Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. I move, That the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill.

It’s an honour to rise on behalf of my people and Te Paati Māori to speak to the first reading of my member’s bill, the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill. It’s an honour to be able to bring this ban-seabed-mining debate, not only for the nation to see but for the world to see today.

The bill aims to put in place a nationwide ban on seabed mining consents within Aotearoa exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and coastal waters governed under the Resource Management Act. It also seeks to retrospectively withdraw existing seabed mining consents and prohibit the ability for exploration rights for seabed mining under the Crown Minerals Act. It was crafted from the experience that our iwi have had in dealing with the existing legislation and the first application in Aotearoa to mine the seabed. It was an application seeking to mine millions of tonnes of iron, titanium, and vanadium from 66 square kilometres of seabed between 22 kilometres and 36 kilometres offshore from Pātea for 35 years, in the EEZ, by dredging up millions of tonnes of the seafloor, extracting the mineral, and dumping the unwanted sludge back into the sea, smothering the surrounding area with a sediment film which would spread all the way down from Taranaki to Wellington, affecting marine life, biodiversity, and Māori.

Since 2011, across National-led and Labour-led Governments, Ngāti Ruanui and Ngā Rauru have spearheaded the fight against seabed mining. From our iwis’ perspective, seabed mining is a violation of our kaitiakitanga, and as defenders of the ecosystems, we are gravely concerned it will affect everything. This is a part of who we are, where we are, and it must be protected. Concerned with the impact of seabed mining, our communities took this battle—many who are upstairs: Uncle Tūranga Pito, Auntie Joyce, my pāpā, Auntie Laura, Mary-anne, all our whānau, Rachel, Reimā—all have been a part of protesting, filling busloads to make sure Parliament and their communities know how they felt.

They were supported by the South Taranaki local diving club, who set up ocean videos so we could qualify and quantify the marine life in the South Taranaki Bight, who established a proactive education programme so that we could connect and see and appreciate what’s going on in our reefs; our party in South Taranaki fishing clubs; farmers who helped fund billboards opposing seabed mining; communities and leaders, such as Jacqueline Dwyer, who helped fund-raise; and concerts to help fund our fronting the legal battles. Scientific evidence was compiled with cultural evidence, an inclusive fusion that made for compelling and precedent-setting court cases. It’s been a true grassroots movement, which catapulted my being in Parliament and, indeed, this member’s bill.

It’s been the grassroots that has spent tens of thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and these grassroots are not amateurs in this sector; they are people from Taranaki, who have more experience in the oil and minerals sector than any other region and any other peoples in Aotearoa. This battle has taken them to every court in this nation, resulting in successfully winning in the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court, as the applicant, Trans-Tasman Resources, continuously failed to deliver material evidence on how their proposed project would not adversely affect our moana. Despite having a decade to prepare scientific evidence, this applicant still has not been able to provide any, because it simply does not exist.

The opposition to seabed mining has been strong. There were 13,000 submissions presented to the Government opposing seabed mining, with only a handful in favour. We have also delivered 40,000-signature petitions to the Government. It is clear the public do not support the Government’s stance on this. Ocean advocates from across Aotearoa have called on this Government to urgently ban seabed mining. More than 30 hapū and iwi, environmental NGOs, KASM—Kiwis Against Seabed Mining—and Greenpeace Aotearoa have called on the Prime Minister to support my bill, and, as KASM highlights, we already know an enormous amount about seabed mining. The Government does not need an inquiry to understand that this industry would trash our moana; it’s abundantly clear.

Iwi don’t want it, our community doesn’t want it, the public doesn’t want it, nor does the technology sector. The argument that seabed mining is critical to the energy transition is nonsense. Most battery makers and industry users reject these arguments. BMW, Volvo, Google, and Korean battery maker Samsung have all vowed not to buy metals produced from deep-seabed mining until the environmental risks are comprehensively understood. There’s a growing global movement to end seabed mining within France, Canada, Pasifika nations—Tuvalu, Fiji, and Nauru calling for a moratorium to which, in response to our own Government’s support of the conditional moratorium in international waters, we cannot fathom for the life of us how Labour today is able to face themselves.

It is hypocritical that Aotearoa, this Government, has supported a conditional moratorium in international waters due to extremely limited scientific knowledge, yet last week would not do the same for its own domestic waters. We need to ban seabed mining now, and to delay it sends the message to Aotearoa and to grassroots that we are open for business. Our ocean is home to over 90 percent of life on earth, it is our biggest ally in the fight against climate change, and every second breath we take comes from the ocean. Damage to it will impact livelihoods of billions and affect our grassroots, affect our mokopuna, for ever. The risk of unproven technology outweighs any supposed benefits, and this Government is prepared to allow us to be guinea pigs. Applicants can’t provide evidence. The technology is untested and untried.

And, I guess, what we’re really concerned about is the fact that the Government is still creating and allowing this huge amount of space to bring about further applications. What you should be doing is investing more time and information in sustainable sectors, the blue economy, clean energy. This climate crisis is upon us; our nation deserves better.

This bill provides certainty. It ensures, once and for all, that measures are in place that will prevent our environment and our mokopunas’ future from being compromised from this barbaric activity. This bill is very specific: it doesn’t affect the gas and oil industry, as has been proposed. It has one retrospective applicant, and anything that you did want to change could have been done through a Supplementary Order Paper, so it’s disappointing to see Labour’s stance on this.

I guess, you know, what we are seeing is the same Government that continued the foreshore and seabed, and that’s really disappointing. Our whenua was stolen from this Government in 2004 and I’m disappointed to see that that’s where we’re going again. A Government that campaigned on taking strong action on climate change surely has a moral obligation to lead the world away from potential ecological disaster and stand for supporting my bill.

I’m standing here as the smallest party asking for the support of all parties in Parliament. The Government has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop this dangerous industry before it starts. It’s not the time to cop out and vote down my bill in favour of a weak inquiry. What concerns us is if we delay this, we actually may have people come in and lower the benchmark, and lower the benchmark that so far has proved that the EEZ regs and the test that we helped create—these people upstairs helped create the EEZ regs. It just takes one party to come in and lower that benchmark, and then what we have done is open up a door that you cannot close. And we have lived the consequences of the fracking from the oil and mineral sector. We have lived with the clean-up. We see the regs abandoned.

So Ngāti Ruanui and Ngā Rauru, in our unapologetic Māori movement, will not stop until seabed mining is banned in Aotearoa once and for all, and Te Paati Māori stands and represents the true kaitiaki: tangata whenua. We have the strongest environmental policies of anyone in Parliament and we will continue to fight for our taiao mō ake tonu [environment for ever].

Now is the time for transformative action. You have the opportunity to show not only your own people but the world that you are leaders in this sector. To slide across and wait for an inquiry is just delay, and we need certainty now. Nō reira i te āhuatanga o tā tātou kaupapa i mua i a tātou, kia ora rā.

[So, in the sense of our subject that is before us, thank you.]

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the call. I rise to explain why the Labour Party is voting against this bill. It is true that we in Government have concerns about the potential environmental effects of seabed mining, and we don’t dismiss the concerns of the member in that regard, but we can’t vote for this bill.

The member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who has just taken her seat, said that the intention of this bill was only to apply to ironsands. That’s most clearly not the intention of this bill, and, indeed, the third paragraph, or the third dot point, says that the policy intention of this bill is to retrospectively withdraw existing seabed mining consents and exploration rights under the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) Act and the Crown Minerals Act. Crown minerals, most obviously, include gas.

It has been clear from the start of this bill that the effect of this legislation would have been to, amongst other things, close down the Māui platform, and it would have done that retrospectively, it would have done it without compensation, and it would have done it without any transition period. Now, what would that have done to the country? Well, from the Government’s point of view, it would breach an undertaking that we gave to the oil and gas sector at the time when we banned the granting of new offshore exploration permits. We said that we would allow existing acreage to continue to be explored and developed, so it would have been in breach of that undertaking.

Additionally, it would have threatened the security of supply of our electricity in the short to medium term. Now, we’re doing very, very well as a country to transition away from our reliance on fossil fuels. We are getting ever closer to the 90 percent renewable electricity target that the prior Labour Government set, when I was Minister of energy and climate change in the period prior to 2014 to 2017—prior to the election then. We set the 90 percent target, and since then, the proportion of electricity that is coming from fossil fuels has been decreasing.

What it would do in the meantime, though, is we still do need gas—particularly in a dry year. We still have a dry-year risk, when we don’t have enough hydro stored in our lakes. To generate the electricity that we need to keep the lights on, we need to use gas. That will not be the case for ever, but it is still the case for a while yet.

In addition to that, gas is relied upon in the Taranaki region, as well as other parts of the North Island, for the dehydration of milk. The transition towards renewables to substitute fossil fuels for the dehydration of milk, which is one of the major uses of gas, is not yet complete. The production of urea currently relies on the use of natural gas, as well. So the industrial consequences—never mind the fairness aspects—the economic consequences of terminating all of those consents would have been substantial and, in our view, wrong, as well as in breach of the undertakings that we as a Government gave to the industry when we banned, or when we said there would be no further block offers for offshore oil and gas.

So what are we doing? Well, we accept that there are issues here. For me, one of the biggest issues is, if there is a genuine concern—as I do think there is—about mining at sea, if we can coalesce with the Pacific around a solution to protect the Pacific from deep-sea mining, then, effectively, we will be protecting a big part of the world’s oceans. That is one of the issues that should be considered by the select committee and the inquiry that we have requested the select committee to conduct. I wrote a letter—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! Order! I apologise to the member. I’m having difficulty hearing the member’s contribution. If I could ask respectfully for your contributions coming from the other side of the House to just lower the volume. That would be great. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. With regard to the terms of reference that I proposed to the select committee, it’s a matter for them. But we suggested that there be an inquiry which presented an overview of seabed mining operations and proposals—that would include the ones that are, obviously, of concern to the Māori Party—looking at opportunities, as well as costs and risks, of the seabed mining industry; comparing other methods of obtaining minerals like land-based—and I thank the member for her contributions in respect of the likes of lithium and the comments that she made about some of the major users of and producers of electric vehicles are saying that they’re not going to use sea-based mining to obtain those minerals.

How seabed mining is managed internationally and in New Zealand—I think the committee should have a look at that to see whether, if seabed mining was to continue in some form, the regulatory settings are up for it, or whether it shouldn’t—and how domestic regulatory settings are performing, including under the Crown Minerals Act, the Resource Management Act, and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012.

Whether any change to domestic regulatory settings should apply to the coastal marine area, the EEZ, the extended continental shelf, or all of them, the prospect of any change of regulatory settings being supportive of Pacific countries and considering their own positions on seabed mining—in respect of that issue, it is an issue that I find difficult or I think is difficult for Pacific countries. We know how difficult it is for a country like New Zealand to properly measure and control the effects of deep-sea mining, as evidenced by the chain of court decisions that the member referred to in her contribution. We’re a pretty sophisticated and large country, relative to the size of the environmental ministries in Pacific Island countries, and, if it’s difficult for us, it must be even more difficult for those Pacific countries. I think it would be good if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gave consideration to that and the advice that they will no doubt give to the inquiry if the select committee wants to hear from them.

Then, finally, recommendations for maintaining or updating New Zealand’s domestic regulatory settings, which could include the sorts of measures that the member seeks.

But I would make it clear now that were we to agree those sorts of changes in the future—and I’m not saying we would, but were we to do so, there is no way we would contemplate resiling from the agreement that we had with the oil and gas industry that they can continue with their existing rights in the Taranaki offshore basins.

So that explains why the Government is unable to support this bill. It’s not for us to ensure that a member’s bill is in good shape to be considered. If there was a minor part of this bill that was problematic, yes, that could be fixed at select committee. But the very intention of this bill, as explained in the general policy statement, is to retrospectively withdraw existing seabed mining consents and exploration rights under the EEZ and Crown Minerals Act, retrospectively without compensation, and, from the point of view of the Labour Party, that would be a bad thing to do.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and welcome back to the Chair. It’s good to see you there. I’m very pleased and surprised at the Hon David Parker’s contribution. I think it was very measured and well considered. For many of the same reasons that he’s outlined, the National Party will not be supporting this bill.

I think that bans are almost always the wrong solution. If the ban is the answer, you have to go back and look at the question. We have adequate—more than adequate—processes to deal with environmental challenges and issues when we exploit resources, and exploit resources we do. Our very standard of living is totally dependent on the resources industry. Almost everything in this room that we touch, in some way, has a fossil fuel either as a part of the make-up of it or used in the manufacture of it. For example, the varnish on the walls has got quite a substantial amount of petroleum in it. So those sort of things are vitally important to our standard of living.

As the Hon David Parker said, this bill would send a massive shock wave through the international community, particularly the sovereign risk that in New Zealand has always been seen as very low until the oil and gas exploration ban, which did send a massive shock wave through the international community. So much so that, in fact, I’ve been told from companies trying to raise funds for other projects, nothing to do with the oil and gas sector, that they weren’t going to be supported by independent financiers because they see the sovereign risk in New Zealand now, as a result of that ban, as too high for them; they would rather invest their funds elsewhere.

The closedown of the Maui platform was mentioned by the Hon David Parker. That would certainly be a massive issue. We, with the oil and gas ban, ensured we burnt more coal. The rest of the world has lowered their emissions by going away from coal, and using gas; we in New Zealand have gone the other way. With the oil and gas ban, we don’t have the supply of gas to do away with coal. The units in Huntly that we use to generate electricity with coal run on gas as well. We simply don’t have the supply of gas for that option to be utilised. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. Respectfully, to the members of the public present in the gallery, I do have to hear the contribution of members on the floor, so I respectfully ask if you could just lower your voices, so that I can do so.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We do need gas and will need gas to keep the lights on, as the Hon David Parker said, well into the foreseeable future. In fact, while we’ll need less of it, it becomes ever more important as we rely on unreliable energy sources, such as solar and wind.

But ironsand was what was particularly mentioned by the member promoting the bill. Iron is used in everything from white goods, all through our manufacturing. Wind turbines have a major part used in their manufacture from ironsand.

Offshore seabed mining is quite common in other parts of the world. Aggregates, for example, in Europe—there was, last year, 65 million tonnes of aggregates taken from the sea, and that grew by over 10 percent, and that’s a trend that’s been going on for some time. In South Korea as well, 16 million tonnes. Those sorts of things are happening all the time.

When we look at all of the royalties that we’re receiving from minerals, over $182 million in royalties from minerals, which includes oil and gas. Also, ironsand, we receive a substantial amount of coastal and ironsand royalties of over $1 million. These things are not unsubstantial.

The very community that is actually promoting this—and good on them for bringing it forward—they will be the ones that will also be affected by the downturn in the economic activity in those regions.

The Leader of the National Party, Christopher Luxon, said today that we would not support Te Paati Māori. This sort of policy is exactly why we would not. We know that we are looking forward to a chaotic coalition, and that is—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order!

While the members might not like it, then they should think very hard about what they’re putting forward in their members’ bills. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My contribution’s going to be a bit different to the one you heard from Stuart Smith over the last five minutes. I’m not here to mount a defence of seafood mining or the extraction of hydrocarbons and fossil fuels from the seabed around our coastline. I want to acknowledge the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for bringing this bill to the House; also, to acknowledge that the intent of this bill, to wean our economy off fossil fuels and to adequately protect the seabed around our country, is in tune with a growing number of people in our society here and abroad, and it is part of a powerful global movement to change the way that we live on this planet. That, I think, deserves respect.

The House has heard the Hon Minister David Parker set out the Government’s position on this bill. We won’t be supporting it at first reading, and, as someone who’s proposed a few bans in his time, including members’ bills that were voted down by the Government of the day, I have some sympathy with the member. But we’re not voting against this bill today because we’re not concerned about the environmental protection of our seabed. We’re not voting against it because we’re not committed to a just transition to a decarbonised economy—we are. We’re voting against it because how you do it matters, and we believe that there’s a better way to proceed.

I’ll, hopefully, have a minute at the end to talk a little bit about the proposal that Minister David Parker has made to the Environment Committee, which I serve on, that we should look at a select committee inquiry into seabed mining, but let me just say a couple of things about the bill itself. What it does is put in place a nationwide ban on seabed mining consents within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and our coastal waters. It shuts down the ability to apply for exploration rights for seabed mining under the Crown Minerals Act, and it retrospectively withdraws existing seabed mining consents and exploration rights under the EEZ Act and the Crown Minerals Act.

Now, there are three reasons why Labour is not supporting this bill tonight, and the first is that it would have serious adverse implications for the country’s energy supply. Our reading of the bill is that it would revoke 14 existing petroleum permits. Around 70 percent of our country’s petroleum production comes from offshore, but more importantly is what it would do to gas production. Three offshore fields—Māui, Pohokura, and Kupe—produce about half of our natural gas, which goes into our domestic network from Taranaki. Shutting down those fields would have significant implications, and immediate implications, for the gas that we use in New Zealand, not only for the peak generation of electricity that our system is currently dependent on in dry seasons and in times of peak electricity demand but also domestic and industrial activity that relies on gas. So the bill would see an 80 percent decline in our production of LPG, and we would need to immediately find new ways of generating that gas or import it until satisfactory alternatives were found.

There would be severe economic implications in terms of a retrospective and immediate shutting down of those exploration rights. As David Parker pointed out, our Government was very, very careful to ensure that we were banning future exploration of oil and gas, not to revoke those existing permits or do it retrospectively. It would have significant implications for investment in this country if we did that.

Then there are a number of other implications for customary marine title and Treaty settlements as a result of this bill, were it to be enacted. Our view is that we need to consider this seriously. We need to consider the issues in the round. We need to do it in a way that’s transparent and engages the people of this country in a proper, properly informed conversation about the future of seabed mining, and I’m intending to be part of that discussion at the Environment Committee. Thank you.

New Zealand is known internationally as a responsible and sustainable nation, which other countries look up to because of the way we’ve been able to manage our natural resources. That is why New Zealand has supported developing regulations to manage the risk of deep-sea mining in places like the Pacific, in international waters, where nations are not able to extend their own environmental controls into those areas which are not subject to national governance, like our economic zone is. But ACT will oppose this bill, not because we do not wish to see an exploration of all of the environmental effects, to understand the pros and cons, but because banning this activity would have significant social and economic knock-on effects, particularly to regions like Taranaki, which have blossomed as a result of the energy developments that have taken place over the past decades. This bill—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. Would you resume your seat. I’m sorry to say to members of the public in the gallery that I have respectfully asked that you keep your comments and your voices low. If you continue to interject, I may have to ask you to leave the gallery. This is my final warning to you. I do this respectfully, knowing that you must know that I have to, as Speaker, hear the comments and the commentary from the members in the Chamber, which I cannot do if you are making interjections from the gallery.

Many companies have invested heavily in exploration and development in our waters, and they have received lawful permits and consents to do so. This bill would, effectively, strip them of their property rights without any compensation, which not only is unfair but would undermine the rule of law in this country.

Furthermore, this bill would risk cutting off New Zealand’s natural gas supply, which would threaten our energy security at a time when it has never been more important. With gas being a crucial energy and manufacturing production source for our country, it’s essential we do not limit our options for its production. Seabed mining also has the potential to unlock phenomenal energy and mineral resources that can help transform our environment in other ways. It can make our country self-sufficient when it comes to some of these minerals. Banning this activity is not a sensible or sustainable option for New Zealand. Instead, mining for energy and minerals provides high-income jobs in regions like Taranaki, so that a young person who might not have finished school, who might not have got the best start in life, can still aspire to be one of the highest-earning New Zealanders if they work in the energy sector—for example, in Taranaki. Those workers can provide for family and extended family with the income they earn from working in these sectors, and I am sure there are people here in the House and in the gallery who have friends and family members who work in energy and resources either here in New Zealand or in Australia and who know exactly what I am talking about. Now, like the former Prime Minister who announced a ban on oil and gas exploration, those who advocate for prohibiting a lawful and well-managed activity while taking advantage of all the modern benefits that delivering those minerals and resources and gases does to our society risk being seen—they risk being seen—as ignorant and self-righteous.

Now, it is important to note that we already have a whole range of environmental controls and protections in place for the environment and marine mammals in places like the South Taranaki Bight. New Zealand engineers and scientists have demonstrated, for over 50 years, the capability to carry out mineral and petroleum developments in the marine environment while ensuring those impacts are well managed. We have a strong regulatory framework that ensures any activity in our waters is subject to rigorous consenting processes and that companies must demonstrate they can operate safely before any permits are granted. A ban on seabed mining is an excessive and unnecessary response to what are genuine and valid concerns about the risks that this activity might have on the environment. That’s why, instead, we should focus on ensuring our regulatory framework is robust and that companies undertaking this activity are held to the highest environmental standards. We should work to ensure that any proposed activity is subject to a fair and transparent permitting process, where evidence and information can be submitted, tested in court, to determine whether the activity is acceptable in terms of its risk to the environment.

That’s why ACT welcomes the opportunity to scrutinise proposals to explore and develop resources in the marine environment, so that we can evaluate those effects. ACT is confident these activities should be able to proceed in a controlled and safe manner. That’s why we oppose this bill.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and it’s good to see you back in the Chair. It’s my privilege to take a call on the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill. I too want to, like my colleague Phil Twyford, who’s left the House now but made a point to the member who’s brought this to the House, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, to say that her strategic intentions on the nature of the bill are commended. And I, too, want to join Phil Twyford in supporting his comments.

We know now that the Labour Party won’t be supporting this through its first reading. The essence of supporting those strategic intentions versus the implications of what the proposed bill will do have been well traversed. I think it’s worth just noting some of the background on this matter, and we know that the Government is engaged in an ongoing international discussion on deep-sea mining. Seabed mining is usually referred to internationally in areas beyond national jurisdiction, including as it relates to the Pacific. I’m not a member of the Environment Committee, but I’m aware—and you’ve heard from the Minister who opened the speaking on this that he’s asked the select committee to conduct an inquiry into seabed mining.

One of the good news points is that the views of the member and others will have the opportunity to be input into that process, and that will look at an overview of the seabed mining operations and proposals. And that’s good because there are many, many strong views on this issue. I know that, being the electorate member for a coastal seat in Wellington here, there has been feedback from constituents who want to have a say on the issue. They contextualise this around climate change, around some of the issues to reduce fossil fuels and a whole range of other issues.

So the timing of an inquiry is spot on. That inquiry would also consider the potential risks and benefits, and whether the changes—and we’ve heard about those in terms of the domestic regulatory framework—are needed; would encompass all of the seabed areas within our jurisdiction and namely the territorial sea known as we know, the exclusive economic zone, and that extended continental shelf.

I just want to note for a minute that the Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, back in late 2022, announced that New Zealand will back a conditional moratorium on seabed mining in areas beyond the national jurisdiction until environmental rules supported by robust science can be agreed on internationally. I’m hopeful that the inquiry will allow those views to initiate discussions, if not a firm discussion, and make some impact internationally.

Our international position doesn’t require the Government to change its domestic approach to seabed mining, but having backed a conditional moratorium, it is timely to examine our own regulatory settings. So the member’s really activated—ignited—some conversation here. Those concerns about the environmental impacts of seabed mining do need to be considered—let’s be frank about that—along with the potential role that minerals recovered by seabed mining could play in New Zealand’s transition to a decarbonised economy.

So one of the things that we’ve heard about is the unintended consequences. I know, for example, that there are some implications for customary marine titles and Treaty settlements. I’m sure the member is aware of these too, so I’m hopeful that those are covered in terms of the inquiry under the select committee process.

I’m confident that we will get to a position here that takes into account what the member’s intentions are, but does a whole lot better without impacting some of those unintended consequences—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. The Green Party is very pleased to be supporting the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill. I mihi to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for bringing this bill to the Parliament and for the very long and strenuous journey that she, Ngāti Ruanui, environmental organisations, community organisations, like Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, Greenpeace, the Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board, and coastal communities in Taranaki have taken, and for all of the mahi that they have put into resisting the efforts—successfully so far—of Trans-Tasman Resources and its application to take millions of tonnes of sediment from the seabed.

We are within a whisker—if Government members were supporting this bill—of stopping the reckless pursuit of minerals in the ocean. We are within a whisker of protecting the oceans, recognising the huge role that they have in regulating the climate and absorbing excess heat and excess carbon dioxide, and putting a line in the sand that Aotearoa New Zealand stands for healthy oceans, not the rapacious pursuit by multinational corporations of private profit by bulldozing the ocean floor, suctioning up millions of tonnes of sediment, and then discharging that just to seek minerals that you can also get on land and that we could get by recycling and recovering minerals from electronic waste.

One of the reasons the Green Party supports this bill is that all of the mahi to date has been done by the community. It has been done by iwi and hapū, Ngāti Ruanui, community organisations, and individuals in resisting applications to date. The Government needs to take action and not leave it to the community and to iwi and hapū to shoulder the burden of protecting the oceans against deep-sea mining. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! Order!

I find that the arguments being put forward by Labour members that the reasons they are supporting an inquiry isn’t because of the provisions in this bill—it neglects that select committees have a fundamental role in reshaping bills in response to public submissions. If this bill was supported at first reading, the public would be able to have their say. Bills that are introduced into this Parliament emerge from it much changed after the select committee process. It is not as if this bill automatically becomes law, as a number of Labour members have implied. It could be changed in select committee to deal with that retrospective issue.

Instead, we have an inquiry. The Green Party will participate constructively in that inquiry, but given that the Green Party, alongside the community, has been fighting for more than 12 years to protect our oceans from deep-sea mining in Aotearoa’s waters, this bill could have taken that burden away and put it on the Government to say, “We are taking action to protect ocean health.”

There are so many opportunities to recover and recycle precious metals from all electronic waste that currently goes to landfill and to take steps towards a circular economy, rather than doing what ACT is proposing, which is to allow deep-sea mining to really get started in Aotearoa. We should note too that Aotearoa is one of the countries, like those in the Pacific, where these multinationals, like the minerals company DeepGreen and others, think that they can do prospecting and then try and convince the people that there’s going to be a lot of economic wealth, and continue with that really exploitative approach to the oceans.

This bill is an opportunity to say that the oceans around Aotearoa matter, that all of the marine life that enjoys those oceans matters, that coastal communities and iwi and hapū matter, and that tikanga matters, as the Supreme Court found with the appeals. These things all matter. If this bill goes to select committee, there would be an opportunity for the public to have a say. Te Paati Kakariki strongly supports it. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill. Before I commence on that part of my speech, I’d just like to offer my condolences to the young man who has lost his life in Whangārei and to the entire community of Whangārei. It’s a tragedy that we’ve had this happen.

I want to mihi and acknowledge Whaea Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for bringing this piece of legislation to the House. I know how important this piece of legislation is to you and to the wider community. It’s important to me too. I want to acknowledge as well that even though we are not supporting this piece of legislation, as the Hon Phil Twyford said, this is really important and we need to work on a way forward.

This bill would override existing mineral permits and consents. It would do it immediately, it would do it retrospectively, and it would do it without compensation. This bill proposes a nationwide ban on seabed mining within the coastal waters of Aotearoa, which is the 12-kilometre zone within the exclusive economic zone—the EEZ—which is 200 kilometres out, and to the wider continental shelf.

It is no surprise the Labour Party believes in just transitions. We have made undertakings in regards to those who currently hold those permits. However, the issue of seabed mining is significant. It is serious and it requires deep and thorough consideration by this House, and the community is calling for it, and even though we don’t support the bill—and it’s mainly because it is a member’s bill and not the right place—this House needs to address this matter and, therefore, we need to have the inquiry. We need to hear from every person who wants to make a submission in regards to this matter. We want to hear from all the voices across the motu, and the thing with that is that truly then we can bring in the research, we can bring in the experts to give us the advice, we can have a broad set of terms that we in the select committee get to make.

I encourage the member to come to select committee for the drafting of those terms, because certainly for me, as a fisherwoman, and as a woman who considers I am born of the sea and part of the ocean and it is part of what we do, it is so important that our terms of reference are appropriate for this inquiry, that they are broad-reaching, that they have a depth that thinks about not only us here in Aotearoa but also our Pacific neighbours and also the very complex science and the difference about the leakage and all of the things that we have heard in this House.

So I want to mihi to you for bringing this legislation. For me, this is one of the reasons I came to Parliament—to care for our oceans and to take care of what our generations to come need to do. Therefore, it is one of the issues that I’m so absolutely delighted that your bill has been pulled from the ballot and that we get to have that debate.

Now, as I say, the inquiry needs to be thorough and it needs to be really clear, and there is lots of science that we need to know about. But let us remember it is the Environment Committee that is looking at this, so our foremost consideration needs to be the environment. Our foremost consideration needs to be our oceans. It needs to be the outcome for our oceans and we need to look across the world for the research and science that tells us whether this should continue or not. I think I know the answer, but I think we need an inquiry to give good recommendations to Government. I cannot commend this bill, but I thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Having a bill drawn in the ballot is always an exciting thing for a member of this House, and none less than the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who has had this bill drawn. But as previous speakers have indicated—and it was Stuart Smith speaking on behalf of the National Party—we’re not going to be supporting this bill for a variety of reasons. Now, he elucidated as to a range of reasons that would impinge on some international treaties, obligations, but also the potential negative environmental impacts of a broader scale that this bill, if passed, would have on our beautiful natural environment. But we on this side are going to support the proposed Environment Committee inquiry into seabed mining, and we are going to do so for the very reasons that the Environment Minister, David Parker—and Phil Twyford also—spoke about, because, actually, we think this is a debate of public interest. Issues relating to seabed mining do need broad discussion and involvement in a nationwide discussion about the pros and the cons that confront us when we talk about seabed mining.

So we accept, on this side, that there are a range of strong views relating to seabed mining. Previous member Paul Eagle said he represented a coastal electorate. Well, I do too—in the Coromandel. We take our marine space in the Coromandel very, very seriously. We take what happens in the marine space very seriously, particularly the degrading state of the Hauraki Gulf, for instance, which is so important to so many people that come and visit my area but also those that live in my area. So we think that a parliamentary select committee inquiry will be useful in advancing a debate on this whole issue, so that’s why we are going to support that.

But I want to just focus on a matter that has been before this House now for more than 5½ years. The previous member, Angie Warren-Clark, said she came to Parliament to protect our oceans. Well, I put it to that member that if she was serious about her intent to protect the ocean, she would have convinced her colleagues by now, surely, to have supported and brought forward the Kermadec/Rangitāhua Ocean Sanctuary Bill. It has been wallowing on the Order Paper of this Parliament for 5½ years. During the last Parliament—during the last Parliament—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Relevance, Mr Simpson—relevance, Mr Simpson.

Pardon?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Relevance to this bill.

Relevance? Well, the relevance to this bill is the protection of the marine environment, the protection of the seabed, and the protection from seabed mining of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. So, for 5½ years, a bill has been sitting on the paper, and here’s the Order Paper. It’s sitting here at No. 21 on the Order Paper, still wallowing there, awaiting a second reading in this House. For the previous Parliament, there was a parliamentary majority, had the Greens chosen to support my colleagues in the National Party, and that bill could have been passed.

So I don’t buy for one minute—I don’t buy for one minute—the words that come from the Green Party on marine protection, and I don’t buy for one minute the words that come from Angie Warren-Clark on her heartfelt intent to protect the marine space, when they will not pass the bill that would give the planet the fourth-largest marine protected area on the globe. Now, if they were really serious, that’s what they would do.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Guess who else didn’t support it?

Well, there were a number—I think it was the Māori Party that didn’t support it as well. And so if they were really keen about protecting the marine space, protecting the seabed, let’s have a go at the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. It’s part of our exclusive economic zone, and to protect that from seabed mining would provide the planet—planet Earth—with the fourth- or fifth-largest marine protected area on the planet—and the Māori Party didn’t support it, the Greens didn’t support it, and the Labour Party haven’t supported it. What I say to them is: shame—shame on them for not supporting the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Be fair—it wasn’t those two.

It wasn’t these two. It was a previous iteration—it was a previous iteration—but the iterations of the Māori Party are changing so quickly and so flexibly, day by day—who knows?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! Order! Order!

We aren’t going to support this bill, I don’t commend it to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s the House who grants that—no problem.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): Order! Mr Brownlee.

I congratulate the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer on having her bill drawn from the ballot, and for the work that she has led on this issue. I understand that one of the reasons the member drafted this bill was as a result of the Trans-Tasman Resources application to mine ironsand from the seafloor off the coast of Pātea. I want to acknowledge the feedback that I have received from the people in my electorate, the Whanganui electorate, on this issue. They’ve expressed concern specifically about the Trans-Tasman Resources application: that they have not carried out proper due diligence on the environmental impacts of sucking up the seabed, extracting the iron from the sand, and depositing the remaining sediment back into our sea.

I’ve been told by my constituents that they are concerned what the impact would be of the sediment drift on the delicate ecosystems in our area. There is no research that I personally am aware of to show what impact the noise of that mining would have, or the expelling of that sediment would have—back into the sea—on the endangered Māui dolphins, which reside off the Taranaki coast. I’ve heard from local fishermen and mana whenua that they are concerned about the impact of the sediment drift on their ability to fish, to gather and collect and eat kai moana from off the coast of Taranaki.

Questions have been raised about what changing the mineral composition of the environment would have on the ability of aquatic plants to grow, and, again, what that would mean for the fish and other kai moana to find food off the Taranaki Bight. I’ve heard concerns from our locals that the community of Pātea and the South Taranaki district would see little economic benefit if this mining goes ahead, because many of the workers would likely be flown in and flown out. Few, if any, jobs would go to locals and profits likely back over the Tasman to Australia. As a local MP, I have heard those concerns. I have heard what the local community want to see in respect of this particular project.

However, as the local MP, I am also acutely aware that, unfortunately, the way this bill has been drafted means that if it became law tomorrow, our oil and gas fields off the coast of Taranaki would be turned off. The bill would revoke 14 existing petroleum permits in offshore waters located in the Taranaki Bight, of which nine are mining permits and six are exploration permits. This is because it makes activity prohibited if it’s a mining activity, and mining activity relates to the seabed likely to contain mineral deposits, including fuel minerals such as coal and petroleum.

At the moment, around 70 percent of New Zealand’s petroleum production comes from offshore petroleum permits and licences off Taranaki. These permits and licences would be revoked but are critical to ensuring the security of New Zealand’s energy supply. Three of these fields—Māui, Pohokura, and Kupe—produce about 50 percent of our natural gas, which goes into our gas network from Taranaki. So shutting down would have a major impact on our gas network and local employers like Fonterra.

The shutdown of these oil fields would also result in declining production of LPG here in Aotearoa, so we would either need to find somewhere else to produce LPG or import more. In 2018, our Government prohibited any new grants of offshore oil and gas exploration permits. In doing so, we did honour existing agreements, to protect existing jobs.

We are working with the sector through the national energy centre to transition the workforce and economy over time, but we can’t support a bill that would revoke those existing mineral permits and consents immediately, retrospectively, and without compensating parties. That would decimate the local Taranaki economy. But I hear your concerns, and, as you have heard from my colleagues in this House today, we have announced there will be a select committee inquiry into seabed mining to properly understand the impacts this has on our ocean. In October last year, we signed and backed a conditional moratorium on seabed mining in nearby jurisdictions. I want to say again—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! The member’s time has expired.

Twelve years—12 years—this House has had time to get this together. For 12 years, these people have been resisting and doing everything at their own cost—their own hours, their own dollars, their own researchers, their own cultural integrity—and this is what the House comes to. Labour, who nationalised Māori minerals, gas, and petroleum without any compensation to Māori, is now, today, arguing why they don’t support us. We’ve had to sit here and listen to you saying we need more public input; yet there were 13,000 submissions. I could tell that some of them today didn’t read any of them, because if they had read them, they would have seen that the very oil companies who you’re sticking up for today, Steph, were the people who actually proposed this activity too. I put to you that you’re not prepared for this debate. Yet our people have been doing 12 years—12 years—on their own fighting this.

You guys got in and you promised my people—when you went around, you eyeballed them and you told them this would be their nuclear-free moment. You made decisions that ended that sector, and you’ve backtracked because of polling. Backtracked—don’t even bother nodding to me. You sit there and the Minister is saying comments like “If we’d had more time, we could have had this tracked, and we would have made more time to do this. The intent of the bill wasn’t clear.”—rubbish! Rubbish! You could have gone back there and changed that.

You could have gone to select committee, and I’ll be honest: I don’t care who owns this bill. I don’t care. Te Paati Māori hasn’t come in here for kudos. We’re used to you guys taking our bills and owning it; that’s not what this is about. This is about you taking ownership and showing our communities that you’ve got their back, and you haven’t.

What was this other kōrero we had? We had “regulatory environment”. I kept hearing all through this debate that it’s about inconvenience, the loss of profits. Oh, the royalties! Well, ask our whānau—this one over here saying there are tons of opportunities in Taranaki—ask us where those opportunities are, as we clean up the mess after these extractors have gone; raped and pillaged our backyard. Ask them where the royalties are, because there are no rights to Trans-Tasman Resources. They have no property rights. That is such a red herring. I’ve never heard such “caroopa” in my life, and the reality is there is no onshore connection with seabed mining. It’s not even a fossil fuel.

I feel insulted that I’ve had to sit here and listen to you all pretend you understand what’s going on here—you don’t. It’s been insulting to our people that we’ve had to watch these amateurs sit here and talk about things they have no understanding of. I cannot believe—thank you. Thank you to Te Pāti Kākāriki. Thank you to you, who gets it.

Our intelligence as Taranaki has been insulted today. We would be better off, what, leaving it to these self-serving capitalists—the 2 percent who own 50 percent of our wealth—who are sitting here telling me what we need to do and what’s best for Taranaki? How dare he! E kī! E kī!

[Is that right?! Is that right?!]

Where are we today, whānau, when we show the world that it’s OK to protect the international waters, but your own people don’t matter? Your own people—a Government with the largest mandate, a Government with the largest Māori caucus. And I know we get on with so much—I know we get on with so much. When I heard somebody to my right saying, “And this is why we don’t support you and why we won’t do business with”, well, you remember that on 15 October, because don’t you dare ring me—sitting there saying to me.

We come here with passion for our people. We don’t come here to be apathetic and lethargic. Where is your spark and your spike—where is it? Where is your kaha for your people?

I sat there and I thought to myself, “What is it that you’re saying? Someone said that there are property rights; someone said that seabed mining is a fossil fuel.” We have just been in a debate, which my people have witnessed, where everyone, bar one, has been completely out of their depth. And if that’s what we have to get to, to get to an inquiry after 12 years, where they have won three court cases—the New Zealand law has determined this, my friends. They have already made and set the precedents, and you are telling me you need more information. What could you possibly have to learn that the High Court, that the Court of Appeal, and that the Supreme Court hasn’t already determined? What could you possibly, possibly have to learn?

We do a lot of work together, but I am going to put it to my colleagues today, particularly to my colleagues in Labour—because you know what the foreshore and seabed did to us. You know why you moved that. I put it to you that you are a real disappointment to our whānau. Don’t come knocking on that door. And I’m really disappointed that we have to do this today—

Order! Order!

Waiata