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

Thank you. My apologies to the committee. I thought that that’s what we were doing.

OK, so this bill amends the principal Act, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. Essentially, the bill is to look at the costs of a board of inquiry and to make sure and set up that those costs are recovered, and the costs are recovered by the consenting authority or the consenting organisation or the organisation seeking consent.

Essentially, there isn’t a lot more in this bill to talk about. It’s actual and reasonable costs, there is the provision under the clause to ensure that—apply and consent are asked specifically for what those costs might be—there is the possibility to get that information, and, essentially, the bill clarifies the cost incurred by the Environmental Protection Authority in deciding applications. They’re already cost-recoverable, and this is just the process of the board of inquiry.

So, essentially, there isn’t a lot more to say about this. However, I think there’s really one matter that we need to just look at, and that was the truncated process, to just make the point that during select committee we had seven representatives from the oil and gas and seabed mining industries that were spoken to or targeted for consultation. Four out of five of those respondents supported this cost recovery; the other didn’t make mention of it.

So, essentially, we have a situation where there is not a lot going on, everyone agrees to it, and, accordingly, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I don’t think that this committee of the whole House is necessarily going to take too long. The parties across the House, I think, are in agreement on this bill.

There is one aspect that I want to raise, and I hope that the Minister in the chair, David Parker, will take a call just to rise and talk a little bit about the Supplementary Order Paper 48, that he has in his name, that makes an amendment to clause 5. This, as I understand it, is in relation to a submission that was received after the Environment Committee reported back to the House, from the Law Society.

The Law Society made several good comments and recommendations to the select committee, and it was, I think, useful that cognisance was taken of those matters. This is not a contentious piece of legislation. It’s a tidy-up piece of legislation. It, effectively, seeks to remedy a drafting error that occurred during reforms to the Resource Management Act and to the principal Act that this refers to in the last Parliament.

That is an error that occurred due to drafting, and it’s no criticism of the Parliamentary Counsel Office officials who were responsible. It was a very big piece of legislation—some 700 clauses. It ran to 250 pages, and one could easily understand why that situation arose.

But I do have a question for the Minister in the chair. I’m keen to know, if he could just explain to the committee of the whole House about his Supplementary Order Paper and what that might mean for this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Can I thank members for their contributions. And, in response to Mr Simpson, who just spoke: you’re correct that this is necessary to correct a defect in the Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017.

And I won’t recount at great length as to why that was a flawed process. We’ve been through that at earlier stages of the debate. But the effect of the imperfection in that Act was that the cost recovery rights of the Crown to recover from an applicant the cost of running a hearing for their application was omitted. And, therefore—people are entitled to make applications. There is a cost to running the process after they make an application, but the cost cannot be recovered from the applicant and, therefore, it falls to taxpayers, and that’s wrong. So the amendment bill fixes that.

The Supplementary Order Paper, as Mr Simpson said, makes it clear that the principles of cost recovery that sit in the existing Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, at sections 143 to 147 of that Act, apply here. You know, it’s really for the avoidance of doubt—I think that was probably the effect of this anyway. The Law Society said the legislation would be easier to follow and it would put the matter beyond doubt if this amendment was made to the amendment bill, and so Supplementary Order Paper 48, in my name, inserts in new section 52A new subsection 52A(6) at the end of that section, which says “See sections 143 to 147 in relation to recovery of costs incurred by the EPA.”

If members—or members of the public, indeed—go to those sections 143 to 147, they will see that they are indeed about cost recovery—section 143 being “Principles of cost recovery”; section 144, “Methods of cost recovery”; section 145, “Cost recovery to relate generally to financial year”; section 146 saying that charges can be prescribed by regulations; and section 147 saying that those charges can constitute a debt due to Environmental Protection Authority. So that’s the purpose of that Supplementary Order Paper.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 48 in the name of the Hon David Parker to clause 5 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5 as amended agreed to.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.