Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee. The House has resolved to recommit the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill to consider the Minister of Resources’ amendments set out on Amendment Paper 343.

I just wish to give the committee some guidance about the committee stage of the recommitted bill. There are aspects of the bill that were debated when the bill was last considered in the committee of the whole House that are not amended by Amendment Paper 343. These matters are therefore not open for debate again. This includes provisions relating to the issue of Government policy statements in Part 1 of the bill, matters relating to the removal of the ban on new petroleum exploration beyond onshore Taranaki in Part 2 of the bill, and provisions relating to service of documents in Part 3 of the bill. Other aspects of the bill are amended by the Amendment Paper or affected by it. I will provide further guidance at the beginning of each debate. The chair is the sole judge of relevance, and we will be looking for material that is relevant to the Amendment Paper. Noting that this is a complex and technical area, the bill has just been recommitted, and the Amendment Paper was only released at 5 p.m. yesterday.

Amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 343