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

I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill makes a technical amendment to the 2012 Act. It ensures that the four existing petroleum production operators in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone have a smooth transition into the regulatory regime established by the Act.

It is worthwhile to first give an overview of the legislative framework. Prior to National coming into Government there were no—no—environmental laws—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: How about prior to the Magna Carta, or William the Conqueror, or something like that?

—within the exclusive economic zone. It may seem to members opposite that that is not very significant. Well, actually, New Zealand has had oil and gas and other activities operating in the exclusive economic zone for over 40 years without any requirement for assessment of environmental effects.

I know that members on this side of the House are proud of the fact that that enormous area, which is more than 25 times the land area of New Zealand, now has an environmental assessments process. I further point out that the view members on this side of the House take is that there are economic opportunities in that huge ocean area but they should be taken in a way that is responsible and with proper environmental assessment, and this bill is about improving that regime.

This bill was referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee on 26 February this year, and I want to acknowledge the work of the chairman, Scott Simpson, and the other members of the committee for the work they have done on fine-tuning this bill. The committee received five submissions, and I think that in itself indicates that there is actually pretty broad support for this measure. Only two submitters sought to be heard in person. I do want to thank those submitters for their submissions and input.

The transitional provisions in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act currently require that existing petroleum operators are able to undertake their marine consenting process before their pre-existing mining permits or privileges under the Crown minerals regime expire. So if a marine consent has not been granted by the Environmental Protection Authority, which the National Government established, before the expiry date, existing operations would have to cease. That is not consistent with other transitional provisions in the law and it inadvertently compromises the supply of New Zealand’s oil and gas.

The Environmental Protection Authority is currently considering a marine consent application from Shell Todd Oil Services in its Māui operations. The Māui gas field operates about 35 kilometres off the Taranaki coast. It has been in operation for 35 years. It currently produces about 20 percent of New Zealand’s natural gas. I am expecting the decision from the Environmental Protection Authority in the next few days.

Shell Todd Oil Services is the first of four existing operators to begin the full transition into this environmental protection regime and it has been required to undergo a robust consent process. This includes submitting an impact assessment outlining the effects of the activities on the environment, the impacts on other interests, as well as identifying measures that it would undertake to avoid, to remedy, or to mitigate any adverse environmental effects. The marine consent application was publicly notified, giving interested parties and the public an opportunity to provide input towards the Environmental Protection Authority’s consideration of its application.

This bill simply allows those activities in the Māui field to continue if for any unforeseen circumstance the Environmental Protection Authority decision is delayed or in the event that it is appealed. It eliminates any possibility that New Zealand’s energy supply could be put at risk from the Māui field. The implications for Shell Todd Oil Services having to cease its Māui operations would be hugely significant to the New Zealand economy. This situation would have an impact on gas consumers as well as on the Crown’s royalties and tax take. It is estimated that between 2008 and 2013 the Crown received approximately $550 million in royalties in resource levies and company tax from that Māui joint venture.

The Government would have preferred that Shell Todd Oil Services had applied well in advance of the expiry date of its mineral privilege so that this bill would not be needed. We want to ensure the situation is not repeated when the other three existing operators are required to apply for a marine consent transition to the new exclusive economic zone regime.

For this reason I am pleased with the refinements that have been made by the Local Government and Environment Committee and that have been recommended in the bill. The select committee has unanimously recommended amending the bill to specify that any of those existing operators must lodge their consent application, accepted as complete, with the Environmental Protection Authority at least 9 months before the expiry of that operation’s mining permit or privilege. This requirement provides an incentive for operators to engage early with the Environmental Protection Authority, well before their mining permit or privilege expires. This is because existing operators will have to ensure that their information and application is in full when it is lodged and is able to be processed by the Environmental Protection Authority.

This requirement also addresses the concern expressed by some submitters at the committee that the bill as originally drafted gave petroleum mining operators an open-ended time frame in which they could apply for a consent. The new 9-month time frame in the bill encourages existing operators to submit their marine consent application early and provides sufficient time for the Environmental Protection Authority to consider the application in line with those statutory time frames. The marine consent process will be well established by the time the existing operators come up for the marine consent process, with the first not until 2025, so I do not expect that operators will have any difficulty in meeting the time frames in the bill.

As New Zealanders we all value our marine environment and the resources that it provides. We need to ensure that New Zealand’s oceans are sustainably managed to support a strong economy and the natural environment as well as our great Kiwi lifestyle. I remind the House that until this Government passed the 2012 Act there was no requirement for an environmental assessment. We have a regulatory regime that is, in my view, one of the most robust in the world in ensuring that we follow best international practice.

This bill is going to ensure that there is not any potential hiccup around the supply of that essential gas. It ensures that it is done in a safe and responsible manner, and that we respect the integrity of the process and the courts that may be subject to an appeal. It is now only a matter of providing the additional incentives for future operators as their consents come up for renewal.

I am sure we are going to hear long howls of protest from members opposite that the bill was not necessarily perfect the first time round. Let us just simply say that we could have a blame game as to whether the fault is with Shell Todd Oil Services for not applying early enough or whether we should always have provided for consents continuing, in the event that there is an appeal. A common-sense Parliament would say that, actually, having had more than 100 years without any environmental rules in this vast area of ocean, this is a huge step forward. This is a relatively minor, sensible amendment and I will be surprised if members of this House will not support it.

I will finish with one closing point. Labour promised in 1999 that it would pass a law. It did nothing in its 9 years in Government. We have passed a bill and a law that is world’s best practice, and I am more than happy to be the Minister who has to make a minor tweak such as this to ensure that it is a robust and fair regime. I hope the House will support the bill.

I am happy to take a call. Labour is supporting this legislation because we need to. If we do not, the consequences are simply far too great. That was a shocking speech by a Minister who has had a shocking week. What we had in that speech is a whole lot of excuses, a whole lot of justification, and, certainly, what you would say is a defensive game. It was an absolutely defensive game. We have a Minister who claims that before the passage of the exclusive economic zone legislation, there was no regulation in terms of how we governed activities in our oceans. This is simply not correct. It would be more helpful if the Minister were to come into the House and deal with facts.

I want to deal with the facts of what we are calling a simple tweak to an imperfect piece of legislation. If we have a look at the principal piece of legislation that we are amending here, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, this is a technical amendment to allow for the transition of four existing operations into the regulatory regime outlined in the exclusive economic zone legislation. Let us have a look at this not-so-perfect legislation. When the not-so-perfect legislation was first introduced, it had to be sent back to the select committee for an entire rewrite because it was such shoddily drafted legislation. Even after the select committee had completely rewritten this legislation and had got it into a form that could be brought back to the House, that was fit for purpose, and that might actually do something about providing a thorough regulatory regime in terms of protecting our oceans, the Minister then had to introduce a 14-page Supplementary Order Paper with even more fix-ups to the principal legislation. And 1 month later there was an amendment bill with 37 pages of amendments to the principal legislation back in this House.

This is the second time that we have had to come back into this House and use valuable House time to play fix-up for a Government that cannot run a legislative agenda or pass legislation that is fit for purpose.

💬 Hon David Parker: It’s the amendment to the amendment to the amendment.

That is quite correct, Mr Parker; this is the “Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment Bill” because this Government cannot legislate.

When we had the bill at the first reading, we supported it and said that it needed to be sent to the Local Government and Environment Committee to be examined. I would like to acknowledge the submissions that we received on this legislation. There were not many of them, but they were incredibly important submissions. I think there were five of them. Through the select committee process, we stopped yet another disastrous piece of legislation. There had to be an amendment to the amendment to the amendment to the amendment at the select committee because what we had was yet another very shoddy piece of work by this Government coming before this House.

What this bill does is provide for the four current operators to be able to transition into the new regime. The first of these operators with permission to operate under the old regime—yes, Minister, there was a regime, unlike what you would like to say—has a consent that expires on 27 June 2015. That is the Māui gasfield, which provides a significant portion of this country’s gas. In fact, the department’s own report informed us that it provides 26 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply. When the Māui field had a 5-day shutdown in operations in 2011, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment calculated a gross cost to gas consumers of $200 million over that 5-day duration. This is a Government that passed legislation that could have potentially seen the Māui gasfield shut down for an unknown period of time before it could transition into the regulatory regime. I would have thought that when there are four operators operating, you could put in place a transition provision that would see those four operators come within the principal Act in a reasonably seamless way. It does not seem like rocket science.

When we had the amendment to the amendment to the amendment come before the House in order to play fix-up on this, what we had was a completely open-ended transitional arrangement fix up for these operators. The Māui gasfield—fine; its transition date was 27 June 2015. But for the last of the operators needing to transition into the new regime, the permission to operate expires in 2031. The legislation that this Government brought into this House was going to create an open-ended time frame in which these people could lodge their consent. They would have been able to operate, potentially, for ever and a day without any onus on them to have their homework handed in or their consent processed by a certain date. It was only the select committee process that picked up yet another failure by this Government to understand why it is that you need to put in place a proper regulatory regime.

This is a Government that has shown that it has made mistake after mistake after mistake when it comes to this legislation. This is not legislation that has been on our statute book for a lengthy period of time. This is legislation that was passed only in the 50th Parliament, in the last Parliament, and already we are amending it in such fundamental ways—well, not fundamental ways; these are things that you think about when you are thinking about putting in place a new regulatory regime. You think “OK, there are some people already operating. How do we bring them in? What are the time frames? How do we make sure that that happens smoothly?”.

It is my hope that this is the last time that we have to use this House’s time and this House’s resource—

💬 Grant Robertson: Oh, I’d be very surprised.

Grant Robertson is saying that he would be very surprised.

💬 Grant Robertson: Well, it is Nick Smith.

It is Nick Smith; you are correct, Mr Robertson. But I am ever the optimist. I am ever the optimist.

💬 Grant Robertson: The sun always shines.

The sun is always shining when I see things, and I am hopeful that this is the last time that we will have to play patch-up on bad legislation.

The 9-month period that we agreed on at the select committee seems to be a sensible length of time that an operator now has to have their completed application in before their consent expires. It is hardly an onerous obligation on the operators, especially the one whose consent does not expire till 2031, for them to have that consent lodged 9 months beforehand. We looked at a range of options—whether it should be 6 months, 9 months, or 12 months that we have a look at those applications that need to be lodged. We settled on 9 months, in the collaborative way in which we looked at this, because that would allow the full 140 working days statutory time frame for the Environmental Protection Agency to consider the marine consent application, with 15 working days to lodge an appeal. That is approximately 8 months in total. Nine months seemed to the select committee to be a sensible period of time in which to put this in.

I think that this legislation needs to serve as an important lesson to this House and to the people drafting legislation about the need to examine legislation thoroughly when the Government brings such important legislation that could have such dire economic consequences, such as denying the country 26 percent of its gas supply, actually, because of a botch-up in the legislation. Really, more homework needs to be done. There needs to be a more thorough examination of the legislation that is brought forward. The Minister, in his speech introducing this bill, tried to spray blame around everywhere except where it needs to fall, and that is on a Government that is making mistakes. It is losing its way, and it is failing to meet the needs of New Zealanders. Certainly, it would not have been meeting the needs of New Zealanders who are dependent on that operation for their jobs. We believe that we need to have a managed transition away from fossil fuels, but it needs to be just that—managed—not shut down on 27 June because the Government made a mistake in the drafting of its legislation and could not understand the ramifications of a regulatory regime.

This is a Government that is completely out of touch with what it needs to be doing in terms of putting in place the right base. The Environmental Protection Agency has made some very sensible decisions under the exclusive economic zone legislation. We have seen some decisions where the environment has been considered and the Environmental Protection Agency has actually weighed up that the activity that an operator has applied to do will be far too detrimental to the environment. A classic example of this was on the Chatham Rise. When Chatham Rock Phosphate applied to mine there under this legislation, it was seen that there would be inadequate benefit to the country and too much environmental risk. Labour will be supporting this bill. We have to; the economic implications are simply far too great.

As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee, it is a pleasure to rise in support of this second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill in the name of my colleague, the very good and capable Minister for the Environment, Dr Nick Smith. Notwithstanding the very energetic speech of the previous speaker, Megan Woods, I am delighted to hear that Labour is going to support this bill and this reading as we discuss it and move it through the House this afternoon.

The simple fact is that energy is important to us all. It is essential to every aspect of our daily lives in this modern world we live in. It is used in factories, in hospitals, for the production of fertilisers and chemicals, for manufacturing and construction, and for every kind of enterprise known to a civilised and modern society. We use it for heating, we use it for cooking, and we use it pretty much in every aspect of our day-to-day lives. New Zealand has been fortunate to always have a secure source of energy, mostly provided by our hydroelectricity network. But in times of low rainfall we have been able to rely on the gas-fired turbines that are powered by the gas that comes from the Māui gas field off the Taranaki coast. This field, which has now been in operation for nearly 50 years, I think, is a significant part of the energy network that supplies New Zealand’s energy needs.

It is important, as we discuss this bill, that we note that it is a technical tweaking of the principal Act, which came into effect in 2012. The purpose of this bill is to amend the principal Act so as to allow existing operators who have applied for marine consent to continue their operations until that application is decided and any subsequent objections or appeals have been determined. As the Minister said in his speech a few minutes ago, this is a process that literally did not exist prior to the principal Act being passed. There are four other operators that in due course, as their consents come to an end, as their current licences come to an end, will require new marine consents and need to go through the process. As part of the requirements of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, Shell Todd Oil Services will be required to have its marine consent to continue operations approved by the Environmental Protection Authority by 27 June. That is why we are moving this technical amendment bill through the House this afternoon, in its second reading.

Marine consent is an approval granted by the Environmental Protection Authority to undertake managed activity under the principal Act. What might some of those activities be that a consent of this sort that is being discussed this afternoon include? It includes all the marine operations related to the existing Māui project—for instance, the upgrading and maintaining of facilities, both existing and those that are planned for the future. The consent would also include the actual requirement for drilling itself, and, of course, for the actual extraction of the gas. A consent would include matters relating to environmental monitoring. It would also extend to covering logistics such as the use of helicopters and support vessels that service the actual Māui gas field platform off the coast of Taranaki. It covers, of course, as I said, the extraction of the gas itself and the condensate.

Shell Todd Oil Services is a longstanding corporate citizen of the Taranaki area. It has been active in operating in New Zealand for more than 50 years. It is a company that is owned by Shell Petroleum Mining and Todd Petroleum Mining, each of which holds a 50 percent stake in that entity. During that more than 50 years of operation Shell Todd Oil Services has set its operational mandate and provisioning at extremely high levels. It pays enormous attention to environmental control and to safety benchmarking, and it is considered to be a very prudent, careful, and successful operator in the gas and condensate field. As an oil and gas operator for more than 55 years, it has got an active and ongoing relationship with the wider Taranaki community. The company currently employs, I am told, more than 300 direct employees, and then, of course, there is a wide range of other people who provide services and support to the enterprise.

At the select committee this bill was considered in the collegial manner in which most things are considered at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I want to take this opportunity to thank members from across the House for their careful and considered contributions to the debate at the select committee. We received five submissions on this bill, and I think it is fair to say that they all made good points. We, as a committee, did suggest a couple of amendments, and they are to be incorporated as we work this bill through the House. Megan Woods, in her contribution prior to mine, made comment about the requirement that the select committee has introduced for those existing four other licence holders to have their applications completed in a full and acceptable state before their current licences expire. In some cases that is up to 20 or 30 years hence. But their application for renewal to the Environmental Protection Authority should be in a full and proper manner, 9 months before the expiry of the existing licences.

We considered options for not placing any time frame on that application process, but we settled on a period of 9 months, based on advice from the ministry and also from submitters who were keen to raise this matter with us. I think that when we looked at the dates we considered 3 months; we also considered 12 months and 6 months, but 9 months seems to be about right. It is largely academic, because I think that any sensible, professional corporation in its right mind would probably ensure that its application was in place well in due course. I cannot imagine that any senior executives of any of the companies involved would allow a situation to occur where they did not have their application in on time. But there was a question relating to the completeness of that application prior to the end of the existing licence, and it was that issue of completeness that I think really swayed the committee’s thinking on this matter. It was a matter that was compelling and logical, and I was pleased that the collegial nature of the committee endured on the day and that we got to a place where we could all agree.

This is a piece of legislation that, as the Minister said, is a largely technical adjustment to the principal Act. Shell Todd Oil Services, if it does not have this piece of legislation passed before 27 June this month—in fact, enacted before 27 June this month—will be required to cease its operations. The potential impacts of that occurring are not ones that I think this House would want to consider for any moment at all. So I am hopeful that as we go through this debate we will find that there is support across the House for this technical adjustment and technical amendment to the principal Act. It is a good, logical thing to do, and I commend it to the House.

I rise to take a call in the second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. It may as well be called the “Tidy Up Bill”, because that is what it is.

For people listening into or viewing us this afternoon, there is an old law about Parliament that on “Thank God It’s Thursday”—in the dark, last hours of Thursday afternoon, just before the House rises—it is the oldest trick in the book for the Government to try to push through things that it really does not want people talking about too much. The Government members must be hugely embarrassed about this bill—terribly embarrassed about this bill—because we told them when they passed the original exclusive economic zone legislation that they were doing it in a rushed manner, with incomplete consideration and new terms that had not been properly designed, which, my colleague David Parker reminds me, interrupted a whole lot of jurisprudence of settled law around the Resource Management Act. We warned the Government then, and the public, that if the Government rushed the bill through, we would be back in the House tidying up its mistakes—and lo and behold, here we are.

One can only imagine the phone call from the shy, retiring chief executive of Shell Todd Oil Services to Minister Nick Smith, where he said: “Jesus, Nick, we’re gonna have to close down Māui.” Nick said: “What do you need?”. And he said: “Well, I need you to change the law, because if an appeal was lodged, we haven’t got time to get our appeal through before we could be closed down, because your law does not provide a guarantee of continuity while an appeal is being considered.”

I actually agree with Shell Todd Oil Services on this one. I think it is fair enough that, on an asset like the Māui gas field platform, there ought to be business continuity while an appeal is being heard, because the law—

💬 Hon David Parker: That’s what would happen under the RMA.

And that is what would happen under the Resource Management Act. That is a perfectly fair thing to expect. The alternative, as well as it being strategically incomprehensible for New Zealand that we would have the Māui gas field close down, is unfair and flies in the face of settled jurisprudence, as my colleague David Parker reminds us. But that all begs the question of why the law is as the law is, and why we therefore have to be here in the dead of Thursday afternoon fixing up the Government’s mistakes.

This is a Government that is increasingly accident-prone. That is the charitable way to put it. This is a Government that is lurching from stuff-up to broken promise. We have just had a Budget where the Government could not find the magic surplus again—zero for seven, compared with Labour’s nine of nine. It is a Government that broke its promises on affordable housing, on its targets for growth, and—very relevant to this bill—on its external balance. Of which balance, you will recall, our hydrocarbon exports are a very important part, for which this platform provides a cornerstone. The Government thought it was going to be able to get our exports as a percentage of GDP up from 32 percent to its target of 40 percent by 2025. How is it going? It is going backwards, is how, because exports as a percentage of GDP are now forecast to go down from 32 to 26 percent, and that is even assuming that this bill goes through and the Māui gas field platform is not closed down.

This measure, this bill, is a pooper scooper of a law change: a “Mr Fix-it”, a last-minute save, a caught-the-egg-before-it-hit-the-floor kind of bill. I see National members are giggling with delight at the plight of their Minister. They know that is one more space in Cabinet for the class of 1999, or whatever it is over there—the class of 2011. Hope springs eternal on the face of the young. There is Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga thinking, well, there are a couple of slots up the Cabinet ladder he can scramble when Nick Smith becomes the tea boy. Imagine for a second we were not passing this bill. Imagine Nick Smith’s parliamentary future—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.

Slim down the Minister, he is saying.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no.

Well, we can slim down the debate by coming back to the content of the bill. The bill is accepted on several points. Firstly that if this law change is not made, Shell Todd Oil Services could be vulnerable to a mischievous or vexatious appeal, which would potentially suspend production while the appeal was being heard, even if it did not result in it being upheld. That flies in the face of previous jurisprudence, and it would be an inappropriate and very unwanted effect for New Zealand, and one that, I think, Shell Todd Oil Services has a legitimate expectation that the law would protect it from.

The Government has tried to shift blame to Shell Todd Oil Services, saying that it was too slow putting in its application, and that it left it too late. It is kind of interesting to see the honey dripping from the mouth of the Minister for the Environment as he is heaping praise on Shell Todd Oil Services on the one hand, and then actually putting the boot in with the other to try to spread blame for this legislative incompetence that has got us here on a Thursday afternoon. It is not difficult to imagine that a Government that was trying to import the principles of the Resource Management Act into the exclusive economic zone legislation would, in doing so, import the principle that business does not stop on appeal unless the appeal is upheld. Otherwise, the consent is taken as granted, especially if it is an ongoing one.

This is not the only example of haplessness around these issues. It is my privilege to be the Opposition spokesperson on the innovation and science portfolio, and as part of that I get to look pretty closely at the grants made by Callaghan Innovation. It has made a grant to Chatham Rock Phosphate, which was one of the applicants whose appeal for subsea mining rights was declined by the Environmental Protection Authority under this law. I am not going to comment on whether that was a good decision or not—

💬 Catherine Delahunty: Great decision, fabulous.

—because that is an independent juridical body. It may well have been a good decision; some of our colleagues certainly see it that way. But my point is that there is such uncertainty under the law—because the drafting quality is so poor, and we are back amending it yet again, the amendment to the amendment—that who would know? And what is that uncertainty doing for business confidence in New Zealand? How do investors feel when they look at this shambles of a Government that cannot even continue existing Resource Management Act precepts into the exclusive economic zone legislation? It has a chilling effect on investment, which is why the Government has had to go cap in hand to the mining and energy industries and give them a few lollies in the Budget—at the expense of the environment, it might be said. Environmental research has gone down; mining and energy research subsidies have gone up, I guess, perhaps, in part to make up for this shambles.

Trans-Tasman Resources, the sand mining proposal off Taranaki, was also declined by the Environmental Protection Authority. And, again without commenting on whether that was the right decision or not—it is an independent juridical body, so I am not going to go to the substance. But I am going to say that there is a lot of surprise in the business community about the uncertainty that is attached to this law. However, it is interesting to see what happens then. I note that the Chatham Rock Phosphate managing director Chris Castle told the Otago Daily Times that he had been in to have talks with “key Ministers”. And here is what he said when he discussed this Act with those Ministers: “Changes will be made soon; the wheels are already turning … Then it’s going to get easier,”.

Well, let us just consider that. Here we have a law passed by the democratically elected Parliament of New Zealand. The law may be a shambles—that is the fault of the Government—but it is the law. The law is then passed to an independent agency, the Environmental Protection Authority, to administer. It makes decisions based on the facts. Those decisions are subject to appeal. What happens during the appeal is the subject of this debate, but it is an independent process. Then when a company—and I make no comment as to the nature of the company or its work—does not get the decision it wants, it beats a path to the door of the Ministers and then says publicly it is going to get easier. Well, what does that say about the independence of the Environmental Protection Authority process? What confidence can New Zealanders, including other members of the business community, have that the law is robust, sound, easy to understand, and impartial? That should be the objective, whoever is holding the Treasury benches.

To sum up, the Government imported considerable legal uncertainty when it did a quick and hashed-up job of taking parts of the Resource Management Act into the exclusive economic zone legislation—new terms, legal uncertainty, and a breaking down of jurisprudence. As part of that, the protection of existing operations under appeal was forgotten, and we are back today to fix up that omission. We believe that Shell Todd Oil Services has a right to continue to operate in those circumstances, and we certainly do not wish to see Māui gas field stop production. That is why we support this bill.

I rise to speak to the second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. There has got to be a quicker way of saying that.

This is actually the first time I have had the opportunity to stand up and speak after David Cunliffe has held the floor with his rather wide-ranging comments. One thing I did find really interesting is that there is a bit of hypocrisy, in my view—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member will sit. The member will withdraw that comment. You cannot use that word. I ask the member to withdraw that comment.

I withdraw, Mr Assistant Speaker. There is a bit of irony—irony, rather than other things—that the Labour Government, in its time in office, had a thousand amendments without notice on environmental legislation, and then whilst it was in power did nothing to protect our exclusive economic zone over 9 years. So to stand up here and have a rather interesting debate around this very, very tight amendment I found very interesting and ironic, and perhaps just that.

This is obviously a very, very technical amendment, and it assists us in ensuring that our economic zone is appropriately protected. That economic zone is actually quite extraordinary. It is 21 times the size of our land mass, covering over 500 million hectares in total. That is huge economic potential.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Come back to the bill.

You are not the Speaker. There is huge economic potential and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act enables that potential to be unlocked in an environmentally sustainable way.

I very much look forward to continuing this conversation when we next debate this bill, because it has had a very, very interesting period through the select committee process. I think that particularly the debates we had around section 162 of the current Act and what we could do in terms of tightening clause 4 of the amending legislation, which amends section 162(5), deserve quite a lot of coverage. Certainly, next time we get the opportunity to continue this through I will really dive into that debate that we had amongst ourselves, really, when we put in that period. Should it be 6 months? Should it be 9 months? A number of us thought that the current provisions were fine. We had quite a robust debate over whether it should be 6 months or 9 months.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.