Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

The House will now continue with urgency. Before the lunch break, the House was considering the third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We had completed call No. 6. We come to call No. 7. I call Julie Anne Genter.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party absolutely supports this bill, the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, and is very pleased to see it pass its third reading today. It has been a long time coming. We’ve known for decades that continued use of fossil fuels is at odds with a healthy, stable climate and the sort of future that we want to leave our children and grandchildren.

We’re already starting to see the impacts of climate chaos because we’ve put too much greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, and that has created a thicker atmosphere which is trapping more heat. We’ve seen a record heat dome this week in North America, as well as unprecedented forest fires, uncontrolled fires, burning in Canada. And this, of course, follows earlier severe weather events that have hit Aotearoa New Zealand, including Cyclone Gabrielle and the flooding of Auckland.

These kinds of storms and fires have incredible impacts on people. They take their homes, they can take livelihoods, and they impact on food production. They will certainly be disruptive to the way people live their lives. So the cost of this is enormous and it far outweighs the cost of action and transitioning to an economy and a society, a way of living that is reliant on clean, renewable electricity that we have harnessed from the sun and the wind.

Here in New Zealand, we already have our hydro dams and we do need to be working to increase renewable capacity. But one of the key things the scientists have been telling us for several years now, more than several years, is that we have to stop looking for more oil, coal and gas. That is irrefutable. It is impossible for us to carry on looking for more fossil fuels when we already know the world cannot afford to burn the fossil fuels that we know already exist.

The debate on this bill should be enough for members, members of the public, people watching at home, and voters to understand how stark a difference it will be if we have a National-ACT Government. They are planning to continue exploration for fossil fuels. They see no reason to stop looking for them. They completely misunderstand the science and the clear direction that we’ve been given that says, yes, we’re going to continue using some of the oil, coal, and gas that we already have but we have to stop looking for more. We have to rapidly transition away from using them to have any hope of meeting the Paris Agreement, which was to stay below 1.5 degrees of warming.

Already this year we’re going to hit over 1.1 degrees of warming, I believe, since preindustrial levels, and we’re seeing the sort of chaos it’s creating. Imagine how much worse it will be if we breach that 1.5 degree threshold, or 2 degrees. We’re on track for maybe 3 degrees. Every action that we take from now on has to be aimed at protecting the climate and protecting biodiversity, enabling nature to be restored.

Changing our land use is absolutely essential. Humans are just taking too much from the Earth. We can live in harmony with nature, but we have to draw a line and stop doing the things we know are destructive and counterproductive. It’s that simple. It’s that stark. So anyone who tells you and people at home that it is important for our economy to continue exploring for fossil fuels and to just open the floodgates and promote more mining and extractive industries is just completely wrong, and their values are in the wrong place. They’re probably being paid—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: All right, Ms Genter; we’re here to talk about a bill and we’re going a long way off it. So let’s relate it to the bill, shall we?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The bill changes the purpose of the Crown Minerals Act so that it’s no longer about promoting, but rather about managing, and that distinction is very important. It doesn’t mean that there will be nothing happening. It does mean that the Crown will be exercising its responsibility to manage how those activities take place, where they take place, whether or not they’re taking place in an environmentally responsible manner or not.

But what the members opposite have said during this debate—that is the National Party and the ACT Party—that they want the Government agencies to be required to promote this sort of extractive industry and exploration for fossil fuels, is just unthinkable to me. It’s completely at odds with the science and what we’ve been told. Most New Zealanders want to have that security—to know that we’re looking after nature, that we’re looking after the climate, that we can responsibly transition to a different way of living. But we can’t do that if all of our Government systems and legislation is set up to carry on the way it was before.

Ultimately, I do believe that ACT and National are completely in denial about the challenge that we’re facing, and this is not surprising because the reason we have a Crown Minerals Act that was requiring, you know, the Government to be promoting exploration of fossil fuels was directly linked to lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, who have denied the existence of climate change and put huge amounts of money into confusing the public about the science of climate change so that they could carry on their activities and continue to make obscene profits from activities that are hurting and damaging the very planet we live on—and it’s threatening our very existence.

So the Green Party is very happy to see this bill. It is of utmost importance that we carry on this trajectory of transitioning to a clean, green way of doing things and it’s the Government’s responsibility to manage how these things happen, and that’s what the bill proposes. Yes, some minerals will continue to be used, but only if they are recovered in an entirely ethical and responsible way. That is why this bill is so important—because it is changing from promoting something to managing it. And managing is responsible; promoting is not.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a short call on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill this afternoon, which, as we’ve heard, creates more flexibility of Crown-owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand.

When I was reading through my notes on this particular piece of legislation, I was struck by the importance of the amendment that allows for the decommissioning-related classification amendment that basically ensures that the likelihood of companies gaining permits to mine in New Zealand that do not have that financial and technical capability to undertake and fund decommissioning will be able to be taken into account.

The very last thing we need is a repeat of events around the Tui oil field—events, I could remind the House, that cost the New Zealand taxpayer enormous amounts of money and created significant potential for risk to our precious environment. That’s why I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’ve been listening to this debate for some time now, earlier today and more recently this afternoon, but also as the bill has progressed its way through the House. And the more I hear from Government members, the less convinced I am of their real heart and passion for this change that they’re making in the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill.

Now that we’ve got to the third reading stage, and it’s the final part of the legislative process that will see this piece of legislation come into law after the Royal assent, what is it all about? Well, mostly it’s about changing the tone of the existing legislation, and I’ll come back to that in just a moment. The primary purpose of the Crown Minerals Act that we have is to recognise the importance that we as a Parliament, and as a nation—is concerned about its economic wellbeing and welfare places upon the value of minerals that are administered and licensed and levied by the legislation that the principal Act creates.

We have in New Zealand, as have most countries around the world, an understanding that minerals can create wealth, can be an addition, and a practical part of a modern, exciting new world which we all want to enjoy. Pretty much everything that we do in our day-to-day lives has an element that comes from mineral extraction. Whether that’s in the fossil vehicles that some of us still drive from time to time or whether it’s the use of digital devices of the sort that we all find are such an important part of our day-to-day lives, they all contain and involve minerals that have been extracted from the earth. Now, we can as a nation either decide to administer the extraction of those minerals in a sensible, pragmatic, and rational way or we can choose not to.

Now, coming back to what this bill is about, effectively: it simply changes the existing purpose of the Crown Minerals Act as we have it now from promoting mineral extraction to “managing mineral extraction”. Now, some might say, “Well, that’s not much of a change.”, but actually it is. It’s a very important and none too subtle change about the way Government thinks of mineral extraction. And we on this side of the House don’t agree with this subtle and, frankly—well, it’s none too subtle; it’s a blunt attack on the mineral extractions industry.

In my electorate of the beautiful Coromandel, we are fortunate to have a very good operation at OceanaGold. I’ve had the benefit of visiting underground there on a number of occasions and I’ve always been impressed with not only their environmental standards but the way they operate their business, the way it’s conducted, and their genuine concern for the communities that they operate in and the way they conduct their business. That is a net benefit to us all. The good people of Waihī, I think, by and large understand that. Waihī is a mining town. Waihī would not exist if it was not for mining, and it has done so for more than 100 years.

So we can, as I say, choose to carefully, prudently, and effectively manage mineral extraction under the Crown minerals legislation that we have or we can send none too subtle messages of the sort that this Government is intending to do, which actually says, “No, we don’t appreciate your work. We don’t value that. We don’t encourage and promote. We just want to merely manage.” Well, I don’t think that’s good enough. I don’t think that sends the right messages to an important part of our economic sector that in my experience tries to do the right thing.

I understand that the Minister—in fact, my colleague Stuart Smith has made it clear—apparently has never been underground into a mining operation. I would have thought that would be a priority for her and something that, as involved as she is, she would have undertaken to do, because seeing is sometimes believing.

So on this side of the House we are opposing this legislation. We think it sends the wrong messages. We think it is unhelpful, not useful, and we don’t support it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Tēnā koe.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer—the member needs to call.

Yes. Kia ora. Tēnā koe. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I stand to speak on behalf of Te Paati Māori in respect to the bill before us, the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, and understand the purposes is implementing the findings of the 2018 review. I note the providing iwi or hapū, whose rohe are included, enabling annual meetings with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and making explicit that decision makers have regard to feedback from iwi and hapū.

Look, there are a couple of aspects that we want to bring up in this debate, and that’s starting with rangatiratanga. You know it, and we know it, as tangata whenua, that we have rights and interests. The Crown has acknowledged this every time they’ve apologised for breaches of Te Tiriti and iwi settlements—the theft of resources. And like today—even those apologies are happening—we’re seeing that they’re trying to improve legislation that hasn’t addressed some of the Tribunal findings from the Wai claim 796, where it was found that Māori had Treaty interests in petroleum, arising from the loss of their land before 1937, and the expropriation of the Petroleum Act, and also the Crown’s royalties and 11 percent ownership in Kupe gas field, which could have been included in settlements like Ngāruahine iwi—in fact, Taranaki iwi katoa.

So here we are today, being asked to support this proposition instead of what we should be doing, which is addressing the fact that there are changes to the block offer regime which are now out of date and not fit for purpose, especially if no ban on onshore exploration has been proposed, which iwi and hapū have been discussing with the Government now for more than two years. While annual engagement reports, which iwi are supporting—that is not a fundamental change or a big enough change that we needed to see happen.

There need to be legislative backstops to enshrine the best practice of engagement with iwi throughout the entire permitting process, which includes a partnership approach with the Crown to agree on designated mining permit areas and collective decision making on planned work plans. We think there should have been an authentic partnership model for Taranaki specifically, who everyone seems to acknowledge are experts, but is way overdue. This could be a model for co-governance—Oh! Dare I say—and partnerships. There has been a complete missed opportunity to review the Crown Minerals Act in conjunction with the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. And I know we’ve said this before, but it could have included complexity of engagements in the artificial separation of permitting and environmental impact—if we go back and remember, the original Crown Minerals Act and RMA were proposed as one Act, prior to 1991.

From a kaitiaki perspective, I want to highlight that we should not be modernising an outdated Act but rather transitioning away from it completely. This would send a clear commitment and connection to climate change, our taiao change, and the overall transition agendas.

We acknowledge that the Government was bold to announce a ban on new offshore permits, but where is the ban on new permits onshore in Taranaki? We need to take a step back and look at a total integrated model, which is ultimately about moving forward with a clear transition away from fossil fuels.

In our opinion, this fails to bring regulation in line with the reality that oil and gas is a sunset industry, and the failure to reform the block offer system and failure to ban new onshore permits in Taranaki sit starkly in conflict with the stated commitments on climate and biodiversity. Based on those issues, we oppose this bill. What we need to see is changes that are really a step in the right direction, that need to be bold. Again, I repeat, while most of the provisions in the bill itself are sensible and should be supported, overall, it is lacking the ambition and vision that is needed to make the necessary transitions away from fossil fuels and towards real Crown partnerships with tangata whenua. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a brief call on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill at third reading. I just want to say a huge thankyou to the Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, for also answering those questions in the committee stage as well and also to the select committee for their work in ushering this bill.

This bill does a few things, and one of them, of which those across the House have also mentioned as well, is about making improvements to our permit licence holders, as well as permit applicants, to engage better with iwi and hapū to ensure the engagement demonstrates their respect for the authority, mana, and local expertise. I think this is one way to make sure that we strengthen our relationships with local iwi, and leveraging off their knowledge and experience within that area as well.

One of those ways that we can do that is requiring permit holders to share annual reports on iwi engagement to relevant iwi and also for them to agree on that. So there are many things. I commend this bill to the House.

I stand as the last speaker for the National Party in opposition to the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. For members of the public who may be listening in, this is the third reading, which means that after the completion of the debate before the House, this bill will go to the Governor-General for Royal assent for it to be passed into law. And the bill is going to pass into law because it has the numbers of the Government and—anticipated—the Green Party, all of whom have addressed the House this afternoon.

By way of process, just before it came to the third reading, there was the committee of the whole House that reported back from the select committee, which was the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. The report back to the House from that committee was that they were unable to agree whether the bill as had been presented in its original form should pass, and on that basis recommendations were for further amendments to the bill. Now, I did not sit on that select committee; my colleagues Barbara Kuriger, Melissa Lee, Stuart Smith, and the Hon Michael Woodhouse did, and three of those members did, in parts, during the time that this bill was considered by the select committee. That bill was referred to the committee on 22 November last year. Public submissions were invited before the closing date of 23 January this year. There were 334 interest groups who did make written submissions and oral evidence was heard from 17.

The position that the National Party arrives at, and really the thrust of this bill—which is an amendment to the Crown Minerals Act 1991—is to enable greater flexibility for allocating and managing Crown-owned mineral rights, improve permit and licence holder engagement with iwi and hapū, and clarify decommissioning-related obligations. So the National Party has expressed concern because the key element is a shift and a change in the purpose to the Crown Minerals Act. Therefore, clause 4, which is one of the amendments under the bill, is to alter the purpose of the principal Act, which will no longer include a requirement for the Crown and Minister to “promote” prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown-owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand. So it’s to alter and amend the purpose of “to promote” and instead, under the amendment, with this bill passing into law, require the Crown and Minister to “manage” prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown-owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand.

The main objection that the National Party has to this bill is that it will impact on Crown royalties that are drawn as a result of the promotion of licences for exploration for mining. And it may have been addressed in this House but I’m going to recap because Crown royalties are a little bit like taxes and we have a Government here that is very keen on taxing New Zealanders in this time of a crisis of cost of living. So Crown royalties that are extracted under this bill—this Government has been in power and had the luxury of having $51 million worth of royalties from Crown mineral extraction during the period of 2017 to 2021. Under this amendment, which will come into law, the Crown royalties will reduce significantly. To the year 2022, the Crown is estimated to receive just under $10 million in royalties from coal and mineral extraction, a significant reduction from the take of $51 million during the period of 2017 to 2021.

This legislation will mean that the Crown will not promote mining and, hence, revenue from royalties will inevitably decrease. The impact of this amendment to the Crown Minerals Act is a reality for New Zealanders to be aware of. As the Reserve Bank has recently said, we are likely heading for a recession and Government debt is incredibly high. Royalties from Crown minerals are welcomed, have been welcomed under this Government, and are now going to be depleted and diminished, effectively reduced and extracted from the tax pūtea—or from the Crown kitty. So royalties from Crown minerals have been welcomed under this Government and have provided solid revenue for successive Governments. That will change.

The other change that will come about—and, again, it has an impact on the local economy during this time of a cost of living crisis. Let’s take it back to local towns. I heard my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson reference Waihī, known as a goldmining town previously—historically. So, most of New Zealand’s mines are situated in the regions. More than 4,700 people are employed in the sector, wages are high in the sector, and also the regional impact is significant in areas where there is mining. For example, mining is 21.3 percent of the GDP of Buller, on the West Coast of the South Island; 22.7 percent of Hauraki’s GDP; and 30.8 percent of Waitaki’s GDP. This bill will affect local communities and people with their jobs to provide for their families in this crisis, in a country where we have an endemic of a cost of living hitting us. So this is one of the significant reasons why the National Government is opposing this bill; if the Crown does not promote mining, as is in this legislation, our regional economies will suffer and those earning high-paying jobs will go overseas. That’s just part of it—the select committee report identifies the concerns expressed from the National Party. And in summary, to emphasise and reiterate that the National Party does have a concern and does have a lens and a protective blanket and cloak around environmental considerations.

This legislation also adds more bureaucracy and layers of consultation which will ultimately make it expensive but also tardy and delayed for business to be done. So it was interesting, part of the debate that I listened to from my office, not having been a member on the select committee to be present to the whole of this debate before the House, is that we had a member, the Hon Michael Woods—and for the benefit of New Zealanders, the title “Honourable” is an indicator or signals that that member has served in a ministerial capacity as a Minister. So my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse sat on the select committee and has ministerial experience. The Hon Michael Woodhouse stood in this House earlier this afternoon and talked from his perspective and the Government’s perspective that the “weasel words” of the National Government—the “weasel words”; not honourable words to be expressed from an honourable member. But for the benefit, again, of members in this House and New Zealanders—weasel words: words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading. There is nothing that’s intentionally ambiguous or misleading about the National Party’s opposition to this bill. And it’s interesting that that member stood in this House but half an hour ago to apologise to the House for ambiguous statements—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Hipango—on topic, please.

HARETE HIPANGO: Mr Speaker, to say that it’s all very well for a member to stand and rise in this House and cast aspersions towards the National Party, to assert that the position taken is one of being misleading and ambiguous—it’s most clear that the reason for the National Party’s opposition to this bill is because of the economic impact it will have on regional communities, it will have on this country, and also that the party is very mindful of its environmental duties and responsibilities of care. In concluding, the National Party does not support this bill.

And the Labour Party does, because it is really important that we make sure that we’re doing the best for New Zealanders, that we are actually taking our foot off the pedal when it comes to our emissions. We need to give support to the agencies that help to decide how hard and how fast we go in this space, and that’s what this bill is intending to do. Bringing iwi and hapū into the decision-making process is really important; giving them the ability to call for reviews in that process is also really important. It has support from this side, it will become law, and I look forward to it. I commend it to the House.