Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environmental Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 29 June.

This bill amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. This Government put the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act in place to provide comprehensive environmental management of the natural resources in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Prior to that Act coming into force, New Zealand did not have a system in place for managing the environmental effects of activities undertaken in this area.

Our exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world and, together with our extended continental shelf, is approximately 21 times the size of our land mass. The exclusive economic zone covers an area of more than 400 million hectares, while our extended continental shelf covers a further 170 million hectares. It is an area that holds significant economic potential, and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act aims to enable this economic potential to be unlocked in an environmentally responsible way.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, which is having its first reading today, will make a technical amendment to the exclusive economic zone legislation to ensure the sensible transition of existing petroleum operators into the new regime. There are four petroleum production operations in the exclusive economic zone off the coast of Taranaki, which are crucial for ensuring New Zealand’s oil and gas supply. Petroleum production has been occurring in this area since the 1970s in a safe and responsible manner, but the environmental effects of these activities have previously been unregulated. The Government wants to ensure that existing operators are brought into the exclusive economic zone regime in a way that does not compromise the supply of oil and gas to New Zealand.

Currently, transitional provisions in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act require existing operators to undertake the marine consenting process before their pre-existing petroleum mining permits or privileges under the Crown Minerals regime expire. This bill will ensure that when operators apply for a marine consent for their existing production activities, they will be able to continue operating as they have done for the last 40 years until their marine consent application is decided on by the Environmental Protection Authority. The bill will also provide certainty in the case of subsequent objections to or appeals from the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision, as their operations will be able to continue while any objections or appeals are determined.

I want to emphasise that the Government would have preferred that Shell Todd Oil Services had applied in sufficient time so that this bill was not needed, but we also appreciate that with a new regulatory regime, this fine detail over timing was not fully understood. It is inevitable that when we are implementing a new regime of this sort, there will be errors that need pragmatic correction. The Labour Party and the Green Party provided no environmental regulation at all in the exclusive economic zone in their 9 years in Government, and it is true that when you do nothing, you cannot make errors.

This bill does nothing to change the requirement to apply for a marine consent. Operators will still be required to provide an impact assessment on the nature of their activities, and the effects on the environment and on other interests. They will also be required to identify measures to avoid, remedy, or mitigate any adverse effects. Applications for production activities will be publicly notified, and submissions will be invited to allow for community engagement on decision making.

As New Zealanders, we all value our big, blue backyard. The Government welcomes commercial activity, but it must be on the basis that the appropriate environmental safeguards are in place. This bill provides a technical amendment that eliminates any possibility that New Zealand’s energy supply could be at risk should existing production operations have to cease while a marine consent application is being considered or any appeals are being decided.

The cost of the Māui gas platform being down is $40 million per day to the New Zealand economy, and this occurred in 2011. We cannot allow that to occur through the inadequate timing issue over appeals for an existing operation. Risking energy supply was clearly never the intention when the regime was put in place. The bill simply reiterates the Government’s original intent that existing operators have a smooth transition into the new regulatory regime. I commend this bill to the House.

It is not with pleasure that I take a call on another piece of legislation amending the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. This is not the first time that this House has had to come and play fix-up on what was a badly drafted piece of legislation to begin with. The Labour Party will support this legislation, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, going to the select committee. We will support it so there can be scrutiny of the legislation. We will support it so that we can hear from interested parties and communities. It does give us a chance to examine this legislation in the context of what we think is actually a much larger and looming issue, and that is further changes to this legislation that may be coming down the line within the next year or so. I will address that more fully later in my speech.

We heard the Minister telling us that it is inevitable with legislation such as this that there will need to be amending legislation and there will need to be some fixes made to a reasonably complex regulatory regime. Well, it is not inevitable that this Parliament and the previous Parliament have had to play fix-up on a botched piece of legislation. If we have a look at when it was first passed in 2012—it is not legislation that has been on our statute book for very long—it was full of errors. It required a major redrafting at the select committee. This was done through very hard work by the Local Government and Environment Committee, and I commend the select committee for that. But even after that, more errors were found, and the responsible Minister at the time, the Hon Amy Adams, had to put forward a 14-page Supplementary Order Paper to fix it.

So this is a badly drafted piece of legislation, a rushed piece of legislation, which, from the very moment of its beginnings, we have been trying to resuscitate and fix. But only a month after the exclusive economic zone legislation was passed, the Government had to pass another 37 pages of amendments to it as part of the Marine Legislation Bill—another 37 pages. This simply is not good enough, and it is not good enough for Minister Upston to call it inevitable. I would not want to be holding up this level of amendment as a shining light, as inevitable, or as something that we should aspire to in our law making. It simply does not meet the standard and it is not good enough.

Then, even after the 37 pages of amendments that we saw in the Marine Legislation Bill, there were several more Supplementary Order Papers from the Minister in charge—in that instance it was the Hon Gerry Brownlee. This is now the second piece of fix-up legislation we are seeing in the last 3 years, and I am concerned, after hearing the Minister today brush this off as inevitable, as to how many more times we are going to be here. How much more time of the House and how much more select committee time is going to be chewed up by fixing this piece of legislation, which was flawed from its very beginning? It is another sign of this Government’s incompetence in handling legislation. It is another example of how this Government is passing bad law into our statute book and we are using so much of our time trying to rectify its problems. It was badly drafted, it was weak law, and it was rushed through the House without proper consideration.

The number of fixes that we are having to do is testament to shoddy process and what that brings about, and now we are having to sit through yet another debate on a bill to fix it. The Minister called it inevitable and said it was a shame that Shell and Todd Energy did not get their application in in time to allow for appeals, but that is actually not taking the responsibility that needs to lie with the Government for the bad piece of legislation that allowed this circumstance to arise.

What was reasonably inevitable was that there were no adequate transitional provisions in order for companies that had existing consents to transition to the new regulatory regime. It is another example of the how the Government did not think through properly what needed to be in the legislation. So, as the Minister has outlined, this piece of legislation that we are here talking about today is essentially to allow an existing operator to keep operating while its consent is processed, and operate not only while its consent is processed but also while any appeals may or may not be lodged in regard to that application. This is something that could have been foreseen.

We have a limited number of existing consent holders that needed to transition into the new regulatory regime, and the primary legislation, which was passed only 3 years ago, could have accounted for this. Instead, we have a Minister who is blaming the consent holder for bad legislation in her contribution in the House today. What we have is a Government that has put a chunk of New Zealand’s gas supply at risk if this legislation is not passed and this mess is not cleaned up. The Government needs to take responsibility for this and not simply blame other people.

This legislation does give us cause to wonder what it is that the Government is planning next for the Act. What we have seen is a great deal of chatter, if you like, following the Chatham Rock Phosphate consents being declined only a few weeks ago, and claims now that the Government is supportive of reforming the law to ensure that projects like that could be consented. Nick Smith has not ruled out changes to suit the seabed mining industry, and we will be watching very carefully at the select committee to make sure that this legislation is not an attempt to fundamentally alter the legislation and to get in through the back door the changes that we know that the Government wants to do. We expect that these changes will come in yet another piece of amending legislation, so next year we will have another amendment bill to deal with, I would imagine. The House will have to turn its attention to this issue again because the primary Act does not do what the Government wanted it to do, which is enable economic activity rather than act for environmental protection—which, actually, the Environmental Protection Authority has been able to do in regard to this.

After the Chatham Rock Phosphate decision we have seen a great deal of posturing from a number of people who talk about the changes that need to be done. We are told by the chief executive officer of Chatham Rock Phosphate that he has actually made a number of suggestions as to how the legislation needs to be changed. So when this bill goes to the select committee we may need to consider other changes that the Government is considering to the primary legislation. Passing an amending piece of legislation, if we are going to be presented with yet another piece of amending legislation in only a very short space of time, will be something that we will have to consider very carefully on this side of the House. We will have to ask some very serious questions about when the next piece of amending legislation is due before this House and the Local Government and Environment Committee, where I am assuming this bill will be going.

💬 Hon Member: The Minister said.

That is what the Minister said, thank you very much, and these will be questions that we will be asking when we get the chance to examine this.

This is a Government that needs to lift its game in many respects, but it needs to lift its game in the quality of legislation that it is passing. It is passing shoddy legislation, it is passing hurried legislation that does not go through proper process, and—surprise, surprise—we are getting mistake, after mistake, after mistake. Too much of this House’s time is spent fixing up this Government’s mistakes and too much of our energy is spent doing that rather than doing something proactive. To have the Minister blame the company, as she did in the House today—she said it should have got its consent in earlier—just does not take into account the poor legislation.

We have a Government that in 2012 passed legislation that did not have proper provisions. It could have put at risk a vital piece of our energy supply in this country and it could have put at risk 300 jobs in the Taranaki region because the original intent, what we are doing here, was not properly spelt out in the primary legislation in 2012. We will support the bill going to the select committee, but we will be asking some very serious questions of the Government.

Before I turn to address this Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill in its first reading, I just seek the indulgence of the House for a moment to express my condolences and sympathies to the family of Dame Thea Muldoon. I had the great privilege and honour of meeting Dame Thea on several occasions during the 1980s, when her husband, Sir Robert, was Prime Minister, in my capacity as an active and enthusiastic Young National. I always found her to be congenial, warm, very hospitable, generous with her time, and enormously generous with her support not only for the National Party but for her husband and her family, at a time when being a member of Parliament was a lot less family friendly than it is today. I just want to acknowledge the contribution that she made in her own right to this country and to the democracy that we enjoy, and I offer my sincere sympathies and condolences to her family.

This Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill is a very small piece of legislation, it is an important piece of legislation, and it a piece of amending legislation that, as the Minister who introduced the bill said, is one we would have preferred not to be doing. The reason for that is that sometimes pragmatic decisions have to be made and they have to be made in the better interests of the country, of commerce, of the environment, and indeed of our collective and mutual well-being. This bill will amend the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 and it goes to addressing some transitional issues that have been identified and that were not identified during the vigorous introductory stages at the select committee and through the House, in the course of the bill traversing through the House.

It relates to an application by Shell Todd Oil Services, which will be in breach of the requirements of the Act if it continues to operate without a marine consent after 27 June 2015. Why is this date important? It is important because if that business does have to cease operations, there will be a significant loss not only to the economy of New Zealand but to energy consumers and indeed, of course, to the company. So this amendment will allow existing operators that have applied for a marine consent to continue their operations until that application has been decided and until, most importantly, any subsequent appeals to that process have been decided.

As we know, in matters of this sort, appeals can be lengthy and protracted. Indeed, we had the chief executive and the chair of the Environmental Protection Authority before the Local Government and Environment Committee just this very day. The chair, Kerry Prendergast, was at pains to point out in her presentation to the select committee that the bill is very much still in its transitional phase. It is still very much in a settling-down phase and we are in the early days of this very significant and important piece of legislation.

It is important because we have this large exclusive economic zone. I listened carefully to Minister Upston during her introductory comments and I noted that she made the very apt point that our exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world. We have a continental shelf that is probably about 21 times greater than our entire land mass, and the exclusive economic zone area covers more than 400 million hectares and our extended continental shelf covers a further 170 million hectares. So this is an area that is vast and it is rich in resource, but there is an awful lot that is yet unknown about it, and that was another point that the chair of the authority made at the select committee today. There is an awful lot about our exclusive economic zone that we do not know about yet. We need to tread carefully, we need to be cautious, and we need to take the steps that are required to ensure the good, stable, and effective management of that exclusive economic zone but also, at the same time, to ensure that all that is there in terms of sea life and everything else that is part of that environment is protected and cared for and not abused in any way.

It is important that we get this stuff right. It is important not just for those of us who are fortunate enough to be here as citizens of New Zealand today but for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren not yet born because they will be the ones who inherit the benefits of our diligence and care in this area. The Minister made the point that there are four petroleum production operations currently operating within the exclusive economic zone off the coast of Taranaki, and I thought the point she made that they had been operating since the mid-1970s in an unregulated environment for almost all that time was particularly important.

I suspect, as this debate goes through, and probably as we go through a very diligent and careful analysis of this amendment in the select committee, there will be those from the opposite side of the House who will criticise us for having the temerity to actually introduce legislation to do something bold, to regulate, and to be considering the future in a way that they simply did not during their time in office. We had 9 long years of a Labour-Green Government, and it did absolutely nothing in this area—absolutely nothing. For those members now to stand in this House and, I suspect, in the select committee and criticise a Government that has had the gumption and the foresight to make significant advances in this area I think is something that they will need to consider for themselves.

When an application for a marine consent is made, it is a process that is quite lengthy, and so it should be. It is a process that requires very careful diligence and investigation. The likelihood of the application that is currently being made by Shell Todd Oil Services being completed before 27 June this year without appeal is, frankly, remote, so as a pragmatic, sensible, and careful Government, it is appropriate that we do move to resolve this issue. The bill will not change the current requirement for existing operators to transition into the exclusive economic zone Act regime through the marine consenting process, so there is no hint or suggestion that anything untoward is going to occur here or anything that will give the business some kind of unfair advantage or commercial benefit that goes beyond allowing it to simply continue to trade.

The potential impact of a closure is likely to cause enormous negative impact on consumers, on “New Zealand Incorporated” and on the company. The current operators have applied for the marine consent before the expiry date, but we will be moving I think quite quickly, and hopefully I think it is the intention of the Government to ensure that this amending legislation is completed before 28 June in order to allow production to continue. We simply as a nation and as a Parliament cannot afford to allow a field that provides up to 20 percent of New Zealand’s gas to have any uncertainty about its operation at all.

Our natural environment is without doubt our greatest asset, and this is a Government that believes successful economic and environmental policy can, and indeed must, go hand in hand. The oil and gas industry is a very vital part of the New Zealand economy, and oil is our fourth-largest commodity export, after dairy, meat, and wood. The oil and gas economy combined is worth around $2 billion of GDP. This is a small but important piece of amending legislation. As chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee I give an undertaking to the House that this bill will be carefully and thoroughly scrutinised at select committee. We are looking forward to our work ahead on that matter. I commend the bill to the House.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill may be a small piece of legislation, considering the size of the bill. The chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, upon which this bill will fall, said it is not that important and said the committee will give it due consideration. A lot of what the member said Labour actually agrees with, but there is one thing I do not agree with. This is a really sloppy way to craft legislation. It is a really sloppy way to control an industry, and when the chair of this committee says: “Well, it was a little bit of an oversight and this is a big piece of legislation. We need to get it right, and there is going to continue to be these sorts of amendments.”, I wonder what sort of select committee this chair is chairing. Is he actually reading the bills, the statements, and the submissions that come before him?

The reason I ask this is that the important thing about this piece of legislation is that it is actually about giving New Zealanders the right to appeal against a decision made by the Environmental Protection Authority. That is not a minor piece of tinkering. It is a fundamental right of democracy in this country. That right is the ability to appeal against a decision, based on the facts that you may put forward, or your beliefs, or your principles. It is not a mild: “Oh goodness me. We forgot about this. I’m really sorry. We’ll just throw a piece of legislation in front of the House, and it will be OK.” Luckily for Shell it will be OK because we will pass this piece of legislation and we will support it being referred to the select committee, but the last thing we want to see before this House, I would suggest, is legislation made in this way.

If this is such an important piece of legislation, then what we need to do is make sure, before we pass it into law, that we know it is going to be robust and that we know it is going to meet the democratic principles upon which our Parliament is based. Anything like this—the fundamental principle behind the ability to appeal a decision, to have your say—needs to be encoded in legislation. I am very, very surprised that this amendment is needed. I would have thought it would be Politics 101, Legislative Drafting 101—the right of appeal in any decision; put it in there.

We are going to back this bill because the security of energy supply is incredibly important in a First World economy. There is an example of what happened when the Māui platform went down for 5 days: it cost about $200 million. That is around $40 million a day. There is no doubt about the fact that we cannot afford to have this piece of really important energy infrastructure compromised in any way, shape, or form. But I just think this is a sloppy way to do it. There is no doubt about that.

But there are other things that come into play as well, in other debates that we need to be having at the same time. This is about gas. Unfortunately, the Government and the Minister for the Environment will not buy into the promise of having 95 percent renewables by 2020. Shell Todd Oil Services is going to have to make some very important decisions very soon about what it does with the whole Māui platform and what it does with the gas industry. If we want to live our brand, our “clean, green” global brand, which is, in fact, our global competitive advantage—in this day and age it is not just companies that are looking for a global competitive advantage; it is actually economies and countries, and certainly small economies like our own—then we have got to make global commitments to make sure that our words are not empty rhetoric. I think what the Minister should be doing in terms of energy is sending a very clear signal that by 2020 we want to have moved to at least 95 percent renewable energy.

We have a great track record on—well, no, we do not. We are beginning to build a track record, but we have a reputation overseas as being great advocates for this. We have engineers who are developing world-class technology. It is one of those classic cases where our innovators and our engineers are doing brilliant things, and they have a fantastic reputation overseas, but they do not have the same sort of reputation in New Zealand. We need to move to this. I found out today a very interesting fact. Actually, the wind turbines in Palmerston North are the most efficient wind turbines in the world. They have just broken some global record for the most power generated over a 24-hour period. That is fantastic. So we have the ability to do this and we have the know-how to do this; what we need now is the legislative will to do this.

They say that it is very difficult to quantify the value of our “clean, green” brand overseas. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment tried to do it in another guise and it reckoned it was worth about $30 billion, which is a hell of a lot of money for us. These are things in areas that just cannot be copied anywhere overseas. Our brand is one of our most important attributes, and if we do anything to diminish that brand, we are in a lot of trouble. One of the major things that we can do to actually enhance that brand is to move to renewables. This is important because what we are talking about here is prolonging—well, sort of—the life of gas exploration. It is important, this point. I think the Māui platform makes up about 25 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply, which is a significant chunk—there is no doubt about that. As the first Labour speaker, Megan Woods, alluded, it employs about 300 people in Taranaki. It is a very important part of regional infrastructure. There is no doubt about that. But I have my doubts about whether this is the future of energy generation in this country and whether the Māui platform and the whole gas exploration industry are, in fact, what we should be promoting in the 21st century. Please do not get me wrong—I am not saying that we should not be supporting this bill, and I think I have made it very clear that we will support this bill, but what I am saying is that we need to understand where our global competitive advantage lies.

The other thing I would say is that this piece of legislation is a poor way to regulate an industry. I have talked about the sloppy nature of its introduction to the House, and the fact that we are actually speaking in front of something that is so important to us—i.e., the right to appeal—and it just highlights the sloppiness that has crept into this Government over the last 6 years. I think that what the people of New Zealand would like to see is a much tighter, well-run Government that has a vision for the future, but, unfortunately, we are not seeing that. In the first term of the Key Government it had that tightness, it had that cohesion, and there was a bit of a vision. We saw it slip last term, and what we are seeing at the moment is a sloppiness that really just sends bad signals to the people of New Zealand that these guys have forgotten what it means to be a good, caring Government and to put legislation in place that supports a growing economy. This is what this comes down to.

This is not just a minor amendment; what this is about is the security of New Zealand’s energy supply. It might be minor because there are only 6 pages compared with a bill that we have been debating earlier that was about 1,000 pages, but this is an important piece of legislation. I know this is an environment bill, but it is also about energy as well, and it goes to the heart of what Mr Bridges was saying before. We have seen the price of fuel and the importer margins, for example, go through the roof. We wanted to launch an inquiry into that and it was turned down by the Nats because the Minister of Energy and Resources said he was aware of the facts and he had written a letter to the oil companies—so it did not matter; do not worry about protecting the interests of good, hard-working Kiwis. I must admit that the only member of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers also turned this down. I think he has forgotten that he does actually represent consumers and taxpayers. Well, I think they have forgotten that his party exists.

Anyway, what this represents is a sloppiness and an arrogance that is most unattractive—the belief that there can be just a letter written to oil companies and it is all OK. What this does is that it begins, I think, to treat voters like they are idiots. Well, voters of New Zealand are not. They understand that when they go to the petrol pump and pay $1.90 when they should be paying $1.20 or $1.30, there is something not quite right. What we miss is a real opportunity for MPs right across the House to work together—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come back to the bill.

—for the common good of New Zealand, which is what this bill is about. I suspect that every party in this Parliament is going to support this bill because we understand the necessity of energy security, but I think there are more things we could do, working across Parliament, to support the interests of consumers and taxpayers and good, hard-working Kiwis. We missed a trick in the energy sector on Wednesday at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We will not miss a trick this time, but we want to see—Parliament wants to see, and the people of New Zealand want to see—a Government that returns to a much tighter, much more caring, much more energised, and much less arrogant approach to legislation in the issues that are important to the people of New Zealand. Thank you.

I welcome the Labour Opposition’s support for this legislation but I must take exception to some of the comments that have been made so far, both in the measured and reasonable contribution from Mr Nash but also in the slightly more vituperative one from Dr Megan Woods earlier in this debate.

This bill, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, is very important for New Zealand. The Minister who has introduced it, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, the Minister for the Environment, has an outstanding track record in this Government and in this country in terms of his focus on protecting our pristine natural environment in New Zealand over his more than two decades of service in this Parliament. I applaud him for introducing this piece of legislation, which in my view very carefully and appropriately balances the need to allow existing commercial operators to continue their important activity, which not only supplies energy to meet this country’s energy needs, employs many New Zealanders, and makes us a wealthier country but also actually contributes to our international exports, as previous members have commented on.

This bill has been introduced because of an issue that has arisen in terms of the bedding in of a piece of legislation that for New Zealand was fairly groundbreaking. We have heard accusations thrown around from the other side of the House regarding sloppy process. Well, this bill amends legislation that was a New Zealand first for providing any protection whatsoever for our exclusive economic zone, a zone that is the fourth or fifth in the world in terms of size, depending on the way you measure it, and is the patrimony of every New Zealander—Māori, Pākehā, Asian or wherever you are from. We all have a stake in protecting the pristine natural environment, from the Hector’s dolphins and the Māui’s dolphins to the fisheries and to the mineral resources that we can extract safely and use for the betterment of our economy and for the employment of our people. It is in New Zealand’s interest to make sure that that environment is protected.

The Māui field, which this bill primarily deals with, provides about 20 percent of the natural gas needs of New Zealand. That is very significant in terms of heating, cooking, and other energy—industrial energy as well. We cannot afford to have any uncertainty whatsoever over its operation. That is why we are committed to remedying this bedding-in issue that has been discovered in the legislation.

When Opposition members talk about sloppy process, well, there is a word I am not allowed to use in this House, but I can say that it is a little bit cheeky to do so when, in fact, the track record of that Government, when it was in office for 9 years, was doing nothing whatsoever to protect our exclusive economic zone. There were no environmental regulations. And when it came to other environmental law like climate change, that Government introduced 1,000 amendments to a piece of legislation without notice and demanded that a vote be taken on it on the same day. So I do not think that on this side of the House we should take any lectures from those members of that party on the other side.

This bill deals primarily with a company, Shell Todd Oil Services. It is a very good company. It is half owned by Shell—it is a joint venture—and half owned by Todd Corporation Ltd. It is an excellent New Zealand company that has a very good track record. In fact, I can refer to the exact project that has caused the need for this piece of legislation. It is something called a side track—well, it is effectively a side spur. In fact, there are two of them. There are two side spurs drilled off existing wells. They continue for some distance—up to 6.5 kilometres, I was surprised to learn. It is quite an engineering feat to think that under water and under the seabed one can drill that far—6.5 kilometres. But this is a kind of drilling or gas extraction that has gone on for many years. In fact, Todd reports that it is 35 years old in the particular Māui gasfield that it is dealing with. In that 35-year history it has had an exceptional track record in health and safety for their staff members but also in environmental compliance.

So although it is unfortunate, we are now in the situation where, in passing groundbreaking legislation that, for the first time, protects the exclusive economic zone, we have left a very good, responsible, high-functioning, and serious New Zealand player in the oil and gas exploration field in a position where it may find itself in June this year not to be in compliance with that new and innovative legislation. I think it does behove any Government to make sure that the glitch that we have acknowledged is remedied so that its operations can continue unfettered, as long as it remains in compliance with our environmental standards.

But there are three other companies that would be affected if we were not to bring in legislation at this point. The problem may be a little bit further down the track than it is for Shell Todd Oil Services. We have Australian Worldwide Exploration Ltd, which has existing permits under the previous Crown minerals regime that run through until 24 November 2025; we have OMV New Zealand Ltd, whose permits run through until 1 December 2027; and we have Origin Energy Resources New Zealand Ltd, which has permits that would see its operations continue until 26 June 2031.

So although this bill is primarily to deal with the more imminent issue around Shell Todd Oil Services, there are three other companies for which there would be implications if this remedial action was not taken. In fact, we should also bear in mind that these matters in respect of Shell Todd Oil Services are before the Environmental Protection Authority, an independent body that will consider the environmental implications and, hopefully, in my view, will also look at the economic implications of not allowing the permit, so that we do not see a repeat of the previous decisions—which, although I respect, I cannot say I agree with—in respect of the extraction of ironsands in Taranaki and the extraction of phosphate off the Chatham Islands.

So this is actually a relatively simple piece of legislation. It is nothing like the 1,000 amendments dropped at the last minute by the previous Government on to its major environmental legislation. In fact, despite the honourable member Stuart Nash referring to it as a 6-page bill, it is actually only 1½ pages if you exclude the explanatory note. It is a very simple piece of legislation, effectively amending section 162 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. It will allow Shell Todd Oil Services to continue with operations that it has been undertaking for 35 years in a safe and effective manner.

We take the environment seriously. I am very proud to be a Bluegreen—that is, a member of the National Party who sees the need and the ability to reconcile environmental concerns with our willingness to move this country forward economically to make sure New Zealanders have secure and well-paying employment. This bill fits into that wider framework. This bill will not change anything for other existing operators in the field. It is specific enough that it will deal with only those areas where there is a problem, and it allows for those who have applied for their marine consents to continue until an application has been decided and subsequent objections and appeals are determined. I think we would all agree that it is important to allow the New Zealand public, through the submissions process, to be able to have their say on what is a very important issue that is dear to the heart of many of us. But if the amendments are not made before 27 June 2015 there will be a company in breach. There will be significant economic impact. Operations may have to cease at Māui and the flow-on effects for New Zealand gas consumers will be significant.

Other members have talked about how vital the oil industry is as part of our economy. I have spent some time in other oil-dependent economies, or at least petrochemical or extractive-dependent economies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, and I can assure members in this House that the approach taken by New Zealand with regard to keeping our environment clean, making it safe—not just in terms of human safety of the workers but safe for marine life—and those other issues shows that New Zealand performs incredibly well in comparison to other countries that have growing petrochemical sectors. I, without hesitation, commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to oppose this legislation. This bill, which the National Party members are trying to say is simply a technical bill to fix a loophole, needs, I believe, greater scrutiny, greater intellectual rigour, and greater public discussion. This bill effectively allows the marine consent conditions that apply where an objection is lodged to continue even if the petroleum company’s licence has expired.

We are well aware that this bill is going to pass its first reading. Had it been that the Green Party had the casting vote, we would have demanded more information in advance, and our vote, I am the first to acknowledge, may well have been different. But in the absence of that—in the absence of adequate, appropriate information from the Government and from officials—I am proud that my party is lodging a protest vote. We will be opposing this law because the Government has not adequately made the case that it is the only option available to us. This looks like yet another example under John Key of one law for oil. This treats the locals in Taranaki in an absolutely unequal fashion. Iwi, hapū, and local community groups have not had their submissions extended, despite a story that I will paint, yet Shell Todd Oil Services gets laws changed in our Parliament.

So this bill is not about fixing a loophole. Let us challenge that myth, that piece of propaganda, up front. This is about giving Shell Todd Oil Services more time to get a resource consent because it did not get its act together properly to apply for this marine consent over the last 3 years. We know this company has had this marine licence for 35 years. It was heavily involved in submitting on and assisting with the drafting of this now 3-year-old legislation, yet it messed up. It did not get its application in on time. It did not put in an application, which was fine by the Environmental Protection Authority, which then required 44 separate requests for additional information from Shell Todd Oil Services, yet the public did not get an extension to comment on those.

What we are seeing here is another bill in Parliament passed for one specific industry, a winner that the National Government—National, the supposedly free-market and freedom party—has picked: the oil industry, one of the most profitable sectors in the world. However, as I have acknowledged, our vote may well change in the future. We go into the select committee process with an open mind. We welcome the submissions. We want to question the applicant and associated parties. But at this point, with such inadequate information, we cannot support this law.

So my first point is that the Green Party does not want to see the Māui platform shut down, but we are worried about changing the legislation to suit a company that did not get its application in with enough time and in an appropriate format that did not require four full pages of additional information requested from the Environmental Protection Authority. We have a number of questions that I think the Minister for the Environment needs to front on and explain. Why, when Cabinet agreed to this course of action on 8 December 2014, did we not hear about it until last Tuesday, when I was questioning the Government around Chatham Rock Phosphate’s declined application? Why the months of delay? Why did the Government decide to consult with only the applicant—Shell Todd Oil Services—and related Government departments, not the public, not the iwi and hapū, whom this oil actually belongs to? It belongs to all New Zealanders. The Government consulted only the applicant and Government departments.

The critical question is this, and I hope some National member can explain this to me, and I want to make sure I am getting this right. Cabinet, according to the regulatory impact assessment, made this decision to go with this course of action on 8 December 2014, yet Shell Todd Oil Services put in its application only on 15 December. The Environmental Protection Agency accepted it only on 12 January 2015, to meet its fast-looming 27 June 2015 deadline. So Cabinet agreed to change the law before this company even put its application into the Environmental Protection Agency. To me, it looks like this company spent its time lobbying Government Ministers rather than actually getting its application in on time. This is an application that lasted for 35 years. Our legislation has been in place for 3 years. This is a company that had been heavily involved in the process to pass that legislation, but it could not get its ducks in a row, could not get its timing right, and so it ran to the Government and said: “Look, can you pass a law for us?”.

We have to ask why the application was so inadequate. There were 45 additional pieces of information required. This is not a loophole; this is a mess that the Government is cleaning up with its statutory power. Passing laws is the most important power each member in this Parliament has—a privilege bestowed upon us thanks to constitutional history and the work of countless individuals over the course of time. Here we are using our most powerful ability to pass a law to benefit a single company that needs its mess cleaned up.

As I said, we are happy to reconsider the process. We will be going into the select committee with an open mind and wanting to ask questions. But the main point we want to challenge is the “significant economic impact” that we have heard from the Government benches. Nick Smith blatantly exaggerated the impact on New Zealand last week when he said that some 40 percent of our country’s gas could be at stake. All the official documents state that it is in the order of around 20 percent. So here is a Minister doubling the gas impact for New Zealand in his public commentary. There has been no explanation why this company, which presumably obviously knew about this issue months before Cabinet discussed it and agreed to this course of action, did not put in place alternative supply arrangements, did not source alternative supplies of gas, and did not talk to other gas suppliers around potential arrangements there.

We often hear National talking about personal responsibility for, say, a beneficiary who has gone to a Government department and been told: “Sorry, the rules are the rules, you didn’t get your thing in on time.”, or for a charity that has applied for Government funding to do some good in its community and is told: “Sorry, the deadline has passed. The rules are the rules.” However, when it comes to the oil industry and Shell Todd Oil Services, the Government is quite prepared to jump, and to ask “How high?” when it is asked to jump. The fact is that there has been no explanation as to how this will have a significant economic impact. If that point can be proved, the Green Party is, I believe, highly likely to support it. We do not want to see families go without gas for their cooking. We do not want to see industrial consumers being forced to close down because of a lack of gas supply. But if this is simply about saving a particular company money for it to avoid particular contractual penalties if it cannot meet its supply agreements, then I think the public of New Zealand would look at this House and the passing of this law in a different light.

The locals have not been given an extension of submissions despite requesting it, despite all the additional information requested, despite the fact that this company still will not release its oil spill response plan. I believe New Zealanders are looking to Parliament to say: “We need a separation of oil and State.” Already in my career in Parliament in the last 3 years I have seen laws made for oil. When Petrobras had an iwi—Te Whānau a Apanui—fishing boat sailing in front of it, the Government called out the navy. When Anadarko was worried that it might see protesters off our shores, we passed the Anadarko amendment under urgency. When the oil industry wanted help promoting itself, the Government thought it would fork out $240,000 of taxpayers’ money on 11 executives for only 4 days. We have got the fourth-lowest tax for this royalty rate in the world—$46 million in tax breaks per annum. This sector—one of the most profitable in the world—has been picked as the champion, as the winner, by this Government, and here we see another law for oil.

But there is an opportunity cost. The Government, Cabinet, the officials, this Parliament—we could have been rolling out a network of modern infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging stations during this time. We could have been rolling back those tax breaks and investing that money in clean energy, growing jobs, and boosting regional economies. We could have been giving solar energy a fair go for all those thousands of consumers who feel ripped off by the power companies when they have those solar panels on their roofs. We could have been establishing a green investment bank to drive the growth of the New Zealand economy in terms of green investment and clean energy. But, no, we are passing another law for oil. The Green Party goes into it with an open mind—we are not locked into this vote—but I am proud to cast a protest vote.

I am proud to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to actually support this bill, although I appreciate much of what has been said in the House by our previous speaker, Gareth Hughes. It was certainly a bit rich to note that the Minister blames Shell for this problem that seems to need Government legislation. It is unusual to see the Government blame business, or not take the benefit of good business upon itself. This bill continues to highlight this Government’s brilliant management of legislation! I know National is always keen to fix the heck out of a problem that does not need fixing, or, conversely, to do nothing when urgency is needed. This bill just adds to the litany of issues that this Government needs to face up to. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), debated just this week, is another prime example of 34—or is it 33—pieces of legislation that needed minor corrections. I question the number because the Associate Minister of Justice himself was not sure how many Acts were affected by the amendments.

This bill seeks to rectify an oversight on the part of this Government that it should have seen coming. There is certainly no two ways about it. It has already happened once before—37 pages of amendments previously, as noted by a previous speaker. The purpose of this legislation is to allow existing petroleum operators that have applied for a marine consent—that is, consent under the new exclusive economic zone legislation—to continue to operate their core business and to continue to operate even though there is no way they could do that under the current configuration of legislation now in front of us. It is an artificial time constraint, and it is interesting to note that in the legislation there was no contingency, no section, that gave these companies the opportunity to transition into this new legislation.

For me, I wonder whether this kind of fix-up is an example of what we will see with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations. I mean, we do not have the privilege now of debating it as a House. It is certainly not being consulted on publicly, and we do not even get to discuss it for 4 years. I use this as an example of a forewarning to this Government to please focus on getting the legislation right, getting the negotiation right, so that the New Zealand public can have trust in a Government. There was trust in a Government, but it has been slowly eroded over the past 6 years. Trust is hard-earned, but it is certainly harder to maintain.

It has been categorically stated by the Minister that this bill will not seek to change the requirements for existing petroleum operators to transition into the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act regime through the marine consenting process. Dr Smith, as I understand it, has ruled out the possibility of more and different tweaking of the Act. One risk is that this amendment could see rise to changes made to it later through this process. New Zealand First is critically aware that this opportunity has now been opened and we are strongly, vehemently wording a warning to the Minister, asking that the Government please confine itself to the issues raised in this legislation as the fix that it presents the bill to be.

There is high public interest in the balance struck out in our oceans between exploration and protection. The obligation to protect and preserve is always paramount. New Zealand First believes we should be able to take energy, fish, minerals, and resources from our oceans, but New Zealand First also believes that we must have regard for their protection and the precautionary principle that is actually underlining the new exclusive economic zone legislation. In short, if the Government did now wish to revisit the balance that it struck in the law of 2012, at the very least we need assurance of full consideration, public submission, and proper democratic parliamentary process, not something slipped into the House and rushed through like the countering terrorist fighters legislation late last year.

I have made it known publicly that Minister Bridges’ decision to give permits for oil exploration rights in our marine reserves was anathema. Along a similar vein, after speaking and consulting with the public on this particular bill, two cases that failed just recently were not really about environmental or economic balance; they were about applicants proposing some quite novel ideas where a lot was at stake environmentally and they were unable to satisfy the Environmental Protection Authority that they had done the necessary homework. Those two cases, at this stage anyway, have suggested to New Zealand First that the current law is doing its job and that there is no need to use this as an opportunity to rewrite legislation when a promise has been made to this House that it is simply a fix-up.

New Zealand First supports the reasoning for this necessity. No public consultation has been entered into, as noted by the previous speaker, except, of course, consultation with the one affected party, that is, which, obviously, supports this bill. It is important to note why New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stage today. There is a transitional provision under new section 162(5). We speak of the end of June 2015 being the date when there is a real risk that Shell Todd Oil Services will be in breach of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act if it continues operating beyond 27 June of this year. Without that consent, it would have to cease its operations in the Māui field.

It has been noted—but I would add New Zealand First’s point of view to this conversation—just how significant this is. Shell Todd Oil Services’ Māui operations contribute about 20 to 26 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply and employ more than 300 personnel, which, of course, is a significant contribution to Taranaki’s financial well-being. A 5-day shut down in 2011 due to an outage at Māui gave us a real calculation of approximately $40 million a day gross cost to the New Zealand public. This bill, as it reads, will allow only current lawful petroleum activities to transition into the new regulatory regime without breaking the requirements of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. Therefore, international obligations do not directly apply to this bill, thankfully.

I am sure it was never the intention of this Government to deliberately or even inadvertently put operators transitioning into the exclusive economic zone regime at risk of breaching the relevant requirements of the Act. Therefore, with our warnings to the Minister about the process we are about to enter into, which we have been told is a fix-up and not an opportunity to rewrite legislation, New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stage because we cannot sit by and see core infrastructure collapse because of poor Government legislation. Thank you.

Before I begin my discussion I just want to acknowledge Dame Thea Muldoon. She was the powerhouse, I believe, behind Sir Robert Muldoon, and I want to say haere rā, haere rā, haere rā, moe mai. There is one other person whom I would like to acknowledge. She is a dear friend of our family. Her name is Mrs Nell Buckman and she passed away just recently. I am sure she is hand in hand with Dame Thea on their way to heaven.

With that I am pleased to stand to support the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. It is not a rewrite, though. This is a bill where we are addressing the transitional issues for current petroleum and gas operators. It is an opportunity for us to take this bill and to make sure and ensure that those operators in the oil and gas industry are being given a fair opportunity to make sure that everything, all the work they are doing, is within the rules of our Environmental Protection Authority work.

In 2011 we had an outage in our Māui field for 5 days. As many people have discussed in the House today, that 5-day shut down cost the gas consumers $40 billion—$40 billion. We cannot stand here and say that that is acceptable. It was unacceptable, so we needed to do something about that.

Oil and gas is our fourth-largest commodity after dairy, meat, and wood. I can tell you that it is $2 billion of GDP per year that is brought in, and the Government receives $800 million of that. Those funds that are received by the Government help to go towards and pay for health services, education services—some of our public services that the people of New Zealand are the beneficiaries of. I believe that that is very important for the well-being of our country and our people.

I am pleased that Labour is supporting this bill, albeit it had 9 long years in Government and it did nothing. It did nothing to protect our environment. Drilling went ahead, 34 wells were drilled, and there were no environmental protections for this country. Thirty-four wells were drilled and nobody knew about it, but then we found out and we blew the lid on that. Thirty-four wells were drilled without any protection for our environment. It is this National-led Government that has brought in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, which set up the Environmental Protection Authority to look after the well-being of our environment.

I am fortunate to belong to our Bluegreens caucus, and last year—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Kia ora.

Thank you. It is a very good caucus committee, and it is well-known and well respected amongst New Zealanders who know all about us and who are members of our caucus committee. I belong to that, and I went to the launch of the Kaikōura marine reserves. There I could see firsthand what an exclusive environmental zone Act is all about—how it looks after our environment and makes sure we have an even balance of economic and environmental programmes going hand in hand. We can do that, as long as we look after our environment.

I am a little bit perplexed, really, and sad that the Greens have opposed this bill going forward. I thought that referring the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee would give the Greens an opportunity to discuss it. I am quite sad about that because they were in partnership with the Labour Government for 9 long years, and they did nothing. They did nothing to voice their opposition to Labour not—not—setting up environmental policy to protect New Zealand. I was really surprised that a Green member talked about electric cars and solar power. When the Greens were in partnership with Labour, they never even got a voice in. They were not heard. Why was that? It was because, I think, there is no respect there. There is no respect for that coalition, unlike our respect for our coalition partners. We have a lot of respect for our coalition partners, and we do listen. We listen to our partners, I can tell you that now. [Interruption] I know that you are just jealous. You can harp on over there. You can sit there and you can argue backwards and forwards, but we have a lot of respect for our ACT partner, our United Future partner, and our Māori Party partners, because that is what working in a coalition is all about, I can tell you now.

It is great that New Zealand First over there is going to support the bill going to the select committee. I am really pleased about that because then you can really see environmental policy at work, led by the National-led Government. You can really see that at work.

Anyway, back to the bill—let us have a look. As the law stands, current operators who apply for marine consents would be in breach of the exclusive environmental zone Act if they continued to operate beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime while consent appeals were being heard by the Environmental Protection Authority. I must say that I was very impressed with the presentation from the Environmental Protection Authority today. I was impressed with the fact that it is doing such a wonderful job. It was set up 4 years ago through the exclusive environmental zone Act. I was impressed to hear about some of the great work it is doing in monitoring the activities within our environment and to learn that our exclusive environmental zone is so large. It is the largest in the world in terms of land, and even larger in terms of sea. I was very pleased to hear that and hear about the successes it is coming forward with.

To carry on with the bill, even if a marine consent application is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority, section 162 of the Act does not allow existing operators to continue their activities beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime. All of this you will have heard over and over again from my colleagues before me, and will keep hearing from my colleagues who will come after me, because it is really important that everybody gets the message of what is happening in the background of this bill.

Obviously, those affected directly by the dates of permit expirations are Shell Todd Oil Services; Australian Worldwide Exploration, or AWE, as it is known, on 24 November 2025; OMV New Zealand, on 1 December 2027; and Origin Energy Resources New Zealand, or Origin, as it is known, on 26 June 2031. Even if Shell Todd Oil Services is granted a marine consent before 27 June, there is a risk that the Environmental Protection Authority decision could be appealed, in which case Shell Todd Oil Services would be in breach of the Act. We all know that it did not apply early enough and that there needed to be sufficient time for some appeals. We know that. But I can tell you that this bill will not actually change the current requirement for existing operators to transition into the exclusive environmental zone Act regime through the marine consenting process. Those are just some of the details in the background of this bill.

I just want to kind of wind up my kōrero by saying that our natural environment, for this National-led Government, is our greatest asset. I talked about our marine reserve in 2014 and the work we have done there. We believe, as I said before, that economic and environmental policy can, and must, go hand in hand. We cannot let an outage like at the Māui gas field in 2011 happen again. The oil and gas industry is vital to the New Zealand economy. You have heard all that. You have heard what we do—$800 million into areas within health, education, and the social sector. You have heard how important they are as commodities for our economy and for exports—fourth behind dairy, meat, and wood—and you have also heard that, as I said, $800 million in taxes come back into this economy.

I am proud to support this bill in its first reading before it goes to the select committee, and I will look with interest as it is shepherded through the House to its final approval at the third reading. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

The next call is a split call between the Green Party and the ACT Party. I call Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you. I am pleased to speak on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill and to explain why the Green Party will be casting a protest vote against this bill. It appears once again that this is an example of special pleading legislation and that the Government is amending our law for the benefit of particular corporate interests—in this case, Shell Todd Oil Services. In the Green Party we believe that there should be one law for all New Zealanders, rather than one for the oil companies and one for the rest of New Zealand.

The Government has form on amending law to benefit the oil industry. When we had the exclusive economic zone legislation going through, an amendment was, of course, rammed through under urgency in the Committee stage. There were changes to establish a no-go zone allowing no protest and banning New Zealanders from exercising their democratic right within that zone around seismic and other exploration vessels and around oil facilities. We had the Anadarko amendment, which allowed companies planning oil exploration to undertake this without the need to get a consent from the Environmental Protection Authority. So we have got history here of the Government changing the law to benefit the oil industry.

It is not just a transitional issue, because again, with one law for the oil industry, we are not seeing the Government changing the law to benefit the community or to benefit the public in having a say on this major application to have the Māui platforms continue for another 35 years.

The public must comply with the deadlines in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. There have been several requests to the Environmental Protection Authority, which is considering Shell Todd Oil Services’ application, which was lodged last December, to have an extension for submissions. The Environmental Protection Authority has declined those requests, and all the submissions had to be in by Tuesday. That 20-working-day deadline for submissions, which is set out in the law, had to be complied with by iwi, by hapū, and by members of the public, despite this being a very complex application and despite the Environmental Protection Authority having made a substantial request with around 55 different points that it wanted further information on.

The public were asking for an extension of time so that they could come to grips with the application, come to grips with all this further information, and make more informed submissions. The Environmental Protection Authority said: “No, abide by the law.” But here we have the Government changing the law to benefit Shell Todd Oil Services to extend its deadlines because it did not get itself organised enough to apply well before its permit expires on 27 June.

The Green Party certainly does not want to imperil the gas supply for New Zealanders, but we do not think there has been enough information provided that that is, in fact, a risk. As Gareth Hughes noted, the company could potentially make other arrangements. This bill could be all about saving Shell Todd Oil Services the cost of making alternative arrangements in terms of our gas supply.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act has been in place for 3 years. Shell Todd Oil Services is big enough and ugly enough to understand what the provisions of the Act are and what the requirements are in terms of lodging its application. It failed to do that, it lodged an application for marine consent only last December, and now Parliament is being asked to change the law just to suit the company.

The application that the Environmental Protection Authority is considering is a major one. I note in one of the newsletters that the company has put out about the Māui marine consents, it noted that the application was a good opportunity to consider future activities that may take place at Māui, and Shell Todd Oil Services will likely seek approval for these at the same time. So is there going be an expansion of the existing activities there? Are there going to be other environmental effects? Is this legislation going to give the company an easier run? We want to see much more detail around the justification for the legislation, to reassure us that the Government is not just making changes to benefit Shell Todd Oil Services. Thank you.

A former long-serving and very honourable member of this House has counselled me to stay for the full debate and listen to what other members have to say so that I can actually join into the debate and contribute to it, rather than showing up, reading a speech, and leaving. I am mindful that if I was to respond properly to everything that I have just heard, I would completely run out of time before I got to make any points of my own.

But, I have to say, what a bizarre contribution from Gareth Hughes. He told us that this is not just a technical amendment—despite it being only 6 pages—and that it is actually a bending and breaking of the law. Well, let us just be clear about what this bill does. It says that Shell Todd Oil Services can continue doing what it was already able to do before new legislation and regulation was introduced and it will still have this new legislation and regulation and its full effects applied to it. However, it will be given more time so it does not come to be in contravention of these new laws and regulations. So, if anything, what we are seeing is additional regulation of the offshore oil industry. I cannot believe that the Green Party would be against that.

He then complained that the Government frequently bends the rule of law, for example, to help people doing oil exploration who find themselves to be under threat from protest. What exactly does he want us to do? Does he really believe that anybody he happens to disagree with does not deserve the protection of the rule of law and actually should be forced to live in a world of anarchy? And then, for the ultimate oddity, he said that he is lodging a protest vote. He wants to see this bill go to the select committee, but he is not actually going to vote for it to do so. As Ōtara Millionaires Club used to sing “How bizarre”.

Then we had Eugenie Sage from the Green Party say that we are not thinking about community. This really goes to the heart of what this debate is about. Actually, $40 million a year, approximately $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion each and every year, about 0.5 percent of the country’s GDP—yes, that does have an effect on the community, and we are going to hear about this more and more.

Although this is a small, technical bill, it brings into stark relief the way that the extractive industry and regulation are very tightly linked. If we look around the world, we can see just how much of a contribution the extractive industries make economically. This is particularly important at a time when places in regional New Zealand—like the Northland area, for example—are facing declining and ageing populations and serious problems funding their local governments, and yet they have the large potential to create jobs and become wealthier through extractive industries.

You can see this all over the world. In Alberta, for example, the province of Canada that has the most extractive industries, you have a median family income of $94,000. In Newfoundland and Labrador, from whence people commute by aeroplane to work in those industries, it is $70,000. It is very clear. In Western Australia, it is $68,000. In Tasmania, it is $48,000. Again, the contrast that you get from having extractive industries and what that can do for regions—particularly regions that are facing economic challenges and do not feel like rock star economies—is very, very large. Have a look, for example, a little bit closer to home. The average income in Taranaki is $74,000 for a household and in Northland it is $60,000. This is the economic difference that it makes.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: So why do the Greens oppose it?

Because they do not think that making money is actually beneficial for the community, Mr Bridges. That is the problem. And perhaps another prejudice that we should raise here is that there tends to be a belief in some quarters that the extractive industries are not sexy and cool and sophisticated. Did we not see that come out with the member Gareth Hughes waxing liberal about what we could be doing with the so-called smart economy? Well, as someone who has had one or two things to do with a few people who work in this industry, I can tell you that the extractive industries—oil and gas, for instance—are enormously sophisticated, high-productivity industries working with large amounts of capital, and that might explain why the average wage for a New Zealander is $50,000 and the average wage for someone in the mineral industry is $105,000. The ACT Party wholeheartedly supports this bill. Thank you very much.

It gives me great honour and privilege to rise and speak to this very important bill. Just following on from the previous speaker, David Seymour, I am a bit concerned and not sure about the Greens’ position. My understanding is that gas exploration and export took the pressure off and retired coalmining, so I am not very sure of their position today.

I rise to speak on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I am very much looking forward to following this bill through the legislative process of this reading, the select committee work, and its second and third readings. Could I take the time to acknowledge the Hon Nick Smith, our Minister for the Environment, for his leadership and work in protecting the environment. I also take the opportunity to acknowledge our Local Government and Environment Committee chair, Scott Simpson, for his leadership and work in steering this committee—and very important work it is.

This bill is small, it is simple, and it is effective in allowing existing operators that have applied for marine consents to continue operations until the application is decided and any subsequent objections or appeals are determined. It is simple, small, and effective. I wrote down a few things—I normally have a look at a checklist—for this bill. Does this bill support our fourth-biggest export commodity earner? Tick. Does this bill avoid the closure of a gasfield at $40 million a day? Tick. Does this bill protect 300 jobs? Tick. Does this bill support existing operators to transition into the exclusive economic zone Act? Tick. Does this bill protect $800 million worth of taxes and royalties from operators in this sector, which pays for public services such as schools, hospitals, and roads? Tick. And—very important for the Greens—does this bill support the retiring of coalmining by supporting gas exploration and exporting? Tick. So, for me, even though this bill is small, simple, and effective, it has got a lot of ticks.

The Opposition members have also talked about this legislation as being poor, but, really, the reason for this amendment is no different from what businesses and organisations do every day up and down the country—it is around business continuity and looking at risk management. Very much of what we are doing around business continuity is ensuring, with risk management, that it is business as usual. That is very much the focus of this bill: ensuring we are moving to business as usual. So, very much in my region of Canterbury post-earthquakes, you will find that a lot of businesses and organisations are focusing on business continuity. In this case it is for Shell Todd Oil Services, because if it ceases operation in the Māui field, it is a cost of $40 million a day. Gas is our top fourth export commodity and it is 20 percent of our gas exploration.

Another reason why I think we need to support this bill is that this amendment is very much about the maturity and growth of legislation. We have got a newly established Environmental Protection Authority, which over the last 4 years, in its words, has been moving from “establishment to consolidation” and very much overseeing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. What we need to do is promote sustainable management of our natural resources. The exclusive economic zone is approximately 12 to 200 nautical miles offshore, and it covers areas of the sea, the seabed, and the subsoil. So what we are looking at with this amendment is the maturity and growth of this legislation. I must say that it was great to hear the Environmental Protection Authority talk today about how our public submission process is unparalleled. This is because New Zealanders expect to have face-to-face time when they make submissions around the environment. It is great to see we are supporting that.

This is a technical bill and I would just like to take a bit of time talking about the technical aspects of it. This bill amends section 162 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. Section 162 allows existing petroleum operators that are permitted under the Crown minerals regime to continue their existing activities for the duration of mining permits or privileges. To continue operating once mining permits or privileges expire, existing petroleum operators must have a marine consent under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. Currently, section 162 does not allow existing petroleum operators to continue activities while a marine consent application is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority and any objections or appeals are being determined. This uncertainty about how long it takes to resolve appeals creates unnecessary risk around the transition of existing operators into the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environment Effects) Act 2012.

Just to summarise, I think that this is an important amendment and is very much supporting our natural environment, which is our greatest asset. National believes that successful economic and environmental policy can, and must, go hand in hand. It is interesting that parts of the Opposition think that it is only they who can stand up for environmental interests. I challenge that because I would say that it is intrinsic to every New Zealander and every Kiwi to protect our environment. This Government has taken great steps not only to protect the environment but to ensure we have economic development. As a small country, we need to increase our exports because it is the way we will improve the well-being of our people. This Government has a very aggressive growth agenda to double its exports, and, I must say, coming from an electorate like Waimakariri, which survives on its primary production—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Great part of the world.

—it is fantastic—that primary production supports everyone in the local community, right down to the dry-cleaner, the dairy operator, and the person making the cappuccinos.

So I very much support this bill because what we need to do is protect the $800 million in taxes and royalties that come from companies operating in this sector each year, which helps to pay for our schools, our hospitals, our roads, and our other essential infrastructure. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to speak at the first reading of this bill and, as my colleagues have mentioned in their contributions, we are supporting this bill. We do not want to see, come 28 June, the Māui gas platform being switched off and, in the middle of winter, the families and businesses around the country who are reliant on our energy supply being shut out. So of course we are supporting this bill.

However, yet again, unfortunately, we are dealing with cleaning up the sloppy, shoddy workmanship of this National Government in terms of passing legislation that is absolutely full of problems. This is just another patch-up job that this House is now having to do—patching up shoddy workmanship by this Government. Who have been the architects? I know that Mr Doocey referred to the great leadership from the Ministers who have been ushering in this bill and its preceding primary pieces of legislation. Obviously, we had Dr Nick Smith, who was the promoter of the principal Act that we are amending through this bill. We know that Dr Smith introduced that legislation, but he was not able to usher it through because, unfortunately, he had to go into self-imposed exile for the unfortunate Bronwyn Puller fiasco. But I do not want to go there. I just want to ask how many hands this piece of legislation has actually passed through. They are numerous. We had Dr Smith, and then it was passed on to the Hon Amy Adams. Mrs Adams rushed the primary piece of legislation through. The Local Government and Environment Committee—good work that it did—made substantial amendments to the primary piece of legislation, and then, in the Committee stage, Mrs Adams dumped a 14-page Supplementary Order Paper with further amendments. So that is not very good lawmaking.

And then what happened? One month after the passage of the primary piece of legislation, which we are amending yet again through this bill, we had another amendment that was put through the House, and that was the Marine Legislation Bill. Who was the sloppy tradesman from the National Government leading that piece of legislation? Well, it was none other than the Hon Gerry Brownlee. So it had been passed on to Minister after Minister, with shoddy workmanship all the way through. But further amendments to this piece of legislation were passed through the Marine Legislation Bill, which was passed only not so long ago. Here we are, in the 51st Parliament, and now we are having to deal yet again with another amendment to this piece of legislation through what could arguably be a stitch up with Shell Todd Oil Services to ensure that it has enough time to run through the decision-making processes so that it can be issued with a marine consent and, therefore, be able to carry on operating in the exclusive economic zone under the primary legislation. So this is shoddy workmanship from this National Government. It has been going on and it has been passed through the hands of Minister after Minister.

Mr Doocey talked about this legislation being a maturing of the environmental legislation, but it just highlights how shambolic and rushed the process was in terms of the passage of this bill. That is evidenced by the amendments after amendments after amendments that we are having to do. And it has been signalled that there are more amendments in the pipeline—no pun intended there—so we can expect more of the important time of this House to be spent on corrective pieces of legislation in order to correct what should have been picked up right at the start. Unfortunately, that is the so-called leadership that we are getting from this Government through a range of Ministers. I think that when you do that, you are actually creating a Frankenstein’s monster of a piece of legislation. You are having to chop, change, insert things, do deals over here, or maybe try to do something to appease another mining company or another sector or industrial interest. That is not good lawmaking and it is definitely not good government.

I want to now pass on to look at what this legislation does. This legislation allows Shell Todd Oil Services, which is a significant supplier of gas to our households in energy, the ability to see to the completion of its marine consent application in order for it to continue its operations. The company has applied to the Environmental Protection Authority for this consent. As a major corporation of this country, it must have an army of lawyers and the best law firms advising it. It really strikes me how incompetent it must be by not actually applying to the Environmental Protection Authority much earlier for its marine consent application. It alarmed me, when I was listening to Mr Hughes, that apparently Cabinet signed off on this special piece of legislation exclusively for petroleum exploration companies. Evidently, Cabinet gave the approval 3 days prior to Shell Todd Oil Services even applying to the Environmental Protection Authority for its marine consent. It is poor governance, but it is also poor of this Government to be trying to do special deals with what are significant infrastructure companies and energy suppliers for our country. It is not the way we should be running our country. That is of great concern.

If we get back to what has not been said before, I believe, in this debate, what we are missing here is that this legislation as a whole does fall short in protecting our environment. Ultimately, that is what we want to achieve and what this legislation was meant to achieve. However, following the successive amendments that we have had to put through this House, it behoves me to say, again, that this piece of legislation is unfortunate. We want to see the gas continue to flow, but we recognise that our environment is important. Our country has the fourth- or fifth-largest exclusive economic zone, yet there is still a lot that we do not understand about our marine environment and our marine jurisdiction.

I believe that largely a lot of the issues around the problems we are having arise from the fact that significant applications for seabed mining and the like are coming in from companies like Chatham Rock Phosphate. It is jumping through the regulatory hoops that have been put in front of it, and yet it comes to a situation where the Environmental Protection Authority has made a decision and now we are having to, so we understand—we have heard that another amendment to this legislation is now being proposed that will accommodate and maybe allow Chatham Rock Phosphate to continue with its activities. We are now seeing this knee-jerk reaction from the Government to respond to the cries from the commercial sector. This is to the detriment of the people who are actually involved in these processes. I think of the iwi of the West Coast, who have valid objections to the activities of Todd Energy. All of the other objectives are not being respected, in terms of the Environmental Protection Authority process. It is a rubber stamp, but we need to make sure that we put good law in place. Kia ora.

E te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. Before I speak to this bill I want to follow on from my colleagues on this side of the House and acknowledge the passing of Dame Thea. In doing that, I remember Sir Robert Muldoon and the fact that when he passed out of this House in 1992, during the tangi he was haka’d out. There were two hakas that were part of his poroporoaki. I just want to acknowledge her passing. I remember her when both she and Sir Robert came to St Stephen’s College in Auckland when I was a student there. She was just a wonderful person—a very warm person. I acknowledge her and her tangi being held on Tuesday, where she will make her final journey to Sir Robert and her ancestors. Kia ora again. E mihi atu ki a koutou katoa huri noa i te Whare e tū nei. [Acknowledgments to you, all throughout the House, standing here.] Nō reira, tēnā koutou e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

I rise to speak on the first reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. As the final speaker it is really interesting sitting here listening to the Opposition and to my colleagues on this side of the House. On this side of the House we have all the ticks, and on the other side we have the fact that either the glass is half empty or, if we come further over here to my right, to my Green Party colleagues, the glass is completely empty.

I am pleased to support this bill, and I look forward to considering it as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. National has a strong record of promoting economic growth and protecting our environment. We do not see protection of the environment as being detrimental to our economy. We also do not take the view of the Green Party that somehow increasing the wealth of our nation is detrimental to the environment and we should abandon the goal of economic growth. That in itself is a reflection of the fact that the future of this country should never ever be put in the hands of that particular party.

I want to cover off the achievements to date, in relation to this bill, of the National-led Government. The achievements of the National-led Government stand as proof that economic growth and environmental protection can go hand in hand. Through a period of sustained economic growth National has steadily improved environmental management in this country. To me, the environment is neither a left nor a right domain—it really is not.

I am proud to be part of the Bluegreens as well. I am not only “blue brown”; I am also blue-green. I am very proud to be part of the Bluegreens group in the National Party caucus. I have great admiration for the work of the Hon Nick Smith and others who set up this group. The Bluegreens have instigated many of the sensible environmental management measures put in place by the National-led Government. I am looking forward in April to actually being able to go to Great Barrier Island and to be there as part of the Bluegreens conference.

An incredible instigation coming from the Bluegreens initiative, but not least among those measures, was a sea change in how our maritime environment is managed. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 was the big step forward for environmental management. It certainly was, and we are seeing the fruits of that today. At the Local Government and Environment Committee meeting today the chair of the Environmental Protection Authority came to present. It has been going for just over 3 years, and what an amazing 3 years that has been. This is a direct effect of that 2012 legislation. For the first time this law required the environmental effects of activities in our exclusive economic zone to be managed. That is really the essence here. It is actually about finding that balance, particularly through management. It is sensible blue-green legislation that protects our environment without constricting economic growth in a way that would be detrimental to the prosperity of all New Zealanders.

As can easily happen with reforms as big as this, there have been unintended consequences. We have heard from the other side of the House that it is all doom and gloom. The whole country was going to the dogs—all the legislation and everything that we are doing in this House was based on the fact that suddenly we needed to amend certain legislation. I repeat for the benefit of my New Zealand First colleagues over there that these things can easily happen with reforms as big as this. There have been unintended consequences. Once they get into Government they will probably understand that a bit more, if they ever do.

As the Minister stated in his speech at the time, when the original bill had its first reading, it was those activities and undertakings that the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 regulates that would be allowed to continue until the marine consent applications were decided. This particular part of the legislation was to ensure that operators are able to continue their activities without interrupting the supply of gas to New Zealand consumers. That has been highlighted right across the House during this debate. It is now apparent that there is a risk that appeals against the granting of marine consents could interrupt this supply and cause damage to our economy.

The first permit that is at risk expires on 27 June 2015, and even if the operator is granted a marine consent by the Environmental Protection Authority before the expiry of its current permit, any appeal against the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision would force it to stop operating. Those appeals could take years, and so the risk of interruption to the gas supply cannot be ignored. Other speakers have already talked through this, as I have said. It is also about what the Government receives in revenue from extraction, particularly the $800 million that as we have said, goes into infrastructure, education, roading, and all that sort of thing.

I stand here and really commend this bill to the House. It is a simple bill and it is actually being supported by most of the parties in here. It is important that we do protect our resources for the benefit of all New Zealanders. Kia ora.

on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be reported back to the House by 29 June 2015.

Motion agreed to.