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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Methinks the Minister who introduced this bill doth protest too much. He was a member of that select committee that I chaired in the last Parliament, and, at the time, he went on and on and on about perceived inadequacies of the bill. The Resource Legislation Amendment Bill was the largest bill considered by the then Local Government and Environment Committee in the last Parliament, and it was a very detailed bill. It ran to some 700 clauses, it ran to over 250 pages, and, as the Minister said, the departmental report ran to about 450 pages. We heard submissions from interested parties from all around the country. Much of it was very detailed, much of it very technical, and if the Minister, who was so critical in introducing this bill, was so clever and so smart, as he likes to be—usually the smartest man in the room is how he likes to define himself—why didn’t he pick it up? Why didn’t he and his smart colleagues pick it up? Well, the simple answer is that it was a minor drafting error in a large, complicated, and technical bill.

Really, when the Minister introducing the bill criticises this legislation and the need for a slight amendment, really what he is doing is criticising the very hard and dedicated professional work of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, who did, on that bill, an extraordinary job—an absolutely extraordinary job. How those folk manage to do the work that they do on such long and complicated pieces of legislation always amazes me. They do a great job on behalf of this Parliament and on behalf of the people of New Zealand. To, effectively, criticise them, in the way that the Minister has, I find reprehensible and appalling.

This is a very minor, technical piece of amendment legislation, and, indeed, actually, it really doesn’t need to be a bill in its own right. This is something that normally would be amended by way of a statutes amendment bill, and there is opportunity for the new Government to do that. But so bereft are they of their legislative agenda and their legislative programme, that they appear to be using this very minor, technical, administrative amendment to correct a mistake—a mistake that was a drafting error: a simple drafting error in a large bill. We know it was a simple drafting error, simply, because the Cabinet minute indicates that the ministerial policy was set correctly and right and it followed the principle that is well established in the principal Act: that the user pays. So the Cabinet minute—and there were some 400 Cabinet minutes relating to this bill—clearly indicates, as it does in the impact summary that has been provided by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE), that the error relates to cost recovery provisions for boards of inquiry appointed under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012, and that this has resulted in a misalignment between what Cabinet intended when it approved proposals to align the decision making under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act with the Resource Management Act. So it’s a simple matter.

Then that asks, and begs the question, as to why the Government is seeking to use the time—the valuable time—of Parliament and a select committee process to make an amendment of this sort through a full legislative process. Really, all it can be is one of two options. The first option is probably that they want to flesh out and fill out, somehow, an incredibly thin legislative agenda to keep the House busy, in some way, over the next few months while they find a way to bring effect to their grandiose promises and slogans of their election campaigning to policy fruition. They’re all finding that an awful lot more difficult than they first imagined. The process of turning slogans into policy action is incredibly difficult, as the new Government is finding out. So that’s one option that they have, in terms of bringing this legislation to the House.

The second one is rather more cynical and, I suspect, may have something to do with their real agenda. That is that they propose to use this very simple, technical amendment legislation to act as some kind of Trojan Horse for bringing to the House some kind of Supplementary Order Paper that will fulfil a wider agenda than we are being told about today. Now, I would hope that that’s not the case, because this is a Government that campaigned on openness and transparency. They haven’t delivered on that, of course, and, only six months into it, this has been one of the most closeted and deeply hidden Governments that we’ve had in the history of our Parliament. So we know to be suspicious—we know to be concerned and worried about what they want to do.

If we come back to this bill, it’s a very simple matter. There were five submissions made when MFE went out for discussion with it. All five came back and said that they supported it. So, I do wonder what the motive of the Government is in bringing this to the House. We do know that there does need to be a correction, and we accept it on this side—it was a technical error and it does need to be corrected. We argue that this is not the best way to do it, that this is not the most efficient or effective way to do it, but we will support this bill. What’s more, we will support the Government’s intention to bring it quickly to resolution so that the error can be corrected and so that the taxpayer is not going to be put at expense unnecessarily, due to a very minor drafting error. It will be, probably, during the course of this administration—no matter how short it might be—that they will probably bring legislation to the House that does need amendment at some stage too. So there will be a lot of that yet to come in this Government’s short tenure, I’m sure.

To sum up, and because we don’t want to extend it any longer than is necessary, this is a minor, technical, administrative correction of a drafting error to an incredibly long, detailed, and complicated principle Act that had many moving parts. On this side of the House, we support the bill, and I commend it to the House.

I seek leave that, at the conclusion of first reading, the bill proceeds forthwith through all remaining stages without debate and on one vote.

Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I rise to take a very brief call on this particular bill. It is the case that the devil is in the detail. The point was well made by my colleague Minister Parker when he said that there were a number of fixes that needed to happen but he was going to tackle this one first because, fundamentally, he didn’t believe that costs should be attributed to the taxpayer when they should have rightly gone to private interests—in this case, an applicant.

I have heard the comments raised by the speaker before me, Scott Simpson: the issues about filling in time in the House and that the bill is a guise for wider reform. Actually, the bill is an opportunity to find a necessary response to a fix that was intended but never got done, and that the Minister could have done but didn’t, and that the select committee, in all its consideration of all the submissions that went before it, still didn’t pick up. So while the previous speaker has said it was the intention, the simple fact of the matter was that it was never ever done. So one has to ask the question: was it really the intention to implement the fix that Minister Parker is proceeding to undertake today? Was it really the intention of the sponsoring member of the Resource Legislation Amendment Act to actually ensure that costs didn’t pass on to taxpayers? Well, we have to assume, actually, when the Resource Legislation Amendment Act was passed and there was no change of this nature, that, actually, it was what we believe it to be—a set of amendments that intended to pass on costs to the private taxpayer.

So I’m pleased that Minister Parker has addressed a small but important issue. I’m pleased to see the advice that has come forward in terms of the need to ensure that a fix is addressed. Although we have received advice that the exact costs that will be recovered aren’t exactly known, it’s an important fix that has to take place. I would invite the select committee, in their consideration of this matter, to investigate further the range of cost recovery that could be contemplated or that will apply. I’m sure that will attract some attention, and it certainly will attract attention from those submitters who were briefly contacted on this amendment.

As I say, Minister Parker recognises that it’s a simple but important fix to address the issues around cost recovery.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It could be done today.

It could be. The comment was made that it could be done today, but by sending it to the select committee, by ensuring that there’s consultation on this necessary fix—where, actually, a user-pays system will impact on somebody—then, through the submission process, those views can be heard. We certainly don’t want to ignore the views of people who will actually absorb the costs and the impact of the amendment of this particular bill.

Again, I didn’t intend to take a huge call. It is a simple but necessary fix to the bill. It’s important to ensure that submissions are heard at the select committee, that the select committee get the opportunity to ask the questions on exactly the range of costs that may attribute to the applicant, and investigate the impact of that and perhaps what the perceived issues might be around that, to ensure that we don’t have to come back to the issue again. In fact, what we can be assured of—and certainly Minister Parker is that kind of Minister—is that a thorough consideration of all the issues will take place at the select committee. I’m sure once it is heard in full and comes back to this House, we can be assured that it will achieve what it’s intended to, that costs don’t pass on to taxpayers when they don’t need to, that those who will be absorbing the costs, namely the applicants, will be fully aware of the range of costs that will attribute to them, but also the select committee would have had the opportunity to investigate whether there are any unintended consequences of attributing costs to users.

I intend to take only a brief call on this, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Why? Why?

The member opposite, Mr Shane Jones, questions why. That is because this corrects a minor drafting error in a bill last year. It was the largest bill that was passed in the course of the Key-English Government. It had made over 140 changes to both the Resource Management Act and to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012.

This bill does two things. In the course of that legislation, new Part 3A was added to the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) legislation. If you look at the Cabinet minute, it was clear that the intent of the Government was that Part 3A would not be subject to the powers that a Minister has to direct the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). That was not carried through in the way in which the legislation was finally drafted. It certainly said a direction could not be provided for Part 3, but it did not specifically refer to Part 3A.

The second issue in the bill is in respect of cost recovery for marine permits. The larger bill, as a consequence of improving the economics within the Environmental Protection Authority, aligned the board of inquiry process with the decision-making process of the EEZ legislation. It failed to provide for insurance that the EPA could recover the costs in that change. Again—and I note, there were 241 Cabinet minutes from that—if we refer back to the Cabinet minutes, they make it quite plain that the Government’s intent was for cost recovery. So what this bill does is correct those two minor drafting errors.

I’ve listened to the Minister’s introductory speech, and he has made criticisms of the previous Government. I would draw to the attention of members opposite that it was actually members on this side of the House—National members—who insisted that that bill be subject to a full select committee process, and it was actually members of the Labour Party that opposed the substantive Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) going through a select committee. I would suggest that any Minister that’s brought a bill over 500 pages long through the process of the Parliament would not be surprised that sometimes there’s a legislative error of this sort.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Unheard of!

Mr Jones says “Unheard of!”; my response back would be, “Only those that have done nothing have never made a mistake.” Now, I would finally—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Ask “Matua Shane”.

“Matua Shane” might, in some time, reflect on that.

The last point I’d make is that the Minister made a big deal of the fact that the longer that this lack of cost recovery exists there’s a risk that someone may lodge an application for a marine permit with the Environmental Protection Authority and not have the capacity for cost recovery. My colleague Scott Simpson, who heard the submissions on the original bill, very wisely said that this bill was totally consistent with the original intent and sought the leave of the House to get the bill passed through all stages today and to correct that error. It is somewhat unusual for a Government member to block that occurring, and that really does raise a question. Actually, the Government seems more interested in using this bill for a narrow political purpose than actually acting in the Government’s and New Zealand’s interests of ensuring that this minor error is immediately corrected.

The last point I’d make is that I note that on the Table of the House is a 600-page SOP on another bill. If there is a lesson to learn for Parliament from this amending bill it is that where we do have SOPs, at the very least, send them to a select committee. And, even when you send them to a select committee, for very large substantive reforms there will be drafting errors, and what our job collectively as parliamentarians is is to ensure that they are minimised. So National is indicating it supports this bill. Our only question for the Government is why we would not want to get on, correct this error today, and ensure that there is no potential cost to the taxpayer.

Kia ora and thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s my privilege to stand on behalf of New Zealand First and speak on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

I’d like to note my thanks to the Minister, the Hon David Parker, for his opening comments about fixing one of many, many, many mistakes in the original Act. This is an error in legislation—somewhat shambolic legislation. And noting, too, the Hon Scott Simpson who mentioned that it was in fact a minor drafting error and does not need to be in a bill of its own right; but actually, we on this side of the House feel that it must. I’d also like to acknowledge the previous speaker for his training video.

To this bill in hand: it will amend the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 to ensure those that are applying for notifiable marine consents pay for the board of inquiry that considers their applications, rather than the taxpayer picking up those costs. So New Zealand First believes that this in fact is a very sensible piece of housekeeping legislation.

So what will the bill do—this small, technical bill? It will amend the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 and it will enable the Minister to recover from an applicant the actual and reasonable costs incurred in relation to a board of inquiry appointed under the Act—all those reasonable costs that will be incurred in relation to that board of inquiry appointed under the Act to decide an application for marine consent.

This change will ensure that a process conferring a private benefit results in a private, rather than a public, cost. It’s a very narrow scope—this bill. It relates only to that cost recovery for marine consents under section 20. Now, what are those activities under section 20? They are the construction, placement, alteration, extension, removal, or demolition of a structure on or under the seabed. Maybe it’s a submarine pipeline on or under the seabed, the abandonment of said submarine pipeline. It could in fact be the removal of that said submarine cable that’s on or under the seabed; the removal of any non-living natural material from the seabed or subsoil; the disturbance of the seabed or the subsoil in a manner that’s likely to have an adverse effect on the seabed or subsoil; also the deposit of anything or an organism in or on or under the seabed, and the destruction, damage, or disturbance of the seabed or subsoil in a manner that’s likely to have an adverse effect on marine species or their habitat. So, yes, it is a very important amendment to this piece of legislation.

I’d just like to take a little pause for a moment and take our time back to those early days in the 1800s—the era after the Napoleonic Wars, and when we had kauri forests. It was in hot demand for ships’ spars. Now, as the Australian colonies grew, they also needed a lot of timber for their housing. So when the first Europeans came to New Zealand, to the northern parts of the North Island, Tai Tokerau, in fact—the vast kauri forests and 1,200,000 hectares of this beautiful taonga. Now, today, barely 4,000 hectares of the original forest remain. The rest was felled for timber or cleared for farms.

Legislation like the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act is similarly important for our natural resources. Obviously, times have changed, and attitudes have changed towards the natural environment—but not for some National Party members. They still hold, in fact, the view that the natural environment is a resource that must be handed over to industry at no cost—take what you want; total pillage. Now, you may remember, in fact, how full of enthusiasm the National Party was to gut the Resource Management Act. In fact, that tragic coalition partner, the “Dancing Queen” from Epsom, wanted to throw the whole thing out and indulge in a kind of colonial consumption of natural resources. It amazes me that this shell company is still existing today.

In 2017, the National Government made a series of amendments to the Resource Management Act and the exclusive economic zone—so much for the revolution. Instead, what we got was added complexity and costs being shifted on to the taxpayer. That’s the crux of this matter. As we now know, the main feature of the Key Government was to transfer as much of the taxpayer-generated wealth as it could from ordinary New Zealanders up to the big end of town.

The first amendment the Government wants to make to the Resource Management Act is to shift those costs back to where they properly belong, away from the taxpayer. So, similarly, taxpayers should not pick up the bill for marine consents. This is why New Zealand First absolutely supports the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. It fits perfectly into our policy.

This bill was introduced to ensure that those applying for these notifiable marine consents pay for them themselves rather than the taxpayer picking up the cost. This was a National Party mistake, due to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act not having cost recovery provisions for boards of inquiry. It takes brains and diligence, though, to sort this stuff out, and we are doing just that right now—not the short-term sloganeering mentality of the previous Government. That is why this Government is taking a painstaking approach to getting it right, and this bill is a prime example of how the previous Government didn’t do the job properly. This Government is now spending time fixing it up.

New Zealand First supports the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill as being a very sensible piece of legislation. We are proud to support it, correcting a series of legislative mishaps and pointing towards more important work on the Resource Management Act, which will come shortly. I commend this bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Seven months—seven months we’ve sat in the Environment Committee, reflecting on “I wonder what this Government is going to prioritise in terms of the environment?” Seven months we’ve sat there. We’ve had inquiries on plastic bags. We’ve had fantastic should-be inquiries on plastics in the ocean, and we reflect every Wednesday “I wonder what we’re going to get when this Government finally fronts with their priority?” Well, here we go. It is the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. This is it. For those of you watching at home, this is it. One page—one page only that simply changes a single section that enables the Crown to, essentially, get cost recovery from any party that’s a party to marine resource consent.

That’s it—a single drafting error. These things occasionally happen. We had, as you’ve heard the speakers on this side, an extraordinary piece of legislation that had 700 pages, 250 substantive clauses, and there was one line that was omitted. Here we have it: one page—minor change full stop. We sit here on this side saying, “Yep, that has clearly been omitted.” We didn’t pick it up through the select committee, despite having the self-professed brain of the House, David Parker, pour over every single line. Somehow, it managed to get through the keeper.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: You mean it slipped past him?

It must’ve slipped past him, Mr Simpson. It did. But here we are suggesting that we spend a few minutes reflecting in unison on the importance of this process in terms of acknowledging it needs to be done and agreeing between us that let’s get it done. We’ve had this fantastic suggestion from Mr Simpson that we have this conversation today, none of us are in disagreement, everyone can read the clause, and it all makes sense. Let’s pass it. Let’s get on with it and move on to more substantive—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Let’s do it.

Let’s do it, even. Let’s move on to more substantive pieces of legislation, which, one assumes, now we’re into month eight, isn’t going to be the signature policy of the Labour - Greens - New Zealand First Government, but, hey, it may be. But, either way, let’s support it here today, get it done, and actually show New Zealand that occasionally the Government can agree with the Opposition and be efficient in terms of the legislative process. I support this.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the contribution from Todd Muller, the man from Te Puna, I do just want to draw the House’s attention to the comment made in respect of my senior colleague the Hon David Parker. A comment was made in that member’s remarks to this House that he was the self-professed brains of this Government. I haven’t heard that statement made by that member, and I felt that it was an inappropriate articulation of that member.

I don’t think that’s an appropriate point of order.

Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

Now, Mr Muller’s comments previously—of course, if the National Party was occupying the Government benches, they would be proceeding full tilt into changes that would make no sense to the Resource Management Act and to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, which serve to complicate the legislation, which override public participation rights, which shut out the public, and which made it easier for their developer mates to go ahead with subdivisions, without any opportunity for public participation. This Government does things differently.

This has got to be corrected, because at the moment it would cost the public and taxpayers and cost the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), if the bill doesn’t get passed, for any notified applications that go to a board of inquiry under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. There will be change coming on the Resource Management Act, but it will be a lot more coherent and carefully thought-through than that complicated Resource Legislation Amendment Bill (RLAB), which the National Government introduced and which completely turned the whole process into a shambles. Has it demonstrated any benefits to the administration of resource management in New Zealand now? No.

So this bill is necessary because of a major oversight by the last Government. The EPA has a small budget of some $30 million; $25 million of that comes through Vote Environment—the balance is from applicants’ fees. The EPA is organised to recover from applicants the fees for processing their applications, because, as Ms Marcroft noted, the benefits are to the applicant. But here, because the Government made the mistake under the RLAB legislation, it meant that any applications in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) for things like seabed mining and for things like new drilling that went to a board of inquiry and were notified for public submissions—it left the EPA bearing the costs of that process. So what this bill will do is it will ensure that those costs can be recovered.

This consultation, done with industry participants and others, indicated that there was broad support for that. What it does too is correct the inconsistency which currently exists in the legislation that if it was a non-notified activity going through a marine consent process under the EEZ legislation, the cost could be recovered, but if it was going to a board of inquiry, it couldn’t. It also corrects the inconsistency with the Resource Management Act where boards of inquiry, under that piece of legislation—their costs can be recovered from the applicant.

So given the way in which the past National Government starved the EPA of resources, given the fact that it only allocated a measly $4 million a year for the last three years for the EPA to undertake its functions in the exclusive economic zone—the fourth-largest EEZ in the world—the last National Government did not provide that as baseline funding. So this bill is critical to prevent taxpayers and the public being burdened with the cost of processing. So it’s fixing mistakes of the last Government, and it’s ensuring that those costs can be recovered if they’re actual and reasonable. Of course, it’s a factor of National Governments that they look to socialise the cost but privatise the benefits. So this bill is correcting that under the Resource Legislation Amendment Act.

The costs of not putting the bill through are significant, because the decision-making committees, which are appointed by the EPA—they, in the oil and gas space, have generally cost between $450,000 and $950,000 per application. Under the Resource Management Act, the average board of inquiry costs in the region of $1.6 million. So those are significant costs for a small organisation like the Environmental Protection Authority, and those costs should rightly be borne by applicants.

This bill will ensure that it only applies to applications that are made after the Act comes into force, so it is not retrospective. It is a good piece of legislation that corrects the mistakes of the last Government, which ensures that private applicants have to pay for the cost of their application rather than the public. I commend the bill to the House.

I’m very pleased to stand in support of this bill. Indeed, the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, which went through the last Parliament, through the select committee process, as we understand, 700 clauses, 250 pages of legislation was an incredibly significant piece of legislation that is probably one of the most complex bills that came before the last Parliament; certainly, a very broad bill with very, very many submitters. So for a situation where there was an error in drafting to get through that committee, the Local Government and Environment Committee—I guess, you know, in many regards, a committee made up of different parties—it’s important for us right now to rectify that, because, as the previous speaker, Eugenie Sage, said, the change is to ensure that the process that confers a private benefit or marine consent results in a private rather than a public cost. I think everybody across this House understands and supports that principle.

So we are very pleased and happy to support this bill—a very minor adjustment, as previous speakers have said. Perhaps a statutes amendment bill would have been the right vehicle that would take far less time in the parliamentary process to correct this change. So, with that, I’m happy to support and commend this bill to the House. Thank you very much.

I call Angie Warren-Clark. This is a split call, as I understand it.

Yes, thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is my pleasure to stand and take a split call on this Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. It’s a long name, so I think people will hear, for the benefit of those at home, the EEZ bill as abbreviated. Now, the Act came into place in 2012 and was amended in 2017, and that’s predominantly what everyone is talking about here today.

I need to commend the Minister for the Environment, David Parker, for his excellent and timely intervention into a law that had an error in it. Now, we have the Opposition saying that “Oh, you know, it was a very big and complicated and complex bill.” We have the Opposition saying that, and that this is a very minor thing that needs to be repaired. Well, some of us here believe that the hundreds and thousands of dollars that this may potentially cost us here is actually an important matter, and it needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed quickly.

The hundreds and thousands of dollars that this error has created and may potentially, going forward, create—it’s important that we address this matter. It’s important because some of us across the House believe that hundreds and thousands of dollars is a lot of money. Now, the Opposition may not, but we do. So we do not apologise for bringing this matter directly, and here, and now, to get this matter addressed.

I’ve just thought, for the benefit of the listeners at home, of two things in regards to this. First of all, what is the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the sea? So we’re talking about this. For the lay person, it’s the 200-nautical-mile zone that we’re talking about, that we—

💬 Stuart Smith: What’s that in kilometres?

Nautical miles.

💬 Stuart Smith: I said how many kilometres?

It’s approximately 15 times the size of our country, and if you do want to know, sir, it is approximately 14,883,744 kilometres. So for those people who are interested at home, it’s actually about 15 times our land mass.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Wikipedia’s done well today.

Wikipedia is amazing. However, the important thing here is not everyone listening at home has a computer. So I think it’s important that we’re actually talking to an audience that needs to know these things.

💬 Hon Member: Arrogant Opposition.

Absolutely arrogant Opposition.

So, moving right along. As I say, I support the Minister, moving forward, in this, and I’d also like to thank the member Jenny Marcroft for explaining section 20 on the activity. I think she did a really good job of that, and it, basically, talks about why we would need these boards of inquiry. I’m also proud to state that the Minister for the Environment has signalled, going forward, that this is just the first. The reason we’re doing it now, the reason we’re doing it this way, is that we actually need to get it moving to prevent large bills.

There is currently a live application. It’s currently under way at the moment. That EEZ board of inquiry process is likely to cost quite a lot of money, and, as the Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, stated, that party across the floor only gave $4 million for that. So if we’re looking at the many, many hundreds of thousands dollars, we actually need to fix this quickly, we need to fix it appropriately, and we need to address it now today.

Finally, I would just like to state that we’re spending the country’s money to get this fixed. We hope that we’re not in this position again. We will continue with our legislative movement forward in terms of remediating any errors in the Resource Management Act amendments and this amendment. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m very pleased to take a call on this, the first reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

I listened very carefully to Mr Parker earlier. He was very concerned about the costs of this legislative process and what these costs were incurring and how terrible that was, and saying that we’d made a mistake, and wasn’t it terrible that all of these costs are being incurred. So if the Minister is so concerned about these costs that he spent quite a bit of his speech talking about these costs, why is he putting this bill through as stand-alone legislation? Why are we not seeing this as a statutes amendment bill? Why are we not seeing this as a truncated process—as we earlier said it should be but were voted down?

I suspect that the answer to this is that the Minister isn’t so concerned about the costs of the legislative process when he gets to have political point-scoring out of it. When it comes down to it, if it’s going to cost money, he doesn’t mind, as long as he gets to put the boot in. So his concerns about costs are absolute tosh.

Mr Parker is enjoying his time today up on his high horse over a very small technical drafting error that was overlooked in what was a massive piece of legislation. Mr Parker should perhaps be a bit more careful, because when a small drafting error occurs in some of his massive legislation that I presume is coming—we haven’t seen it yet; maybe it will come—as it does happen from time to time, we will be all over that like a rat up a drainpipe, because we have been listening today to speech after speech of members trying to take up their full allocation of time, wasting this House’s time and the public’s money on a bill that should always have been put into a statutes amendment bill.

Can I just say, look, this is a very small technical amendment. If someone wants to put in a marine consent requiring a board of inquiry process, accidentally, now the costs currently fall on the Crown. It was a mistake. It was a drafting error in the legislation. It was always the intention for the applicant to wear these costs.

If you want to apply right now for a marine consent to lay an underground cable or pipes under the seabed for private benefit, those costs do fall on the Crown. It was a mistake. It was a small drafting error that we are here to correct today.

This bill will align this board of inquiry process with the existing Environmental Protection Authority process, as well as with the Resource Management Act. It is a very sensible change. It needed to happen. Why we had to have a long process of speeches and select committee and more speeches is beyond me, because it is costing the taxpayer money, which Mr Parker said that he didn’t want to do. So, in saying that, I commend this bill to the House.

I think the Opposition needs to learn the difference between speed and haste. We want to do this, we want to get it done quickly, but we do not want to do it so hastily that yet another mistake is made.

Now, let me just go back to what this bill is about. This bill is about fixing up a mistake. We all concede that it was a mistake. We all concede that something went wrong in this 700-clause, 250-page bill that the then Government brought to the House to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA). We all know that something went wrong and we all want to fix it. So exactly what are we trying to fix here? The reason why we want to fix it is because money is at stake, because it’s actually costing us money and we do want to get the job done, but we want to do it properly.

So in order to do this properly—and I’d like to just point out that this in fact is part of our job. Our job, as parliamentarians, is to discuss the legislation, is to debate it in the House, is to take it through a select committee process. There is no need to truncate processes just for the sake of rushing stuff through the House. This House’s time is well spent debating this bill. Refusing to speak on the bill, refusing to take the time to deal with it in select committee—that is a waste of the democratic parliamentary process that we have built up over generations, and I urge the members of the Opposition to take this process seriously. It is our job to be here and to discuss this legislation, and I am proud to be doing it.

So let’s have a think about exactly what is in this legislation. It does fix a mistake, and it fixes a mistake that means that we cannot recover the costs associated with a board of inquiry into section 20 permissions under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. So what is in this section 20 that matters so much? What’s going on here? Well, it’s when people apply to conduct an activity, a particular activity specified in section 20 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012, within our exclusive economic zone, which extends about 200 nautical miles from our coast—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Settle, members.

—or, for the benefit of the Opposition, about 370.4 kilometres, for those who needed to know it.

But, more seriously, let’s have a look at what’s in section 20. So the sorts of activities that we want to make sure we inquire into properly to make sure that they are conducted well, using a board of inquiry, which incurs expenses, are listed in section 20 of the original Act. It’s the construction, placement, alteration, extension, removal, or demolition of a structure on or under the seabed. We’re talking about stuff that’s going on, on the seabed. It’s the construction, placement, alteration, extension, removal, or demolition of a submarine pipeline on or under the seabed. It’s the abandonment of a submarine pipeline that is on or under the seabed. It’s the placement, alteration, extension, or removal of a submarine cable on or from the seabed—so the removal of non-living natural material from the seabed or subsoil. It’s the disturbance of the seabed or subsoil in a manner that is likely to have an adverse effect on the seabed or subsoil. It’s the deposit of any thing or organism in or on or under the seabed. It’s the destruction, damage, or disturbance of the seabed or subsoil in a manner that is likely to have an adverse effect on marine species or their habitat.

This is important. This actually matters. We actually care about what happens on our seabed. We actually care about what happens in our exclusive economic zone. That’s exactly why in order to do this we have a board of inquiry, but they cost. And the way that the previous Government left the legislation, that cost was not going to be sheeted home to the user. And, like us, they agreed that we need to make sure that whoever is using this, whoever is going to benefit from it, actually needs to pay for the costs. But the mistake that was left in the legislation means that right now it is not the user who is going to wear those costs; it is the taxpayers of this country.

Now, they keep on saying, “Let’s rush it through. Let’s get it done hastily. Let’s make sure that we don’t waste any more time and money.” But already there are applications in place which now have to be funded by the taxpayer because of this mistake. So we are moving speedily but without haste to make sure that we get this right. That is exactly why we wanted it to go through a select committee process. It is exactly why we need to go through a process. It will be a truncated process, it will go quickly, but we will at least try to make sure we get the legislation right.

You see, I suspect that the real reason that the Opposition, the former Government, are just a little bit uptight about this is because it’s actually an object lesson in MMP Government. You see, we know that the former Government had a lot of trouble getting their RMA reforms through. We know they had to negotiate hard. We know that some of their support partners rejected many aspects of the RMA bill. We know that the particular reforms that have come through, their reforms of the RMA, have been left with perverse incentives sitting in there. That is because they couldn’t easily get a majority for it in the House. On this side of the House we have three parties who are working together to make sure we get it right—three parties holding the majority of votes between them, working to make sure that we will actually fix up this mess that has been left to us by the former Government.

I just want to sort of address some of the issues that the members of the former Government raised—that members did—in particular, this one. It was a line given to us by Mr Scott Simpson, the Hon Scott Simpson, that slogans are harder than Government. Well, I agree: slogans are harder than Government. We know that that bill was complicated. We know that it became harder than that. Sure, we know that they tried really hard to get it right, but the fact is they didn’t, and that’s why we’re having to fix it up now and having to take the process through the full stages to make sure that we get it right. I mean, they’ve been telling us that it’s a minor technical matter, but we already know that those boards of inquiry cost somewhere between $450,000 and $900,000 to pursue. That’s a lot of money to be worn by the taxpayer.

Now, look, the annual budget for this Government is usually in the order of $80 billion or so, and you might think that somewhere between $450,000 and $900,000 doesn’t matter so much in the context of a budget of $80 billion. But, really, a million here, a million there—soon you’re talking about real money. We actually do need to watch this and to make sure that it gets sheeted home.

We’ve been told that in fact we’re only having this process, that we’re only debating it in the House for a narrow political purpose. I suggest to the members of the Opposition that saving taxpayers’ money is never a narrow political purpose. It’s actually part of our job in this House. They’ve cried and cried and cried and are saying, “We must be efficient; we must get this through properly.” I tell you, there is no efficiency in having to go back to fix mistakes. There is no efficiency in having to bring this to the House again. But we will not confuse efficiency with effectiveness. We will get this bill right. We will take it through a proper select committee process to make sure that we really do understand what is going on. We really will give people who will be affected by this bill the opportunity to come and talk to us, to explain their concerns, and to talk about how they will adjust to it.

We will make sure we get it right and we will make sure that we save taxpayers’ money, not by wasting our democracy, not by wasting our hard-fought-for democratic processes, not by wasting the skills and expertise that we have built up through generations in how to develop good legislation, but by processing this speedily but without haste. Madam Assistant Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I will say to the member Deborah Russell, who has just taken her seat, that this is a very small bill—the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill—but she managed to exsanguinate every possible Government argument to support this bill, and I thought that was not a bad effort seeing as it was a pretty poor argument.

One of the main purposes of an Opposition, particularly when it comes to select committees, is to hold the Government to account and to go over the legislation with a fine-tooth comb to make sure—even though the Opposition may not agree with the legislation that it’s looking over in select committee, it needs to make sure it’s fit for purpose. That means making sure there are no mistakes, no unintended consequences in those bills, and that means calling people in to submit on it and hearing their submissions, ensuring that the Parliamentary Counsel Office has got the drafting right, going through the revision-tracked versions, etc., etc.

Now, it is a 700-clause bill, 250 pages—as we’ve heard ad nauseam; I’m not going to go on too much about that. But we had that select committee process, and two of the loudest wailers in this whole process this afternoon are David Parker and Eugenie Sage, both of whom were on that select committee. So if it’s such an obvious and poor mistake and it should have been found, why didn’t they find it? It’s really an admission of their own guilt.

Another point was made earlier about what this bill is about, and the Resource Management Act has been referred to several times in here and how they’re going to amend it. It makes one very suspicious. We saw a motion before to debate, at the end of this reading, and to go through all the other processes without debate, and that was voted down. Why would they want to take this on? Perhaps this is a Trojan Horse for a Supplementary Order Paper that we are unaware of. And this is the so-called transparent Government, which is really a joke when we’ve seen so many examples of it being anything but.

I’m going to finish with a quote from Craig D Lounsbrough which is on transparency, or the lack thereof: “To be found is to be exposed.”, so it’s little wonder that the Government is so lost. I support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s an absolute privilege to talk on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

As we’ve already heard, this bill is going to be amending the principal Act to make sure that those applying for notifiable marine consents have to pay the cost of the board of inquiry that’s considering their applications, because at the moment the bill for that is being picked up by the taxpayer.

What I want to do is just talk a little bit about what the original Act was trying to do, and then why we need to fix it. If you go back to the wording in section 10 of what the original Act was trying to do, it was “to promote the sustainable management … of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf; and … protect the [marine] environment from pollution.”

So what this actual Act is about is the equivalent of the Resource Management Act (RMA) on land, and what it’s making sure is that if we do any activities in the marine environment, we are considering the protections of that natural environment. It’s pretty much very similar to the RMA in that it breaks up things into things that are permitted, discretionary, or prohibited. What we’re talking about today is about getting marine consents—very similar to resource consents under the RMA—for discretionary activities. So a lot of these consents have to be heard by a board of inquiry.

What are we talking about with these consents? Well—as Deborah Russell read out—in terms of the kinds of things you need to apply for, it’s things like seabed mining, putting in place pipelines, cables, construction of any kind of structure on the seabed, and anything that will disturb the seabed in a manner that’s likely to adversely affect the subsoil marine species and habitat.

I think the thing is, for me down South, we rely on our marine environment for a lot of our economic activity. So if you think about the Bluff Oyster and Food Festival and the contribution that makes to our local community, and the fact that we rely on those oyster beds to be in pristine condition—thinking about our tourism down in the Catlins, we’ve got a lot of wildlife that brings in a lot of visitors every year: the penguins, the sea lions.

I think the thing is if you think about things like pipelines that are laid on the sea-floor, they are seldom likely to contain substances that are conducive to a positive marine environment. So if we’re tinkering around with them, removing them, amending them, we need to make sure that we’re doing it properly. And to do that properly, we actually need to have proper consents in place to make sure we’re doing it in a safe way.

So what we are actually trying to do with this bill, though, is we’re trying to correct that legislative error that everybody’s been talking about, to make sure that the reasonable costs of those boards of inquiry get recovered from the applicants rather than having to be met by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE) and collected by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). What we’ve got at the moment is people that are benefiting or are likely to benefit privately from their applications and then the taxpayers picking up the cost, when in reality the cost of those applications—for the cost of the hearings, the technical advice, all those kinds of things—needs to be borne by those who are going to get the economic gain from those activities.

Unfortunately, what we’re doing at the moment—and this is why we need some haste—is that the taxpayer is picking up all of the bill. What we’re asking the Ministry for the Environment to do is to, in effect, write a blank cheque. The problem we’ve got at the moment then is that people are coming in for resource consents, for consents under the current Act, and we know that many of those consents, because they are very technical and of a really important nature, are likely to cost half a million, a million, two million dollars. So the problem we’ve got is at the moment the MFE’s going to have to pick up that tab every time somebody makes an application.

The other issue we’ve got is that we’re not going to be putting this in place retrospectively. And so what that means is until we change the legislation anybody that has got a consent currently in process won’t be having to foot the bill. And you know, for me in the health area, we’re already in an environment where budgets are constrained, because what we’ve had is nine long years of underinvestment across our health and social services, and yet what we’ve got here at the moment is a situation where one of our ministries is having to write blank cheques for several million dollars, potentially, at a time, and so we need to correct this as quickly as we possibly can.

So it’s actually quite a technical small amendment and it’s just got two or three main points. What it basically allows is the Minister to recover from an applicant the actual and reasonable costs in relation to a board of inquiry. It also allows for applicants to actually write in to the Minister and ask for an estimate of what those costs are likely to be, because if you are going to be putting in place something that’s going to have a huge financial outlay in an investment, you need to know up front what that’s likely to cost and factor that into your budgets. The other addition, basically, puts in that the Crown will be recovering those by the EPA on behalf of the Crown. So it’s very, very important that we are able to do that.

What we’re actually doing with this bill is making sure that this current Act is very closely aligned to the way the Resource Management Act does the same kind of consenting process on land and allows, under that legislation with the RMA, these costs to be recovered in a very, very similar way. But as I was saying, these amendments won’t come into force until the bill’s been enacted, and so what that means is there is some urgency in this space.

So I think, in summary, what we’re doing—the underlying Act—is aiming to protect our marine environment, and that is very crucially important for our tourism, for our fisheries. We can’t be having activities happening offshore where we get things like a pipeline that hasn’t been laid properly and we get ruptures that come in and affect our marine environment, our beach environment.

It has crucial economic impacts, and so what we’re allowing is for the EPA to recover the costs of these consents from those who are going to be getting private gain from those applications. What we’re talking about here is, you know, $1 million to $3 million at a time, so it’s potentially a significant financial risk. So we need to do this quickly. We just need to get on and do it with due process, but, as with any other application, we need to make sure that everything’s in place and correct. I therefore commit this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 11 June 2018 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The Standing Orders require there to be a debate in the House where there is a truncation of the normal length of a select committee hearing. There are good reasons for that. We in New Zealand have a unicameral parliamentary system, so we don’t have the effective ability of an Upper House to have a look at legislation that’s passed by the House of Representatives. There’s quite a lot of power that rests in the New Zealand system—effectively, in the executive. Therefore, if the executive, like me, come down and say, “Look, we think there should be a shortened select committee process.”, then it’s good that the House gets the opportunity to consider whether truncating the normal processes, given the absence of other checks and balances in the system—whether that shortened period of referral to select committee is justified. There’s no general proposition that you should never shorten select committee periods, and, indeed, the rules of the House even allow things to be done under urgency without any reference to select committee.

The judgment of the Government in respect of this issue is that we need to fix it within a relatively prompt period of time. There has been some limited consultation with industry and affected parties in advance of putting this legislation into the House. If I could summarise that, the result of that consultation was that they agreed that this was a mistake and that the underlying policy objective of reinstating a cost recovery right on the part of the Crown for the reasonable costs that are incurred by the Crown in dealing with an application in the exclusive economic zone—that it ought to be fixed—when the Government had decided that this isn’t an appropriate case for retrospectivity. So the people who currently have an application—there’s only one current application and that is, effectively, getting an exemption from cost recovery at the moment. We believe that there should not be retrospective effect in respect of that application, but we are concerned to bring this into effect within a reasonable period of time so that taxpayers aren’t meeting the cost of additional boards of inquiry.

It’s obviously possible for someone to bring an application before this comes into effect, and so there is some additional risk to the Crown in that regard. We think the appropriate balance is by seeking this to be reported back to the House by 11 June 2018 so that this loophole can be closed.

The bill is a simple one. It has about seven clauses, one of which is an amendment to the schedule in respect of transitional provisions. The main provision is set out in the proposed new section 52A in the underlying legislation, inserted by clause 5 of the bill. It’s readily understood. It will be readily understood by submitters.

The relevant select committee, as the Opposition has pointed out, actually hasn’t got a lot of existing business on its agenda, and so it’s well placed to put all of its attention—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: It’s a filler.

—into this. “It’s a filler.”, said the Hon Scott Simpson. It’s actually not. It’s fixing a mistake of the prior Government. I won’t go through that again. I would suggest to the House that it is appropriate that we have a shortened period of select committee consideration, to enable this to be reported back by 11 June 2018.

The Opposition finds itself in an interesting position in regard to this motion from the Minister for the Environment. The Minister has indicated that this is a small, technical, administrative correction to a legislative mistake—an error, an omission, made in the principal Act last year. We’ve heard debate during the course of the first reading that the substantive bill that was being considered last year was a big bill—complicated, and with many moving parts—but we’ve also heard from Government Ministers and members on that side about the need for urgency in resolving this matter, if for no other reason than to protect the long-suffering taxpayer from the potential cost of a board of inquiry if a consent application was to be received before this legislation could be amended.

Now, it appears that there is one such consent application pending and that, very shortly, the process by which a board of inquiry is to be established and set up will need to commence, and at that point, costs start clocking up. At the moment, unless this legislation is amended, and amended quickly, those costs will be sheeted home to the taxpayer.

We on this side agreed, as did the whole House—there was unanimity about the first reading decision—and at the end of my contribution in the first reading, I sought leave to have this bill, at the conclusion of the first reading, proceed forthwith through all remaining stages—without debate and one vote, forthwith. Now, bizarrely and strangely, that matter was objected to—as is, of course, allowed for—but when we heard contributions from a variety of Government members about the need for speed and haste in terms of sorting this out, we find that their objection to sorting it out right now, here, today, without further cost to taxpayers and without sending it to the long, albeit truncated, process of select committee that is, according to the Minister—he’s suggesting that it should be reported back in a shorter than normal period, by 11 June this year. We find ourselves on this side wondering why the Government wants to have it both ways.

Now we had two Ministers contribute to the first reading debate, both of whom served on the select committee, and they didn’t pick this error up at the time. We know that the error occurred unintentionally, because the Cabinet minute makes it very clear that the original intention of the Cabinet minute and the Cabinet proposal was to allow for charging for boards of inquiry by the applicant who was seeking consents under the exclusive economic zone legislation.

So there’s nothing here that any party in the Parliament disagrees with. It’s a very simple piece of legislation. There isn’t any contentious element to it. It is a remedial attempt to just correct—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! You’re speaking to the substance of the bill. You need to be speaking to the substance of the motion at hand. Thank you.

OK, thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, the substance of the motion is that the Minister wants a truncated select committee process, and the Opposition is suggesting to the House to let’s do it now. Why waste further time of the House, of the Parliament, and of the taxpayer on something on which there is unanimous agreement, when, in fact, we could resolve this matter right here, right now, today, in a way that would achieve legislative certainty and that would achieve an outcome that is agreed across the House by all members?

This needs to be done, it needs to be done quickly, and it needs to be done efficiently. It’s not contentious. It isn’t a matter that is going to require debate or scrutiny or intention. This is a matter that has actually already been considered by a select committee in the last Parliament. The good people at Parliamentary Counsel Office made a drafting error, and it seems now, to me on this side, that actually we’re wasting the time of Parliament by even sending it to a select committee when, with a simple agreement of members of the House, we could find ourselves resolving this matter this afternoon, here this very day, in a way that would provide absolute certainty for the taxpayer and for any applicant who’s seeking an exclusive economic zone consent under the legislation, and in a way that was absolutely intended by Cabinet during the last Parliament. It was just merely a drafting error on behalf of the hard-working and professional folk who are our parliamentary counsel officers.

So, on this side of the House, we would like to hear from Government members as to why they feel it necessary to send this bill, upon which there is unanimity across the House, to a select committee. We heard at first reading a frankly embarrassing speech from the chair of the Environment Committee, who clearly wasn’t able to divert herself from her pre-prepared speech notes to juggle nimbly her way to the situation where, on this side of the House, we’re prepared to do the job today. Get it done. Do it now. Do the job.

So I’m keen to hear from Government members as to why they want to actually delay this process. Yes, the select committee doesn’t have much work on its agenda at the moment. This does seem to be a strange piece of legislation to be the first Government legislation to go before the committee. This is not a piece of legislation or a time frame that one would have thought was the most demanding environmental matter on the Government’s agenda. Yet the Minister has come to the House and he’s said, “Look, we want to have a truncated select committee process. We want the committee to do its business, which should take very little time—in fact, probably no time at all—and report back by 11 June this year.” Now, what we’re saying is, well, why wait until 11 June when we’re ready, willing, and able, as a Parliament, to legislate today to resolve this matter once and for all, to give this matter finality, and to make it certain for everybody involved.

The one application that is before the Environmental Protection Authority will require attention sooner rather than later. On this side of the House, we’d like to help the Government. We’d like to help them work their way through this adjustment to Government and find that they can, with the cooperation of the Opposition—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! We are getting a bit repetitious. Do you have any new material to add to this debate?

I think that there may be other members on this side who want to participate in this debate, Madam Assistant Speaker. Certainly we are keen to hear from Government members as to why they think it necessary to have a truncated select committee process at all. I’m sure that there will be a number of them, including the Hon Ron Mark, who will want to make a contribution to this debate on why this select committee should be taking through to 11 June to do its work when we could solve it today.

The previous speaker, Scott Simpson, obviously hasn’t been listening. The Minister for the Environment and also the chair of the Environment Committee, Deborah Russell, set out very clearly the benefits of it going to a select committee. Unlike the Opposition, this Government believes in democracy. It believes in select committees. It believes in the opportunity for the public to make submissions. It believes in the process of select committees being able to improve legislation, having heard public submissions and considered them. That is why it is going to select committee. That is why there is a truncated process—because it is a small bill, it doesn’t need a long select committee process. But just ramming it through the House, as Mr Simpson is proposing, suggests that there is nothing to be gained from public submissions. Generally, bills are improved by having the public comment and the select committee listen and consider those comments. That is why we believe in democracy rather than, as National is suggesting—by going on and on in the House. What Mr Simpson also failed to realise is in relation to the current application by Tamarind, because this Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! We must stick to the substance of the motion—[Interruption] I just need to remind the member that this is not about the select committee process; that is agreed. It is about the report-back date.

My apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker. But the report-back date has been truncated in order to allow for some consideration, but not for the bill to take unnecessary time.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a call in this debate on the shortened report back that the Minister for the Environment, Hon David Parker, has proposed. For those who are listening and may not have seen one of these debates before, when the suggestion of a truncated report back is being proposed, it’s a month. The normal report back for any piece of legislation is six months. So to have a report back in three days over a month is, quite frankly, appalling.

But I’m finding myself in a bit of a contradiction in terms of when the Government wants the public to have scrutiny and when it doesn’t. So in terms of one of the other points that Hon David Parker made, I felt it was worth explaining, not just to the House but to those who might be watching over the internet or listening on their radio or watching this debate live on TV. Because we do have a unicameral system, it means that our Parliament and the scrutiny of the executive and decisions that are made by the Government is more precious—because there isn’t an Upper House. There is no other scrutiny. So when a piece of legislation like the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill is put before this Parliament, then the only opportunity for scrutiny is by the select committee—and not just the select committee; the key opportunity is for members of the public.

The Minister’s made a number of comments about the fact that it’s a simple piece of legislation, but, actually, from a public scrutiny and accountability consideration, whether it’s simple or complex is irrelevant. It is about scrutiny. It’s about public accountability. It’s about transparency. So when we have a shortened report back with little over a month, and a Budget in the middle of it, I might add—the ability for submitters to consider the implications—particularly when members opposite have said that they want to make sure that there are no mistakes.

Members on this side have talked about the need of the parliamentary process of the select committee to go through the legislation with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there are no mistakes and no unintended consequences. That is the role—that is a precious role—that our Parliament holds dear in terms of the scrutiny of legislation. I would be deeply concerned if this is a continual habit, to have shortened report-backs for pieces of legislation.

The other side say, “Oh, it’s not significant.” I would’ve thought the Greens would have thought it was incredibly significant for those who are requesting permits in this piece of legislation—the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. I would have thought they thought it was critical—the ability for the public to have a say, for the public to hear from the parliamentary select committee who will look after this piece of legislation, and for them to advertise that this bill is open for public consultation; the commitment of this Parliament to get legislation right. Particularly in this case, given that there has been an error, which is why this legislation is before us, I’m somewhat puzzled.

The Minister opposite didn’t outline and did not explain why only a month is being given, in terms of this report back. That is a crying shame, in terms of scrutiny. If it is, as the members opposite say, that it is simple—so I’m going to argue the other side of this one to see if they are listening. If it is as simple and straightforward as they would have the House believe, why don’t they take my colleague Hon Scott Simpson’s proposition? Why didn’t they put it through all stages today, if it was so straightforward and so urgent? So the Government can’t argue both ways on this extension—sorry, on this report back that’s been shortened.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Truncation.

It’s truncated to just over a month, when the normal period is six months. So it puts a huge burden on the public who might want to submit on this legislation—a huge burden. Let’s say, for example—I’ll walk the House through it. If the report back is 11 June, then the public submissions, if they’re lucky, might get a week. They might get a week to consider what that side of the House has already said is a significant and important piece of legislation, and our exclusive economic zone is a critical part of New Zealand’s environment—so less than a week for submitters to submit on a piece of legislation that every member of this House wants to ensure is accurate and is correct.

So I’m deeply puzzled as to why we have a Government that insists, and persists, on shortened report-backs for select committees. It’s a trend that we’ve seen in a number of different pieces of legislation.

💬 Hon Member: Oh!

It’s a trend that is damaging New Zealand’s democracy. That side of the House might think that it’s boring, but the members of the New Zealand public who hold this democracy dear to them want to know that this is a Government that is committed to transparency, to accountability, and to the ability for scrutiny of legislation that’s put before this House. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the Ardern-Peters Government can give that commitment to the New Zealand public.

This is important. When we talk about a truncated select committee process—so, giving members of the public potentially less than a week for them to provide a submission—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Five minutes ago you wanted to get on with it today. Now you’re complaining it’s truncated.

Members opposite can change their minds. I’m sure my colleague would be happy to put the motion again, if you’re in such a rush. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have a shortened report back and truncate it to just over one month, which is absolutely outrageous in terms of the public’s ability to interact with our Parliament, to interact with the legislation. It’s sort of smacking of a Government who knows best, and I would really hate to see that the new Government, only six months in, has a bit of a pattern of not allowing New Zealanders to participate in the legislative process.

I’m happy to suggest to the House that my colleague put the motion again, if that side of the House is indicating it, which they are. They are indicating very strongly that that they are ready to pass this legislation through all stages. It would be good, the Hon Scott Simpson, to put your motion again. They’ve obviously had a change of heart, which is interesting to see. So, for those in the whips’ chairs, text the Minister and make sure that he’s happy to change his perspective on the report back, which he’s currently truncated to 11 June. Just make sure he’s now ready to come on board with the motion that the Hon Scott Simpson has put on the floor.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Great motion.

It’s a great motion, to get this piece of business dealt with. That is, of course, unless the Government wants it fast back to the House so that you’ve got more legislation to debate and that’s the real reason behind a truncated select committee process. This side of the House is still failing to understand why, on the one hand, you say you need the time and, on the other hand, that side of the House is saying, let’s get on with it. “Let’s get on with it”—that’s the invitation from the Ardern-Peters Government for this particular piece of legislation.

If this is indeed something else, and it’s not about the importance of the legislation, and it’s about the need for the Environment Committee to have a piece of work—if that’s the real agenda behind a truncated report back, well that’s sad; that’s really sad. But that is an option. It is one of the reasons that the Minister may have wanted to have a truncated report back to 11 June.

There are a few members of the select committee opposite that are sort of looking down a bit now. Maybe that is the real business. They’re looking for things to do. They’re a bit bored. Being a backbench MP is not that much fun unless you’ve got crunchy select committee work to do. Well, in terms of scrutiny of legislation, that’s the critical part, that’s the critical role, for the Government backbench MPs. So you have to examine the legislation, make sure your Ministers haven’t made mistakes, give good scrutiny to every single piece of legislation, and not be willing to tolerate shortened report-backs such as this one, which is just over a month, which is outrageous, and New Zealanders will be disappointed in the Government for doing this.

Thank you very much. Look, I’m very pleased to speak to, I suppose, examining the whole question of why we are looking to truncate this process around the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.

There are a number of things that I think need to be looked at. The fundamental one—if this House is going to do something, then we have to do it properly. So we’ve heard from the Government that this is a simple piece of legislation. I don’t intend to get into the specifics of it, except to say it is very, very simple. It provides the House really, or the Government in particular, with two options: either we push it through the House very quickly because everyone agrees with it, or we take it to a full-length approach.

We’ve heard in some of the discussions, if not the banter across the House: first and foremost, the Government said it’s simple; it’s very, very simple. Well, the offer is here and remains, from the Opposition, that we are more than happy to sit down, if you will, right now and move through all the processes. In fact, the irony is that this House has probably spent more time debating the undemocratic move to truncate this process than it would have taken to move this bill through all its stages and have it done and dusted, and to allow the Government to move on to other pieces of legislation.

The other side—we’ve heard it from the Greens, from one of the Ministers, that really the reason they want to have this go to a select committee, albeit for only a couple of weeks, is that they want a full democratic process. It’s always said, with the great intentions of the Greens, in that rather serious tone. Well, if that’s true, I come back to my first adage: if you’re going to do it, then do it properly. So I suggest to the Green Party members and to the Ministers of the Crown that if that’s truthful and they really want the New Zealand public to have their say on this vitally important piece of legislation, well then allow the committee to have a full amount of time to have that discussion.

So I suppose for me, and it’s probably my philosophical training, I don’t like contradictions. And all that we’re getting, unfortunately, from the Government is an array of contradictions here. Unfortunately, these contradictions are habitual. It’s only been a few months ago that we had the Government truncate and force through another piece of legislation. I don’t intend to get into the substance of it, but it’s illustrating a problem—

💬 Hon Member: Arrogant.

—an arrogant Government, as one of my colleagues—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: An arrogance.

—as two of my colleagues have now said. Does anyone want a third? No. It was the overseas investment law and now Act, pushed through at speed—at speed, unnecessarily. It is, for me and for this side of the House, a growing concern of why the Government is continuing to put these shortened, truncated processes in place.

I had questions myself when the overseas investment one was done. I have further questions now—probably even more so with this one. The overseas investment one was actually quite a technical, rather deep policy issue: why did we not allow people to have their say? On this particular one, around the economic zone, it’s been a fault which has been identified. In many ways you could argue that we could have actually dealt with this even through a statutes amendment process.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: That should have been where it went.

It could have been an option. In fact, we’ve only just had that coming through recently. But here we are, truncating the process.

If it is, ultimately, incredibly simple, easy, and, I suspect, with agreement—with everyone in the House in fact disappointed that the motion by the Hon Scott Simpson has been defeated. But if it is completely, utterly simple, then let’s get that piece of work done now. If it is something which requires the New Zealand public to have their in-depth say on, well then why not allow a full select committee process?

One of the reasons I’m having I suppose a growing alarm in my head is: what’s the agenda? I know it’s a hypothetical—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: It’s hidden and secret.

It’s a hidden and secret agenda, potentially. As the Speaker will know, and certainly those members of the House will know, once you go through a select committee process, there is the opportunity to add SOPs—what they call Supplementary Order Papers. If this House was to move through the process immediately—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It’s not a speech by a philosopher.

No, I could actually switch to Greek, if you like.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Try Greek. It’s all Greek to me.

That would be more double Dutch to that side. What we’re dealing with here is a truncated, quick process through the House. If we were to just go through all stages, in effect there’s no chance to put SOPs—we would only deal with the substance of the bill. I have to wonder whether or not the Government is planning, in some way, to add SOPs into the process over the next couple of weeks which may actually expand what this supposed amendment bill is meant to do.

Then we end up in a whole new, much higher level contradiction. The first contradiction is that, again, if it’s simple, why are we not dealing with it now; or, if it’s complicated, why not give it a full process? But the worse contradiction is if an SOP is tabled by the Government around this bill, it will be done after—after—the public’s had its say. It’s a way of avoiding dealing with the public. So this is just filled with contradictions. It is, ultimately, I think—for the benefit of Mr Little—a pyrrhic decision. It’s a pyrrhic decision. It’s one that has no real value—it looks good, but has no real value.

So I’m going to wind up—truncate, if you will—this speech, which is symbolic of what this House should be doing today: to rip through the process and to have supported the Hon Scott Simpson’s motion that we just pass it through all stages. I have but one piece of advice to the Government, if I would, to end with. It’s something that they will be familiar with. I mean, it’s something, I suppose—a fairly easy concept, and something which the Government has supported before. So in relation to this bill, the third item on the Order Paper, this relatively simple bill: let’s do this.

Before I call the next member, if there are any new arguments and debating points, now would be the time to bring them out.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, it is a pleasure to actually have a say on this. I think truncating a select committee process is a serious matter, actually, and it is quite a confused argument we’re getting from the Government: that this is a serious bill and it needs to go through all the processes, but then saying, on the other hand, that it’s such a short bill that it doesn’t require the full select committee process.

We often deal with bills in this Parliament that are—in the case of the original Act that it seeks to amend—700 clauses, 250 pages. There are far bigger ones than that, and quite small bills. Often, members’ bills can be even half the size of this one, and that’s quite a feat, but quite small. Yet the select committee stages are all the same length. You can seek an extension, which is a very wise part of the way Parliament works, so that if there are more submissions coming in or its too complex to deal with—and I think a good example of that would be the euthanasia legislation, the End of Life Choice Bill, which is before the Justice Committee. That sort of bill can and will seek extensions because of the time taken to collate and organise those submissions, then to hear them—those that wish to be heard. On this piece of legislation, that process is going to be truncated so much that the people that could and, perhaps, should submit on this won’t have the opportunity to do so. I think that is the very case in point.

I’m going to go back to my colleague who just took his seat, Simon O’Connor, and I think he made some very good points. What is behind this? It really does make one suspicious when they speak with different tongues, as it were—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Forked tongues.

Forked tongues—indeed. To have them saying that, I suspect it is absolutely the case that we’re going to see a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) come in that is not related to this, so this is a Trojan horse. I would love to hear—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Trojan horse? We are talking Greek.

—someone from that side actually have the courage to talk now. Stand on your feet and have a chance—when I take my seat, Mr Little, you’ll get your chance. Stand up and give us an assurance there will be no SOP put forward on this bill. That’s all we want to hear. Do that and we might be relaxed about it.

This is a Government that said it would be transparent, and yet we’re seeing, time after time, the opaqueness of—I don’t know what; black walls, I guess. This is just absolutely a Government that doesn’t—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Opaqueness of black walls?

Yes, read your literature, Mr Little.

💬 Hon Members: Stone walls.

Yes, indeed. Well, I wish they would stonewall. Let’s have a full select committee process, or take Mr Simpson’s advice and go through a very much truncated process and let’s deal with it today. You guys on that side should really just stand up and get on with the job and let this pass right through its processes this afternoon. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I will definitely try not to replicate what previous members have said. Can I say that my concerns around this process are: I asked a question in this House that permits that are to be protected by this Government—that we would not see any surprise legislation come in that would change those conditions. I would say that either my choice is that we see this bill, which is agreed on both sides of the House—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Unanimous.

—unanimously, proceed through all remaining stages without debate and be voted upon, or that we go to a full select committee process. What this bill is dealing with is consent applications specifically for extractive industries, whether it’s fishing or whether that’s petroleum exploration. My concern—why I asked the question last week—is that when this Government say they will protect permits, my question was that they will not enter any further conditions. My concern is that in a very short select committee process, that doesn’t put out the full intent or give opportunity for full community and industry discussion, we could—and I hope not, but we could—have a Supplementary Order Paper land in this House in the committee stage that changes those conditions. That’s the reason why I asked that question last week.

We know that the Minister said that she believes in democracy. Well, democracy needs to have its full opportunity for expression, and that is a full committee process. Or if it’s indeed true that we have total agreement across this House regarding this simple error; that we agree to see that change—and I’ve read it, and it’s very simple. New clause 52A in the bill is a very simple addition to the Act that we could actually agree across this House, and across benches, to support now. It would align this bill with the Environmental Protection Authority, and that’s the way that I would prefer to see it—either that process, or a full process through the select committee process, so that we don’t get hijacked.

Look, I hate to have this suspicion, but it’s possible, and when I asked for that assurance last week it was not given to me. So that is my concern, and I wish to express it to this House and to those who are listening tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to take a call on this debate around the shortened select committee process. Mr Parker got up and said that he wanted to get through this with speed and haste because it was so important that we clear it up immediately. It was a small, technical amendment; we need to get it done—let’s do it. But speed and haste from that side of the House is not happening today. We had to sit here today and listen to all of those Government speakers get up and pontificate for 10 minutes each. They stretched it out as long as they could—so speed and haste, but not today.

So while we had to listen to them all speak for 10 minutes today, we are not going to give the public that same allowance. We’re going to truncate that process because while we all have to sit here and listen to them talk for 10 minutes, we’re not going to give the public of New Zealand that same allowance. We’re not going to give the public any time to actually have their say, and they’re the people we want to hear from. We don’t want to sit here and listen to these Government MPs stretch out their speeches for 10 minutes; what we want to do is hear from the public of New Zealand, and if we’re going to have a select committee process, let’s do it right. As my learned colleague said earlier, let’s do it right. You do it, or you don’t do it at all. It is so important that we hear, because we heard from all of the Government speakers today that we must do this properly, we must get these mistakes corrected in the select committee process, and that if we’re going to do it, we have to give them the full process. It’s not fair to have to listen to these guys for 10 minutes but not give the public that same allowance.

I think it is only fair, and I call today for one of two things to happen. Either we allow for the full select committee process and we are fair to the people of New Zealand—to have the proper process happen—or we do what Mr Scott Simpson said earlier, which is let’s get this done today. We can do the whole thing today. It’s a small, technical mistake. It shouldn’t have happened; it did happen. We all agree that it can be fixed today—and we could do that. But they didn’t want to do that. So what they’ve said instead is we’re going to have a truncated select committee process whereby the public are cheated out of the chance to have their say, and that’s not fair. Let’s do it and do it right or, as Mr Scott Simpson said, let’s just get it over and done with today, because it is a very small technical amendment. We don’t need to be wasting all of this time and money, as I said earlier. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say—

💬 Jonathan Young: I seek leave for this bill to proceed forthwith through all remaining stages without debate and on one vote.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I started putting the question, and I’m inclined to finish, but I’ll just take some advice on that. As I thought, there is a motion on the Table and I am putting the question for that, so that leave can’t be given.

I seek leave for the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill to proceed forthwith through all remaining stages without debate and on one vote.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. I call on Government order of the day No. 4—[Interruption] Apologies to the Minister. I need to amend the vote. The Ayes were 63; the Noes were 55.