Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. As a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, it’s a pleasure to stand here on behalf of this hard-working committee to speak on the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We considered this piece of legislation. We worked hard together on it, and although we didn’t reach agreement, there were constructive processes done together, on both sides of the floor. I want to acknowledge my colleague, the member Naisi Chen, the chair of the committee, for her brilliant leadership throughout this, and I also acknowledge the previous chair, Jamie Strange, who did a wonderful job of chairing and ensuring that, even though we didn’t agree on much of this, we were able to work closely together to reach the outcomes of today.

Now, for those in the House, I know you’re desperate to know a bit more about this piece of legislation. So listen very carefully, because this bill seeks to clarify the role of the Crown Minerals Act 1991 as an allocation and management framework and enable flexibility in the management of Crown-owned minerals. It sits around flexibility, around management, but also around engagement with iwi and hapū, which is an important piece to consider.

For myself, as the member of Parliament for New Plymouth, this is particularly dear to my heart and my region and electorate. Obviously, in terms of Crown minerals, in terms of what we have in my region, it’s something that for many, many, many years has been neglected, and that is the engagement with local hapū, with local iwi; for decades and decades they have never been at the table or part of the conversation. Therefore, the plan within this legislation to improve, with permit licence holders, the engagement with iwi and hapū, and I think that’s really important.

We received 334 written submissions for this legislation, and 17 oral submissions, and the diversity was great. It was really interesting to be part of that. Just to give you a bit of a feel for that, in terms of the submitters, we had BusinessNZ Energy Council, we had Carbon Neutral NZ, we had Climate Justice Taranaki, we had Energy Resources Aotearoa, we had Methanex, and we had Minerals West Coast. We also had OMV NZ and Taranaki Energy Watch. We had Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Mutunga. We had Todd Energy and Victoria University of Wellington, just to name some of those who engaged in this process. It was robust. It was challenging.

I just want to focus, as I finish off this afternoon, on a very simple change in wording, which makes a big difference. As I said, we will amend the Crown Minerals Act 1991, and we will amend the purpose statement, replacing the word “promote” with “manage”. I believe that, as we move forward into the 21st century and we look at the climate challenges, managing our resources rather than promoting them is important. I commend this bill to the House.

Well, in contrast to the previous member for New Plymouth Glen Bennett and his proposal that New Zealand should simply manage its mineral resources, the ACT Party believes we should promote the use and acquisition of our minerals. By doing so, whether they are highly valuable and rare minerals, or things that we use every day in our cellphones and other technology, like gold and silver and platinum, or those minerals like titanium, for example, which are found in association with iron-rich sands, volcanic sands, off the west coast of the North Island, which are used to manufacture steel—and, in fact, not just manufacture any steel but low-emissions, high-quality steel right here in New Zealand—we must continue to promote the use and the acquisition of these mineral resources in order to ensure New Zealand’s future prosperity, a healthy economy, but, more importantly, healthy communities.

It is people who work in those industries who earn some of the highest wages and salaries of any people in New Zealand, and it’s those wages and salaries that allow people, even if they didn’t finish high school or go to university and get a degree, to earn as much as people who did, and put food on the table, school uniforms on the kids, pay for holidays, save for a home, and get ahead. That’s what promoting access to our natural and physical resources and minerals means—in Taranaki, on the West Coast of the South Island, in Southland, in Canterbury and Central Otago, where we have extensive gold deposits, and, of course, in the Coromandel, not far from where I live in Auckland, where New Zealand has been undertaking gold extraction for over a hundred years. More recently, there have been proposed developments to access gold from underneath the conservation estate—from underneath the conservation estate—by drilling a tunnel from private land to get into the gold resource without disturbing a single snail, frog, lizard, or even a leaf on a kauri tree.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Dreaming!

SIMON COURT: We can promote the use of our natural and physical resources, despite what the member the Hon Eugenie Sage says—that we’re dreaming. I’ve seen it done in other places around New Zealand, where the resources have been recovered and they’ve been recovered in an environmentally friendly way, such as at OceanaGold’s Globe Progress Mine at Reefton, on the West Coast of the South Island, where that company not only rehabilitated a site that had been used for over a hundred years for all types of informal and less sophisticated mining activities but had actually saved the tree stumps from historical logging activities. When they went to do their mine—extract the gold from the Globe Progress Mine—not that long ago, in the last 10 or 15 years, they took the tree stumps off the site first, before they started digging, and they stockpiled them all on one side of the site. Then, when they’d finished mining, they built a fantastic lake and a wetland. They’ve landscaped the site, they’ve planted it with hundreds of thousands of trees, and they’ve put the tree stumps back as little hidey holes as habitat for little creatures and insects.

That’s how you promote the use of New Zealand’s natural and physical resources. That’s how you generate wealth: you generate export earnings, you generate revenues and royalties for the Crown, and you pay fantastic wages and salaries to people who might not have finished high school or got a university degree but are active contributors in their community and who are able to put food on the table, able to pay for school uniforms, and never have to ask for charity. Those people are the backbone of New Zealand because they earn good money in the natural and physical resources sector, and we get a much improved environment. Now, if now only the Department of Conservation, on whose land the OceanaGold Globe Progress Mine—

Hon Eugenie Sage: Our land!

SIMON COURT: The Department of Conservation (DOC) administers the land. As the Hon Eugenie Sage rightly points out, that is our land; that is New Zealanders’ land that DOC administers. If only the Department of Conservation could afford to control the weeds and the pests on their enormous estate that they manage, maybe there would be a case to say, “Hey, we should be kind of managing minerals in a different way.” Imagine if we could actually generate more revenue from promoting the use of minerals and resources, and organisations like the Department of Conservation could benefit from increased revenue—from concessions and access fees, for example—to actually pay for pest control, weed control, and all the other things that New Zealanders want them to do well. Well, by changing the definition from “promote” to simply “manage”, all of that opportunity is put at risk.

It was quite recently that a former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, said that mining is not a threat to conservation in New Zealand: it’s pests and weeds. And she should know. She’s a scientist and was the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. All of that knowledge appears to have been neglected in pursuit of this policy. Now, of course, every Government has the right to set its policies and priorities, to deliver on policies, such as when the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Dame Jacinda Ardern, as she is now, announced no new mines on the conservation estate. Well, it turns out, actually, that represents about a third of New Zealand’s land area, and that’s a very, very unfortunate policy, because it would sterilise access to valuable minerals, not just gold but rare earth minerals that are absolutely vital for the technology that we use today, whether it’s the cellphone network, putting satellites into space, or communication technology, but it would also sterilise access to valuable resources like aggregates and sands, which are also on the conservation estate and which are required for building roads and building infrastructure. There are many places around New Zealand where the Department of Conservation, for example, has the right of veto, essentially, over which businesses get access to these resources.

So what ACT would say is quite simple: we need to have policies that, instead of simply managing Crown minerals, and managing them in a way, currently, which involves an enormous backlog of applications through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for access permits from the New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals department—managing currently means a handbrake. It means a whole lot of in-trays but very little going out in the out-tray, back to the sector that actually needs permission to get on with extracting minerals. Instead of managing it, which is something that nobody trusts this Government to do anyway, ACT believes we should be promoting access to these resources, whether they’re on private land or on Crown land, whether they’re on land or on sea, because what that does is allow us to generate economic wealth, social wealth, and to take advantage of our natural potential and our human potential.

If New Zealand wants to play its part as a 21st century nation, one that is committed to a low-emissions future, to net zero 2050, we’re going to need to play our part by recovering the minerals that are lying under New Zealand, either on our continental shelf or on that part of the country that’s still above water, and we’re going to need to recover them so we can turn them into products that use less hydrocarbons, such as batteries and all of that other technology. ACT won’t be supporting this bill and, if we have an opportunity in a future Government, we will return the language to “promote” the use of these resources.

The 10 hottest days in recorded human history have been in this month. There are currently extremely dangerous temperatures across many settlements, towns, and cities in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’re also seeing record warming of the North Atlantic Ocean at an incredibly unprecedented rate. If this is not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is, and the speech made by the previous speaker, Mr Court, was kind of terrifying in its absolute blindness to the threat to human wellbeing that is caused by our continued use of fossil fuels.

Last year, fossil fuel companies recorded their largest profits—record profits. So we have large corporations that are making enormous amounts of money out of digging up and selling a product that is leading to pollution that is slowly—in this case, possibly rapidly—smothering the Earth. We don’t have that much time left, so it’s a bit absurd to hear members on this side of the House arguing that they still think it’s appropriate to have legislation saying that the Government should be promoting exploration and production of fossil fuels. That is outrageous. It’s a death wish from those people.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but, you know, it’s 2023 and we are running out of time, and it seems like they really have no idea that the 10 hottest days in over 10,000 years—possibly 100,000 years—have happened in the last month. What do you think is going to happen next year? What do you think is going to happen in five years? Do you people have children? Do you care about them? It’s outrageous that these people want to continue to allow private companies to get rich off things that are causing the death of the future of this planet. That is what’s happening. I’m not afraid to show emotion on this issue because I have two young children and I care about their future, and I’m aware of the science, which clearly you are not—members of the National Party; not you, Madam Speaker.

This is a practical action. I don’t know if people watching at home or members here have seen the movie Don’t Look Up, but the justifications given for having legislation that continues to promote exploration of minerals rather than manage it is very indicative or reminiscent of the crazy billionaire character who’s saying that we shouldn’t stop an asteroid from hitting Earth because we could get rich off it. It is an allegory, and obviously, if you live on another planet, a planet on which climate change isn’t happening, I guess you won’t be concerned about that and you wouldn’t support the bill, but it’s the responsibility of the Government to look after our natural resources for all of us. It is a clear example of market failure when people can get rich off activities that are a threat to human health, wellbeing, and our future.

I think that people watching at home know this. There’s a huge number of people who are extremely concerned about climate change, and they’re concerned, particularly, in the wake of record flooding events and Cyclone Gabrielle. It’s unfathomable to me that members opposite think that we should still be promoting exploration for the use of fossil fuels, which we know we can’t afford to burn, when we are going to continue to be hit by dangerous droughts, dangerous floods, and dangerous cyclones that will have enormous human cost. The stress on food production that is caused by high temperatures and record rainfall events is one of the contributors to the high food prices we are currently experiencing. All they can do is point the finger and blame the current Government, while just paying no attention to what’s actually going on out there in the world. It’s irresponsible.

I love the smirky smile on your face—I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name; Nicola from the South Island—Nicola Grigg. What a smirky smile. Come back and talk to me in 10 years. Come back and talk to me in 15 years. These members believe that we are going to be able to continue getting rich off taking more out of the Earth than the Earth can afford. We have the ability to have good lives while respecting the Earth and respecting natural resources and stopping the use of fossil fuels. We have the ability to do that as humans, but we will not be able to do that if we have a Government that represents the vested interests of the status quo—the people who want to continue getting rich by exploiting the environment and people so that they can personally fly their private jets and own seven houses or more—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! The member will come back now to this bill. I know that it relates in general, but come back to the bill.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It’s a very simple choice that we have at this election—a very simple choice. We can continue taking action that is responsible and is going to look after the things that matter most to people, look after our future—and I really hope people at home are watching and paying attention to the speeches from the National Party and the ACT Party. We in the Green Party actually believe—and my colleague Eugenie Sage has a member’s bill that would amend the purpose—that rather than manage exploration, it’s the responsibility of the Government to regulate, and we would prefer to see that language used. Those sorts of changes would help assist the transition from oil, gas, and coal extraction to a more sustainable form of living and a sustainable form of producing our food, carrying on our trade, and doing all the things that humans want to do, so that we can continue to live good lives and so that our kids and their kids can continue to live good lives, and we can stop the rapid acceleration of warming of the planet that is leading to devastating storms, droughts, and temperatures that will quite literally put human lives at risk.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I too join with my deputy chairperson, Glen Bennett, in thanking the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the hard work that we’ve put in, especially the officials that have worked on this bill.

I note, similarly to my deputy chair, that the submissions were extensive, the submissions were really in depth, and the submissions had a lot of different views to show to us. I walked away from that process with this overwhelming impression that those who submitted to our select committee care deeply for our environment, and that is an impression that will forever be ingrained in me. The amount of people, individuals—young people especially; I remember this one young female individual who talked about the fact that New Zealand needs to have a regulatory system that looks after the overall wellbeing of our environment. Through this bill, this is another part of making sure that we have the right regulations and a suite of legislation in place to make sure we balance that.

I just wanted to address some of the comments that the ACT Party member Simon Court made about economic wellbeing coming from our minerals, or from our mining sector. I think that is one very, very short-sighted and singular vision of how we need to develop our economy. New Zealand trades on our image of being clean and green. “100% Pure New Zealand” is the slogan of this country. When we go out there on to the global stage and we promote our products, we promote tourism to New Zealand. If we don’t keep going with decarbonising our future, if we don’t keep producing the high quality products of being a low-carbon economy, low-emissions economy, we are going to lose our advantage that we have on the world stage.

When I visited China with the Prime Minister earlier on last month, we knew that New Zealand’s products had an edge in that market, because we had the reputation that our products were produced in an environment that was clean and green—that we had high standards of regulating our economy and the way that we produce our goods. So this is a bill that has a lot of foresight into what kind of economy we want to be in the future—how New Zealand has a comparative advantage on the world stage. This is one step in that direction. I’m also really proud to bring iwi and hapū engagement into this bill as well, making sure that there is a little bit more clarity when we bring in the wisdom and the knowledge that our mana whenua has of our land when they engage with us in that process, and give us the best of their knowledge in this entire process as well.

The last part of this bill, which I think seldom got acknowledged, was also the decommissioning part—tidying up the last bit of that part. We know now that the Crown had to foot the bill for the decommissioning of the last failure of the private company who just walked out the door with actually no obligation; it was the taxpayers who had to front up with that bill, despite a private company making all of the profit in that process. So we know that this is a real-life example where we as Government need to step up and make sure that, if you’re going to make money from New Zealand, from our precious minerals, and our precious natural environment, you need to be held accountable for that responsibility back to New Zealand taxpayers to make sure that there are stringent laws and regulations on how we assess and grant permits.

Yes, this is also another bill that we’ve already passed into the House. But this bill—this amendment to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act in 2022—will just tidy up and close all of the loopholes in that respect as well. So this is a great bill, and I commend it to the House.

Well, it has been quite startling listening to the last two contributions in this debate from the Green Party and the Labour Party, because what they have given clear voice to is the absolute divide that sits in this House between those who see a future—

Rachel Boyack: And the country.

TODD MULLER: —and the country, perhaps; let’s see—those who see a future for mining rare minerals to assist the decarbonisation journey and those who see it, and any of that activity, as purely extractive and therefore shall be banned from New Zealand. That is the argument they have put forward in the last 10 minutes. They are anti-extraction, anti-mining, and if anybody stands up—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order—point of order. My understanding is that the bill changes the wording to “manage” not “ban”, so I’m not sure why that member’s misleading members at home about what is actually said in the bill.

Matt Doocey: Speaking to that point of order—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): It is actually not a point of order. It is a debating point, so I will go back to Todd Muller, who’s still giving his speech.

TODD MULLER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So there is an absolute clear divide, in my view, between the Labour and Green parties, who hold the view that any mining, any extractive industry has no future, and, worse than that, that anybody who stands on this side of the House and has a different view is a climate denier. We had full noise from Julie Anne Genter just before, saying that in the National Party, because we have a different view, because we see that there is a place for mining in the decarbonisation journey of this country, we are supposedly the climate deniers. I think the argument is false, it’s flawed, and actually does this debate a disservice.

We are trying to walk this country, over the next 20 or 30 years, to be less reliant on carbon to underpin our economy, and the minerals that exist in this country, in Australia, and in other parts of the world, will be a critical part of that. So we stand here saying: yes, the climate crisis around the globe is extreme and serious, and, yes, 190 countries need to make the best efforts to go on a decarbonising journey. But what does that mean? In 2030, to meet global demand for electricity storage, the International Energy Agency predicts 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, and 17 new cobalt mines. Without minerals, there is no transition to a decarbonised future.

So the argument of the Greens in particular, echoed by Labour, is completely nonsensical. They are living in a la-la land, thinking that somehow, for the decarbonisation of this country and this economy to occur, we should just walk away from any mineral that sits underground that actually could assist not only us but the rest of the world to make the transition. Norway does it, Europe does it, Africa does it, America does it, Canada does it, Australia does it, but for the Greens and the Labour Party, no, New Zealand should not touch it, because somehow it’s going to impact our positioning on the world stage. What absolute trite nonsense.

We have to change the economy to move to a decarbonised future, but minerals are a critical enabler for that to happen and they’re underground. You’ve got to dig them up to actually make them contribute to the global economy. To sit there and say that any touching of any mineral extraction is bad and is flawed and shouldn’t be the way of the future for New Zealand is absolute economic illiteracy. What’s worse is that it’s wrapped up in climate change language that if we hold this view we are deniers, and if we hold this view somehow we don’t care about our children’s futures.

Nicola Grigg: Lazy.

TODD MULLER: Well, that is lazy, it is wrong, and, frankly, it’s offensive, because this debate deserves far better intellectual rigour than what we’ve had to put up with over the last 10 minutes or quarter of an hour. This is critical—that we get the settings right for our decarbonised journey—and this bill says, “You know what? We are not going to promote or in any way be active in seeking to see what we could do with our New Zealand minerals that are caught up, and applying the best practice in terms of extraction and remediation—we’re going to say no to that opportunity and let the rest of the world grab it.” Frankly, it looks like we are the country in the Dark Ages. By goodness, we need a change in Government come October to have some sense brought to the table in this debate. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We’ve had quite a few impassioned contributions from around the House on this bill, but I think, as someone who didn’t sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee that considered this bill, I’d like to look at what the bill actually does say, and in terms of the provisions it’s actually introducing.

So “This bill would amend the Crown Minerals Act 1991”—and I’m taking this from the report from the select committee; the EDSI Committee. It’s a split committee between the Opposition and the Government, so it doesn’t necessarily have a view which supports either way. In their agreed report, it states that the bill would “alter the purpose clause of the Act to remove promotional intent”, and it would mean that “allocation would be promoted where there is a need, and minimised where [this is] not [needed].” So I do agree this is a practical bill; it strikes a balance on the need for mining in some circumstances, but it also recognises that there are changes that we need to make.

It does take away “promotion”, but this does not equate to a ban on mining, as some others have stated, and it is quite clearly there in the bill—and we can just check, to be extra sure that we’re correct on this, by looking at Part 1. In clause 4, section 1A as amended, the word “promote” is replaced with “manage”. We can all agree, I think, that there are environmental concerns with mining, and so changing from promotion to management—especially when we’re in the time of a climate crisis—does seem to be a practical, sensible way of addressing both the need to mine and also the needs of our changing climate. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call in support of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, and I want to thank the Hon Megan Woods for bringing this bill to the House. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for their work on this fantastic bill. This bill was part of the Government’s review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, and this Government is preparing Aotearoa for the environmental transition and to reduce the emissions linked to our extractive industries.

Minerals will be an important part of the environmental transition and they will be absolutely necessary in the technologies that we’re going to need to help us decarbonise our economy. But continuing as we have done until now cannot be the solution, and we should try to do more with less; to reduce our carbon footprint and ecological impact. Energy transition is an issue that not only New Zealand but the whole world actually faces, and this bill is part of our effort to participate in the energy transition and achieve our net zero goals by 2050.

This bill changes the Crown Minerals Act so that the Crown no longer promotes the prospecting, exploration, and mining of Crown-owned minerals, but instead manages them. We are committed to phasing out fossil fuels in New Zealand and to achieve net zero by 2050. It’s no easy task, but it’s essential that we do our bit to fight climate change.

This bill does not change the framework surrounding the extraction of minerals in New Zealand; it simply creates more certainty about future decision making around minerals in New Zealand, and we are committed to phasing out fossil fuels while ensuring that our energy remains secure, reliable, and affordable for all New Zealanders. This bill also strengthens the engagement between permit holders, iwi, and hapū to ensure that Māori interests are recognised. So it’s a fantastic bill, and I commend it to the House.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. The member that has just resumed his seat, Dan Rosewarne, has fallen into the trap that all Labour and Green MPs have fallen into, and that is believing that this piece of legislation is actually going to assist our climate change objectives and goals. It’s going to do the reverse—it’s going to do the reverse. If there was ever a piece of legislation to come before this House that is based on ideological claptrap, it’s this—absolute ideological claptrap. Every aspect of our lives that we live in a modern, thriving economy—well, I wish that the economy was thriving; an economy that should be thriving—is based, actually, at its essence, on an extractive mineral resource that gives us the opportunity to live the lives that we do.

If we are to achieve—as we on this side of the House absolutely believe we will and are committed to—our Paris Agreement commitments, our international commitments, and our domestic legislative commitments in terms of climate change, then we are going to need a mineral-extractive sector within our economy. To think otherwise is to just deny the absolute truth of what it is that makes a modern economy work and what gives us the opportunity to live the lives that we want to live and aspire to have for our children and our grandchildren.

Now, I did not sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that heard submissions on this legislation, but I’ve had an opportunity to listen to speeches today and also to do some reading about some of the submissions that were received, and some of the arguments both for and against. I want to pick up on a comment or two that my colleague Todd Muller made, because I thought his was a very, very good contribution to this broader debate and this speech. If we look at economies around the world that are, in many ways, leading their climate objectives, we find that some of those economies—in fact, most of those economies—are using their own mineral-extractive sectors to help achieve the goals that they have set for themselves and for the planet. For us to say, “Well, we’re not going to participate in that. We’re going to just manage rather than promote an intelligent, useful, and smart environmental approach to mineral extraction” is just to deny the obvious.

Look, for a moment, at Norway. Norway is a world leader in terms of their climate ambitions and in terms of the way that they have been able to, for instance, change the way that their transport sector is funded. They are electrifying their transport fleet at rates that make us look like rank amateurs, but their economy is based on a mineral-extractive economy. How they’ve funded that growth has been through support for their own extractive economy. They’ve used that to provide their citizens and their nation with the goals that they want to achieve and the tools that they want to use to get to the climate objectives they need. This legislation would be an anchor in terms of helping New Zealand and New Zealanders achieve those goals that, I think, collectively, around this Parliament, we do want to achieve.

So this comes down to, in many respects, an ideological debate. It’s an ideological debate. It’s about whether we have the smart, clever thinking that is going to effectively and environmentally consciously and environmentally responsibly use the minerals that we have available to us in New Zealand to achieve goals that we want to for our citizens, or are we just going to take an ideological approach such as that that the Hon Julie Anne Genter was talking about in her speech, which is, basically, to crawl back into a cave and do nothing? That was, essentially, I think, the essence of her speech. I thought it was Catherine Delahunty, a former member of this House—I thought that was her view. It seems that that is still commonly held within the Green Party.

Actually, we need to be smarter than that. We need to be more nimble, we need more finesse, and we need to be able to realise that it’s not a binary option for New Zealand and New Zealanders to simply say, “Well, we want to achieve our climate objectives, but we don’t want to use any extractive mineral resources at all to do that.” That is simply not an opportunity that we have. We are a small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific, blessed, might I say, with a lot of mineral resources that we should be using and should be maximising to achieve our goals.

So, in this legislation, the primary function of it seems to be simply to remove terminology from the existing principal statute that says “promote” all types of mining and instead replace it with the words “manage mining”. Well, I just think that sends very poor signals to those businesses, those stakeholders, shareholders, and entrepreneurs who want to invest cleverly and imaginatively in extractive mineral opportunities that will help us achieve our goals. I can’t see why the current Government wants to be so closed in their thinking as to that, because this change actually sends a chilling message to those investors that, actually, in New Zealand, mining and mineral extraction is not something that is welcomed by our Government and it doesn’t, in their view, form an important part of our economy.

By crikey, given the opportunity later this year, in October, if my colleagues and I in the National Party and the ACT Party have an opportunity to lead a new Government, we are going to have to focus far more carefully on growing our economy, because it’s a growing economy that gives us the income and the wealth and the opportunity to invest in the roads and the schools and the health systems and all the things that we want for our society. To simply close off opportunity, in the way that this current Government wants to, is to deny the logic of basic economics, but it’s also to deny opportunities for New Zealand citizens.

I want to just comment, for instance, in relation to my own electorate in the beautiful Coromandel. Waihī is a town that, for more than a hundred years, has been literally and figuratively built on mining. Waihī didn’t exist before gold mining. Waihī is a town that, like so many other small towns around our country, exists entirely because of its mining heritage. Now, I know there are some who say, “Well, we shouldn’t be doing any mining at Waihī.” Well, I don’t take that view at all. I think that Waihī provides a great example of how it can be a business that provides for community, for jobs, and for the local district and local people. Just to give you an idea, something like 22.7 percent of the Hauraki District Council’s total gross domestic product comes from mining. That’s important to a small district council like Hauraki. To deny that, I think, is to deny the facts and the logic and the rationale of economic reality.

So, on this side of the House, we take a far more pragmatic and sensible approach. We apply our blue-green environmental principles to these matters, and we say we take a practical approach to environmentalism—a practical approach that says we can have a degree of nimbleness and smartness that allows us to extract minerals wisely, sensibly, and for the economic benefit of the nation, that helps us achieve our combined climate objectives while at the same time ensuring that our environment is protected and that we are not stupid enough to degrade and do long-term harm. I know that my South Island colleagues will point to examples where mineral extraction has actually enhanced, at the end of the mineral extraction process, the local environment.

So, look, with that, I’m happy to conclude my remarks in this second reading. We oppose this legislation, we oppose the ideological claptrap and nonsense that it represents, and we will apply, given the opportunity in October to lead a new Government, a far more practical blue-green environmental approach to these matters.

I want to say Mr Todd Simpson, who has just spoken—

Matt Doocey: Scott Simpson.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —has followed in the same vein as his colleague who spoke before him—

Matt Doocey: Scott Muller.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —Mr Todd Muller, and I want to say—they all look the same, I’m sorry.

I want to say that, for the young people of New Zealand who care about the future of this country, they really need to look at those speeches, and I hope that they would come to agree with me: those speeches are reckless, are irresponsible, and are greed-based.

Look, Mr Simpson also made mention of Norway. What he didn’t make mention of—sure, that economy is not as liberal as the kind of economy that they are trying to create. It is a managed economy. It is a high-tax economy with a focus on greater investment in education and health, so you can’t compare us to Norway. We are nowhere close to that.

This bill, despite the ill-informed comments they’ve made, is about changing from promoting to managing—so we’ve got to manage this better. We’ve got to do that. I think, if people look at what we’re trying to change, this is the Crown Minerals Act of 1991. Who was in charge of the Government at that time? National, under Jim Bolger—that was a time people should remember, where greed drove a lot of the policy directions that they provided.

So what we’re asking now is, because of climate change—and it is the single-greatest threat in the Pacific region—we’ve got to be in a position that we are managing and controlling how we cause harm to this planet and to our region, but also to enable us to transition away from fossil fuels into more renewable energy.

The final comment I want to make is that I’m really grateful that the committee has continued to support the participation of iwi. This is important. Indigenous people throughout the world are calling out to all Governments that their economic activities are causing harm and that they need to think about the future. Oftentimes it is iwi, it is Māori, that bring us back to our senses, and I hope that the National Party continues to listen. Even more importantly, they’ve got to pay iwi—they’ve got to pay iwi—to be able to provide us with the indigenous expertise that enables us to have a better way of managing our economy. So this isn’t about not promoting what they’re wanting to do, the liberalism that they want to continue with; this is about managing and making sure that we are on the right track.

Further, to underscore the greed-based rhetoric that they’ve said in the report, the New Zealand National Party view—the minority view—said they are opposed to this bill because “ultimately [it makes] it expensive to do business in New Zealand.” That’s about them protecting their mates. That’s about them protecting big business. That’s what this is about—it’s an ideology that will ultimately ruin this country, and I am backing my colleagues here by promoting this bill.