2, “Amendments to Conservation Act 1987”, but in the body of the bill those parts that I have just referred to from 106 through to 54A are actually under the heading of Part 1. So I am just seeking clarification about that first part of Part 2, which is on page 5 of the bill, is referenced to Part 2, and which in the body of the bill is referenced to Part 1.

I understand it is an amendment to the principal Act as contained in Part 1. Thank you.