Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill

I have pleasure in standing and speaking to the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill tonight in its first and, hopefully, last reading. What an honour it is for me to take a lead call on behalf of the Government on behalf of the people of Westland—the people of Westland—who did not have a voice in the preparation of this bill. As my colleague across the House said, this bill does send a signal. Well, I have got a signal for the other side of the House from the West Coast, and it says: “Hands off.” The purpose of this bill is to take World Heritage status land and place it into schedule 4.

I have no problem with the Tongariro National Park; it is already a national park. It is 796 square kilometres. In the Subantarctic Islands, it is 764 square kilometres—I have no problem with that. Where I do have a problem is Te Wāhipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area—26,000 square kilometres, and that area is made up of a large part of Fiordland and Westland. It is already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). It is already protected by the Conservation Act. It has huge guardianship, and we respect that. But these areas in Westland are where I have the greatest concern. There are currently 30 mining licences active on this land or that overlap this land. Of those, 25 are currently being worked. The bulk of those—the bulk of them—are below the mean high-water mark. At high tide all evidence of them is gone.

This is a lazy piece of legislation. It inserts seven words—seven words—into the Crown Minerals Act of 1991. I doubt the member who proposed this bill has even thought about the impacts. There are a couple of operations in South Westland that clearly have not been considered. Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio has a proposal to retrieve Aotea stone—very special to them—known as Hine Aotea. She is a very special healing stone, and it presents an opportunity for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio in South Westland. There is 170 hectares of their land that overlaps into this proposal. They also have a proposal for a goldmining operation down there. Very little else is on the horizon for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio.

This Government has faith in the potential of the West Coast. It has invested in the development of its regional growth study. There are major economic developments that exist within the tourism sector, and there are a whole lot of packages being worked on now. We have been working on this for over a year. A big part of tourism is about being able to get there, and for those people who may not appreciate it, it can rain on the West Coast, and when it does we have our rivers and roads under threat. But thanks to the Minister of Transport, he does keep our highways open.

But if we cannot guarantee access, we are struggling to encourage the investment that we need in the built infrastructure and in the places for people to do things and stay. But that only matters if they can get there. One of the problems that we have got with this bill is it ceases all ability for quarrying and for gravel extraction. So when you want to maintain a road or a river, I am sorry, but now on the West Coast you have got a 350-kilometre round trip to cart a truckload of rock. How many times are you going to need to do that to make any significant work on a piece of road or a river?

Under this proposal, gravel extraction and quarrying ceases. All active mining permits are stopped. Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio—I am sorry, but all of your plans are now in the bin. The growing schist business that has been developing over years—sorry, that is all stopped. Industrial and building rock business—sorry, it is all over. Everything you have invested in that business—sorry, it is all over. Intergenerational farms—we have got a family who for five generations have had grazing licences in South Westland; sorry guys, Ruth wants those.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Come on, show some respect. How long have you been in this House?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to ask the member on my left who is trying to assist me, I am sure—if she really wants an answer, it is 33 years. But I am now going to ask the member to call members by appropriate names.

I appreciate that, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sorry, but Miss Dyson wants your land, West Coasters.

There is no grandfather clause built into this bill. That means that the day after Royal assent, all of that activity ceases, and there is no compensation. So, DOC, if you want to maintain your tracks or protect a hut, sorry, there is no material. You have got to go all the way to Whataroa to get it.

This issue cuts to the heart of all that is dear to those who live on the West Coast, and it is an insult. Who are you to tell us that all we have maintained and protected for generations is, overnight, out of bounds, locked up, and untouchable? It is bureaucrats and do-gooders who do not even live on the Coast, who have probably never spent any time there, or even been there, who are always trying to tell us how to treat our land. We have kept our native forest intact. Where is yours, I ask those who live in your clear-felled, concrete jungles. This is theft. If you want to rob us of the right to live by and on the land that we have managed for generations, then this bill is going to do it.

But nobody talked to anyone on the West Coast. The proposer of this bill did not talk to local iwi and did not even talk to the mayor of the district. The mayor of Westland district has 13 percent of available land—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to ask Mr Bayly to go and sit in his seat because his interjections are coming through the microphone system and it is causing complaints, at least from me. I am slightly deaf and it is getting very loud. [Interruption] Your seat.

As I said, no one has talked to anyone on the West Coast about the impact of this bill. Well, I have talked to them, and I can tell you that they are not happy—they are not happy. If there was ever an example of how the Green virus is infesting the Labour Party, then this is it.

We have heard Forest & Bird recently talking about the slow creep of land going for mining. Well, what about the sprint that is under way to confiscate land that is potentially productive? I am talking about land in the Buller—45,000 hectares about to go into national parks. We are just asking to keep doing what we have been doing for generations as guardians of the land on the West Coast.

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: Where’s Damien O’Connor?

And where is the electorate MP for West Coast - Tasman? Nowhere to be seen. In fact—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is not appropriate for a member in the House to question the whereabouts of a member.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): It is certainly a convention that members do not, and I am sure this member will not repeat that.

You can be sure, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The “Green-Labour Party” does not care about jobs. The National Government does care about jobs. We will take the pragmatic, sensible approach, because we understand that humans can live, work, and play in our environment, and still care for it. We will oppose this bill—vehemently oppose this bill. I am at a loss to know why some members from the other side would even be considering this when there is so much opportunity over there and so much land available, and when other cities and towns have clear-felled their native forests and we have not, and now those members have become the conscience for the rest of New Zealand. It is totally inappropriate, and I am so pleased to be sitting on this side of the House, where we can take a pragmatic approach and look after people and their futures. I certainly oppose this bill.

I am just going to indicate now that that mike is turned off. Mr Bayly can return, if he wishes, from the wilderness.

When I came down from my office to take a call on this bill, I did not anticipate that it was going to get either quite so spirited or personal in the debate, and I do not think that speech reflects well on that member, Maureen Pugh, at all. To make it personal against someone who brings a member’s bill to this House simply lacks any sense of grace. To claim, for example, that Ruth Dyson does not know the West Coast—well, maybe this actually speaks to what the previous speaker should have done, and that is actually find out some information before she gave that speech. In fact, Ruth Dyson lived on the West Coast for many, many years, Ms Pugh, and I suggest that maybe when you come down to the House to discuss a member’s bill you make it more in the realm of a constructive discussion.

Let us think about this: the Great Wall of China, the Historic Centre of Prague, the Pyramid Fields from Giza, Versailles, the Acropolis, Vatican City, the Taj Mahal, Petra, and the Palace of Westminster. These are other Unesco World Heritage sites. These are the equivalent sites to what we are asking to be protected in New Zealand. You would not think that from this speech that we have heard. This is a very simple bill. What it does is it seeks to do something that is not currently on the statute book, and that is to provide protection for our World Heritage sites that are in place at the moment.

The bar for becoming a Unesco World Heritage site is, in fact, very high. It is an international accreditation that has a very long process. So, in addition to the handful of World Heritage sites that we currently have, there are currently some additional sites that are going through the process. In order for them to even be on the list to be considered, the potential sites need to be nominated. It is these sites that are named in the explanatory note of my colleague Ruth Dyson’s bill.

We heard from Ms Pugh, the list member from the West Coast, about the great future of tourism and the threat that this bill offers. Well, I would like to reiterate: the Great Wall of China, the Historic Centre of Prague, Vatican City, the Taj Mahal—are these areas that have been jeopardised by the fact that the Governments of those countries could not mine those sites? Or have they perhaps seen some value in them, actually, other than digging them up? Ms Pugh could at least let this bill go to the select committee. It could go there, and the committee could listen to the communities. It could see the very clear thing that is being asked: that these are places of national significance, in terms of either our natural history or our history of the nation.

One of the sites named in the explanatory note is the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi. Is the National Government suggesting that we should dig it up to see what is under there, or does this have other value to us as a nation? The Government will not even send this bill to the select committee to have a rational discussion about it—one that does not get personal, one that does not launch into hysteria and talk about “Green viruses”, but one that asks: “Should we have a statutory protection for our World Heritage sites on our statute books? While we are at it, should we be thinking about the sites that we actually want to put through an international process to get accreditation?”. I do not for a moment believe that we are that short-sighted as a nation that we cannot see the value in what we have as a country and be proud of our history, be proud of what we have, and want to protect it.

The speech that we heard showed that there is not any ability to have any fresh ideas, any fresh thinking, about what our future holds and what our country is. I want to make sure that there is a legacy left for future generations in this country, and that involves protecting our heritage—both our natural heritage and sites of historical significance. Other countries have had the foresight to do it, and I do not for one moment believe that New Zealand, as a nation, cannot take the same kind of stand to protect what is precious to it as a nation. Thank you.

Mr Assistant Speaker, it is a pleasure to be speaking from this very nice seat here in the debating Chamber. It is my pleasure to be talking on this bill, the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill, and I did not think I would be hearing things about Giza.

I must admit, I was very persuaded by that very good list member from the West Coast, Maureen Pugh. I thought what she said earlier was very pertinent, very appropriate. I have listened to a couple of the speeches from the Opposition already, and it is just that I am not persuaded by the arguments, and I just wanted to reflect on some of the things that I have heard. Before I do that, I just want to reiterate what this bill is about. This is obviously about classifying certain World Heritage sites into schedule 4, which is, basically, a national park status. It affects some of the key areas in New Zealand, such as Tongariro National Park, the Subantarctic Islands, and, of course, parts of Fiordland—in particular, Te Wāhipounamu.

As the list member from West Coast noted, there are 30 mining licences already in operation, and some of them are undertaking some very valuable activities for the West Coast—particularly, it was noted, quarrying activities, metal quarrying activities, also the Aotea stone, but also the schist business that we heard about, which is a growing business down there. It was also noted that there are only 25 of these licences in operation. I think one of the important points that the list member made was that many of these activities—in fact, the bulk—occur between the mean high tides, which means that when the sea comes in and goes out, you cannot actually see any impact of those activities at all. I think that is a very pertinent thing.

It raises one of those issues that I think cuts across this bill, which is: how do you safely combine strong environmental and conservation requirements and desires alongside appropriate economic activities that fulfil and meet the wishes of people? What I think, in this case, one of the issues here—in fact, it raises three issues. First of all, how did the 30 existing licences get approved? I note that for each of those 30 licences, it would have required the approval of the Department of Conservation (DOC) for access, and it would have required the approval of the local authority. And, as I understand it, those approvals, those consents for activity in those very precious areas, are highly difficult to get and are subject to a great deal of consent requirements.

The second issue that it raises: should further licences be issued? And this starts to raise the issue around economic activities on the West Coast: what is appropriate in terms of supporting the communities on the West Coast? I think that is a very fundamental issue that cuts across this bill.

And the third issue it raises is: what do we do about the existing use rights? What do we do about the existing property rights of those people who have legitimately gone through the long and expensive process of getting a consent, not only from their local authority but also from DOC. It raises issues around compensation, and it raises a number of very significant property rights issues. And I am not sure, in the commentary on the bill—and nor have either of the two previous speakers from the Opposition raised any of those issues, and I think that is a serious deficiency in their argument.

I think, also, the importance of the natural environment—I think we all understand it. We all have a deep desire to make sure that the conservation estate of New Zealand is well maintained, is protected, but the issue is around how you bring about prudent economic activities that are of low impact, that are appropriate in the circumstances. I think that is the issue that we are talking about tonight, and I am very concerned that this bill has not had the blessing of, or consultation with, local iwi and is, in fact, opposed by the local mayor. On that basis, I must oppose this bill.

Of course the Green Party is proud to be supporting this bill. We commend the Hon Ruth Dyson for bringing it to the House. We support this bill because we value our greatest heritage sites.

Now, as that previous speaker Megan Woods has pointed out, these sites have been areas that are so outstanding that they have been granted World Heritage status—World Heritage status—and the bar for that is set very high—very high indeed. To be included on the World Heritage list, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet one of 10 very stringent criteria, ranging from being a masterpiece of human creative genius through to areas that contain threatened species of outstanding universal value, from the point of view of science or conservation. So let us make this quite clear. We are talking about the highest possible value, not just in New Zealand but in the world, to be included and granted World Heritage site status.

And what are we going to do? We are going to open them up to mining? I am not talking about little greenstone harvesting and stuff like that; we can easily sort that in the bill at select committee. We are talking about wanting to stop and protect these areas from things like open-cast coalmining—the most destructive forms of mining. That is what we absolutely do not want to see in a World Heritage site. So for us the choice is really simple. Do we leave the door open for multinational mining corporations to destroy areas of special significance and deny present and future generations their heritage, or do we extend the legal protection over our greatest heritage areas? For us this is absolutely a no-brainer because at the moment these areas, our places of outstanding beauty of special significance, are coming under pressure from all sources for economic exploitation.

This bill we regard as an effort to secure proper and appropriate protection for some of the most precious heritage areas so that they are safe from the most destructive forms of land use. We are talking here about mining. It is timely to be having this conversation because, as we have seen recently in the news, National seems to be hell-bent, one way or another, on opening up high-value conservation land to coalmining—high-value conservation land that is home to thousands of New Zealand’s iconic species. That has just been absolutely confirmed for me by the speeches that National members have given today in the House.

When we consider that there are nearly 3,000 species that are threatened in New Zealand, and a further 3,000 are believed to be endangered but cannot be classified as such because not enough is known about them, and all that stands between us and witnessing the mass extinction of New Zealand’s precious species is time, then habitat destruction is not helping. Mining does not help to protect these species. You cannot say on one hand that we are going to protect threatened species like the kiwi, and on the other hand open up kiwi habitat to mining and coalmining. They are not compatible, no matter how you spin it. We should not be mining any land of high conservation value or high cultural value—not in our national parks, not in our schedule 4 lands, and certainly not in an area that is a World Heritage site, because it is impossible to put back what has been destroyed. We need to love it, we need to protect it. We will support this bill.

I rise to take a call tonight in opposition to the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill, in its first reading. This is a bill designed to add World Heritage sites to schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991.

Can I start by acknowledging the first call on the Government side, from Maureen Pugh, the member of Parliament based down on the West Coast. I must say, personally, I thought that was one of Maureen Pugh’s best speeches in the House, and I think it shows what happens when a member of Parliament stands up and is connected to what they are saying. This was in total contrast to the lead speaker from the Opposition side, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who stood up and very much did not believe what she was saying. Compare that with Maureen Pugh, who was emphatic—a typical Coaster, who knew—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The first thing we will have is Louisa Wall withdrawing and apologising for interjecting while I am on my feet.

💬 Louisa Wall: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member Matt Doocey is a relatively new member but should know that one cannot get up in this House and say that members do not believe things they have told this House. The member will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. For me, the first speaker from the Opposition did not have the energy and the commitment of our first speaker—which shows when people in Wellington are trying to decide things for the people who actually live in that local area and know the impact there will be on it. I think a bill like this epitomises that.

We had Megan Woods, who talked about why World Heritage sites as a collective should be put in schedule 4. But I think, for her, her argument showed the flaws in this bill. In fact, every World Heritage site is completely different. I think that was the point that Maureen Pugh was trying to argue tonight—that on the West Coast there is an ability to look at the extraction of minerals for the benefit of the local economy. If it is a mere fact that mining is a problem—and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta did talk around protecting against the prospect of mining—what if we were able to safely mine? Is that an issue then?

I think, for me, in opposition to this bill, is that the speakers so far were unable to get up and prove why they are prejudiced about this. I believe that when we see a lot of young Kiwis going away every year—in the Kiwi tradition—and they travel to many countries, they quickly learn, in a globalised world, that a country that has a competitive economy actually protects its environment. All you need to do is to go to the many Third World countries around the world to see how they do not protect their environments.

To come up with this binary argument that it is either a developed economy or protecting the environment in fact is not real. It is not true. What happened to the memorandum of understanding between Labour and the Greens? Why is the Labour Party grandstanding on a Green policy that actually does not have much fact behind it? Why can we not protect our environment as well as support the local economy?

No wonder Maureen Pugh got up today so animated. We have people saying we do not want to bottle water in New Zealand. The West Coast has so much water, but other parts of New Zealand do not. So what we should be doing is working out what fits and what works in the local economies of New Zealand and the local communities of New Zealand. That is why I think putting all the World Heritage sites into schedule 4 will not allow that ability for local communities to decide what is right for them.

The West Coast—what a fantastic place. It is the region that time forgot. Everyone loves the Coasters. But I will tell you what: they get a hard time. And then they pick up the paper and read about bills like this, bills without any consultation. Why would you put a member’s bill in the ballot and not even go and talk to the people whom it affects? Where is the consultation? No one has answered that question tonight. Where is the consultation? On this side of the House we believe that we can develop our local economies and also protect our local environments. Thank you.

I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my colleague Denis O’Rourke to take a call in this first reading of the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill.

New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. It is not because we do not believe in and support the environment of this beautiful country that we call home; it is, in fact, because we do. I want to begin by echoing some of the sentiments of my fellow Waimakariri-based MP—in fact, my MP—Mr Matt Doocey, who mentioned the very, very passionate speech by Ms Pugh in support of the Hon Damien O’Connor’s constituents. I am sure that Damien O’Connor has similar sentiments. I do hope that during the course of this bill’s passage through this House, however long that might be, he has an opportunity to express those sentiments in support of his constituents, because I am sure that he does agree with many of them.

What this bill comes down to is not about extraction versus anything else. It is about extraction done in a sensible way. We live in a country and in an economy that relies on the extractive industries. It relies on mining, it relies on forestry, and it relies on primary industries. Everything around us is a reflection of that. The timber in this House is rimu, milled from the forests on the West Coast. This microphone—the cap around the top is made of urethane foam, which is sourced from oil. This metal thing here—I do not know whether it is steel or aluminium, but it comes from the mining industry. The carpet on the floor is a product of the farming industry. The seats here are leather. They come from farming as well. All of this is part of the extractive industries. All of us here today, in this House, we came here in cars, in taxis, in trains, whatever, made out of steel, powered by fossil fuels—all of them the products of the extractive industries.

We drove on roads that are made out of gravel and are sealed with bitumen, which are the products of the quarrying and mining industries. This activity happens. It happens and it supports our lifestyles and our way of life and our economy. It will happen somewhere if we want to live this lifestyle, whether we like it or not and whether it is in our backyard or not. We live in a part of the world that is probably the most beautiful. We have beauty for Africa in this country. This country is probably the most glorious expression of God’s love for mankind that he gave us this earth to live on.

When we look at this list in this bill—and it is quite a short list, I can see that—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Seven words.

Yes, seven words, my colleague says. When we look at this list of the areas that are intended to be added to schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, it starts with the Kahurangi National Park, and the next area is the waters and seabed of the fiords of Fiordland. It also talks about the Napier art deco historical precinct, the Kerikeri Basin, the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, the Kermadec Islands, and the Auckland volcanic field. No one in their right mind is even going to apply for, let alone think about, mining in Napier’s art deco district. They are not going to think about mining the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. They are not going to think about the Kermadec Islands. And, certainly, no one in their right mind is going to go digging a mine in a volcanic field. So it all comes down to the Kahurangi—not just that but other areas that are determined to be World Heritage areas in the future by the United Nations, which we actually do not have any control over.

It comes down to the West Cost—the West Coast, which gets the rough end of the pineapple, as Ms Pugh intimated. The West Coast, which supplies a great deal in the way of what goes in to build this country: the coal, the gold, and the timber—the extractive industries. The minerals and the products that supply the good things in life that the rest of us enjoy, and that greenies and Labourites and other people in urban areas in this country who have never been there enjoy the fruits of, without realising the effort, the struggle, and the economic contribution that the people of the West Coast make to this nation through the extractive industries.

We can have both. We can have the wide open spaces, we can have the pristine clean, green wilderness, and we can have mining as well, as long as it is done properly. New Zealand First supports that being done in ways that tick all of those boxes, most importantly in ways that take a proportion of the wealth—the royalties—from that extraction that comes back to the Government and send it back to that area whence it came. New Zealand First supports the environment, but we cannot support this bill.

What can I say after such an amazing speech? Hopefully, Hansard gets that recorded right, because I thought that Mr Prosser’s speech echoed everything that my colleague Maureen Pugh articulated so passionately in her contribution at the beginning of this debate. I too agree that you can have a balance between the environment and mining and economic development—all balanced in harmony with each other. I agree that what it is about is driving the economy in a harmonised way with the environment.

I was quite surprised to learn that nobody had spoken to the West Coast Regional Council, that nobody had spoken to Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio , and that nobody had taken the time to go out and have a discussion about putting this bill forward. When we start looking at the prospect of iwi in their various rohe and we look at the opportunities—the economic opportunities—for iwi, here we have one hapū, Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio on the West Coast, that had not even been given an opportunity to have any input, any discussion about something that will affect their ability for economic development on the Coast.

As the member Mr Prosser had said, the West Coast is the most important economic area for the South Island, when it comes to the extractive industry. It is a small area, it is a long, drawn-out area, yet the amount of money that can be generated from that area is humungous. When I sat and I listened to the way he explained how everything in this room is a product of the extractive industry, I was absolutely stunned. When we do start to look at this, this is the importance of the extractive industry, with mining being part and parcel of that industry.

I am taken aback by the information and detail around the various mining licences that have come forward, which have been revealed through this particular bill, whereby we have 19 small beach sand gold operations operating, and that when the tide comes in it wipes out all evidence of them being there. That never ever came to discussion. It was through the investigation of everything around this bill that that was brought forward, and we start to see that that information, which should have been included when the bill was being drafted, was, basically, not there.

I want to say that when my colleague Maureen Pugh got up, being the ex-Mayor of West Coast Regional Council, she knew exactly what she was talking about. She is the one who has the passion; she brings the voice of the Coast. I have been to the West Coast as a guest of Maureen Pugh, and I have sat and I have listened to the many people I have met—businesses, regional councillors, the lot—talk about the admiration they have for Ms Pugh for how she gives voice to the people of the West Coast, and she has done it in talking to this bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: By George, she’s done it!

She has done it by talking to this bill. I am very proud of what she has done. I am very proud of the work that she continues to do for the West Coast and, to be honest, I cannot support a bill that will actually wipe out economic development on the Coast. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I find it astonishing that there are Government members here who are opposing the recognition and protection from mining of our three World Heritage areas—sites that Unesco has recognised as being of international significance and value to all humankind.

The Green Party is very pleased to support the Hon Ruth Dyson’s bill, the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill. We have got these three World Heritage areas in New Zealand: south-west New Zealand Te Wāhipounamu, the Subantarctic Islands, and Tongariro. There are only 878 sites internationally that Unesco has recognised as being deserving of World Heritage status, and we have three of those in New Zealand. Tongariro was the first site to be recognised internationally for its natural and cultural landscape values: the spiritual and cultural values of those mountains, which were given so generously by Tūwharetoa to be our first national park.

South-west New Zealand has got astonishing values, with our ancient beech, kahikatea, rimu forests, the snowcapped mountains, and the rivers, wetlands, and lakes of that region. It is recognised as being an outstanding example of our geological history, our evolutionary history, and yet only part of south-west New Zealand is protected from mining as a national park: Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Fiordland National Park, and Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. There is an extensive area of conservation land, from Gillespies Beach near Fox Glacier right down to the Hollyford River, that is open to mining. Given this Government’s plans to continue with its extractivist economic policy to increase mining on the West Coast, we need this bill to protect those areas of the South-west New Zealand World Heritage site that are outside national parks.

This economic development study, which the Government—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)—has commissioned for the West Coast, has at its heart increasing mining on the Coast. It is proposing what the Government is calling a single window for considering applications for more mining, and what that means is that the provisions of the Conservation Act will be given much less attention. You will have the district councils and the regional council coming together in a whole-of-Government process with central government agencies like MBIE, and giving that tick to mining applications.

We will have the Department of Conservation (DOC), which once upon a time would have seriously looked at the ecological impacts of mining on the conservation estate, being suppressed and told to grant consent, because under this National Government we have seen DOC reduced to a mere shadow of its former self in terms of advocating for conservation.

So we need this bill, particularly in south-west New Zealand, because of the extensive areas that the Government wants to open up for mining as part of its regional development strategy on the Coast. This document that MBIE has put out—and the Ministry for Primary Industries has put its name to, as well, and that the Ministers have signed off on—is all about more mining.

It also proposes selling off conservation land on the West Coast, and that is because of the pressure that the mining industry is putting on the Government. I think that was symbolised tonight in the TVNZ item where Minister Joyce had been flown around the West Coast by Stevenson Mining to look at the Te Kuha site. He was labelled the “Minister of Conservation”. We have Steven Joyce as Minister of Finance telling the Minister of Conservation that conservation land is going to be opened up to more goldmining, more coalmining, and more extractive industry, which will destroy its conservation values.

The Green Party recognises the international value of our World Heritage sites and wants them protected from destructive mining operations. We are very happy to support this bill.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i Te Whare nei e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Tonight there have been impassioned speeches on both sides of the House around this Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill. If you want to talk about impassioned speeches, I had one just a few hours ago with some of the representatives of Te Māhaki ki Makaawhio. One of the things that they were very, very disturbed about was actually the lack of consultation, which has been highlighted here quite well this evening. One of the things that they were upset about was the fact that they did not know that this particular bill was actually going through the House, so that highlights the fact that there was a lack of consultation.

When we look at the Te Māhaki ki Makaawhio people, they are the real people of the greenstone. They are the ones who actually are the kaitiaki of Te Wāhipounamu. That area is very sacred to them, down in the south-western side of Te Wai Pounamu.

One thing that they have asked is that when looking at this bill and when you look at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu claim settlement, what they have given there and what they have received—when we took a look at Aoraki mountain, that was given back to Aotearoa New Zealand. Then, when you look at those sites, what they feel around this bill is that it actually extinguishes a lot of their rights, particularly to take the very, very scarce Aotea pounamu and also another piece of pounamu, which is found only down there, called snowflake. That pounamu is really what these people are about.

They also said tonight that there are protections here under the Conservation Act. There are protections here, particularly around mining. The fact is that when they look at the local industries there—I mean, if suddenly this bill was to go through, you know, they own part of those businesses there that actually have no impact whatsoever on the environment or on conservation. They are small businesses of extraction, and if this happens then part of their businesses will be wiped out.

What they are asking is why we do not have some faith here, because there is actually legislation in place that these particular places can be protected. What they are also asking is why we cannot be unique, as we are. Why can we not work together to cohabitate, down in these areas, where there is a local economy that needs to—

Order! This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.