Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill

Part 3 deals with amendments to the Continental Shelf Act, and, of course, this Act is part of the area where the Government has got itself into quite a bit of controversy over the Supplementary Order Papers that it dumped on the public on Easter Sunday and on this Committee belatedly. Currently, any mining for minerals that is carried out on the continental shelf is carried out under the Continental Shelf Act 1964, and what this part does is amend the Continental Shelf Act so that once this piece of legislation comes into force it will now be the Crown Minerals Act that governs the mining of minerals and petroleum on the continental shelf.

This is where we once again have got ourselves into difficulty. The previous Minister of Energy and Resources, the Hon Phil Heatley, might want to take a call and give us the benefit of his wisdom, seeing as he was the drafter of this legislation initially. He was not the drafter of the dreadful Supplementary Order Paper that we have dealt with to ban protest vessels, and I know that the Hon Phil Heatley would never ever have stood for that as Minister of Energy and Resources. He was an upholder of people’s rights, not a destroyer of rights, and that is, of course, how he will be remembered in terms of his legacy as the Minister of Energy and Resources. Unfortunately, his legacy as Minister of Housing ain’t so flash. But never mind—one out of two ain’t bad.

So coming back to Part 3 and the Continental Shelf Act, this is the area that we have been discussing in the House and in the media over the last week or so, since the Government announced that out on the high seas, which is where we find the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, there will be limitations on the rights of people to legally protest against vessels and instalments that are on the continental shelf.

The reason that we have an issue with it is that this is not about stopping illegal activity on the continental shelf, at all. It is about making it as hard as possible for people to go out and voice their concerns and protest about what is occurring on the continental shelf and, of course, the exclusive economic zone. The reason that is the case is that the changes that the Government has made apply only to protest vessels and only to those who are protesting against oil and gas exploration. If this was about safety, if this was about stopping illegal activity—activity that would be illegal in our territorial waters—then the law change would apply to everyone. But this is happening on the continental shelf, for these activities.

So what the Government has done by putting it into the Crown Minerals Act, if it is in relation to a permit that is granted under the Crown Minerals Act—and currently those permits are granted under the Continental Shelf Act—is transferring that across to the Crown Minerals Act. I think petroleum always existed under the Crown Minerals Act. But what happens is when one of these permits, which used to be granted under the Continental Shelf Act, is now granted under the Crown Minerals Act, anyone who protests against the activity that that permit is allowing and who gets in the way of or interferes with a vessel or a structure will now face significant penalties.

The question we asked, and the question that was never answered by any of the Government members or the Ministers who gave speeches, was why would that not apply to everyone? Why is it only under those permits currently granted under the Continental Shelf Act that it is now covered? Because now what we are saying is that you have got within your territorial waters—[Interruption] it is a very important point, Mr Chair—an activity that is illegal. But that very same activity that occurs on the continental shelf under a permit currently carried out under the Continental Shelf Act—that same activity, that very same activity—will be allowed, unless it is protesting against oil and gas exploration.

So what I am saying is that this is focusing on the behaviour and on this particular permit that has been granted under this particular Act. It is not focusing on the dangerous behaviour, which should apply to everyone, and it should apply, actually, to those industry operators who have permits under the Continental Shelf Act. If they act dangerously or recklessly or in a way that would be illegal in our territorial waters, then why should they not face the same penalties? Why is, once again, the playing field being skewed so incredibly towards the petroleum and mineral extraction industry, but everyone else and every other industry that uses the continental shelf and that carries out activities there does not get the same protection under the law? And protesters who may be the target of some activity that would be illegal in our territorial waters do not get the protection of the law.

It is simply not fair and it simply makes no sense to not have it apply to everyone and to only say: “Well, if you’ve got a permit under the Continental Shelf Act and that has now been transferred to the Crown Minerals Act, then we’ll protect you. But everyone else, I’m sorry, we are not interested. We’re not interested if people carry out dangerous and illegal behaviour against you.”

I will take just a brief call on this quite brief section, Part 3, of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill, which, as my colleague Moana Mackey has ably described, is basically moving these provisions into the Crown Minerals Act. But I think that this part represents a theme in the bill, which is what I would call putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. It is about shifting the management of very important places such as the oceans into a resource model, rather than a respect model. It may be news to some people, but the ocean is not a great place to dig up. We have very little control on land with some of our pollution issues, but we have far less control under the sea. That is what we learnt by seeing some of the disasters that have taken place in other parts of the world. It may be all very well and logical to move the Continental Shelf Act provisions relating to minerals into the Crown Minerals Act, but it does not solve the fundamental problem, which is that this is the new frontier and this is the big expansion.

We have exhausted many of our resources on land. We now want to do over what is left—the great, mysterious, and sacred ocean, which we do not understand. But it does not matter that we do not understand it, because it is a see-no-evil environment. It is like outer space. You can chuck your junk into the sky, you can dump your junk into the sea, but it really does not matter, because we cannot see it. So it is fine. You can dig a great big hole in the ocean and all of those subtle effects will not really matter, and that is what is so pathetic about regarding the ocean as purely a place for the extraction of minerals. A lot of the mineral extraction in the ocean is going very slowly, because it is incredibly difficult to do. If you look at the coast off the Raukūmara Basin, for example, where the proposal was to do oil exploration, these are extremely deep waters, indeed, on every level, both metaphorically and in a real sense.

Also, it is very ironic that in that very place was the birth of Supplementary Order Paper 205, which was referred to earlier, which affects the continental shelf and which, so far, has not been applied to us on land, but I would not be at all surprised if Minister Bridges’ brilliant idea of locking up protesters at sea gets moved to become a brilliant idea of locking up protesters on land. I mean, that is always a possibility. It is perfectly logical. If mining is the only priority, why do you not lock up everybody who disagrees with you and who comes near any of your operations? That is absolutely seen as being fair enough by what is intended in that Supplementary Order Paper. So—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Don’t give him ideas.

I am not trying to give those members ideas. I am aware that they have very strange ideas. It is what Bruce Jesson would have said: only their purpose is mad. I think that is a very interesting way to describe this bill and also this part, which should be just another logical, technical, administrative thing. Nothing in this bill is logical and just technical; a lot of this bill is facilitative.

All I can say is that if you think we know what we are doing on land, where we are still trying to clean up our waterways and where we are still trying to basically understand what goes in our rivers, which we can actually access and see, we have no idea what is going on in the ocean, and yet we are proposing through these continental shelf provisions to open up a new frontier that should be learnt about, respected, and looked after. It is not as if there are no alternative things we can do to find minerals and to create green, sustainable energy. Those things exist, but the companies want to invest in their new frontier—assisted often by GNS Science, I am horrified to say—and that is where we are going with this. That is the tragedy of this bill. It opens up a frontier that forgets about a fundamental lack of information, a lack of evidence, and a lack of relationship and respect for the ocean. That is why Elvis Teddy stood up for Whānau-a-Apanui in his own fishing ground and said no, and that is why Simon Bridges has to try to shut him down.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 210 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to Part 3 be agreed to.