Dyson Ruth: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10299. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): There is no rush Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is all right is it? I cannot hear you.Hon RUTH DYSON: You are quite correct it is a split call. Could I just commend the member who has just resumed his seat Dr Jian Yang and say that he made a more valuable contribution to the debate than has the Minister of Energy and Resources throughout these entire proceedings. Throughout the first reading the second reading the Committee stage and now the third reading the Minister has not made a single contribution of any value at all to this debate. I think that is really doing a disservice not only to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill but actually to his colleagues and to the House. I think that Parliament should be treated in a better way in a more respectful way than that. The Hon Simon Bridges has I think let the National Party team down in this great week of its 77th anniversary as a political party in New Zealand.In terms of both the process of this bill and the content I am very pleased to be joining my Labour colleagues in opposing it. When looking first of all at the process members have been quite puzzled by the name of this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill which will become the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Act 2013. It sounds like someone did a cut and paste and made an error in the name of it but the reason it is called such an unusual name is that this bill which we have debated now through all stages under urgency amends mistakes—fixes mistakes—in legislation that has not even come into force yet.We warned the Government at the time to take care with the detail. Oh no the Hon Simon Bridges was so keen to get his name on a bit of law that was passed through its third reading that he totally ignored all the consideration of the House and made a whole lot of mistakes and now he has suddenly come back to Parliament and said: “I’ve got to fix them under urgency.” Well that would not be so bad. He is new at the job and he is human he can make mistakes and we would be happy to fix them up. But he did not do just that. He then took the opportunity of a Budget measure being put through under urgency to make significant changes to the substantive legislation.The first one is of huge concern and that is that it reduces the health and safety the environmental and the financial security considerations around oil and gas exploration. That is a step in the wrong direction after the Commerce Committee took such care over the health and safety considerations in the previous legislation. It is insulting to the select committee which worked so hard. The select committee reconvened to look at the outcomes from the Pike River inquiry and ensured that they were incorporated into the legislation on a pretty across-all-parties basis actually and in a very open way. I commend Jonathan Young the chair for his leading of that process. And then Simon Bridges just biffs it all out. Those considerations are a bit hard for the industry so he reduces them all.The second part of what this bill does—other than fixing up the mistakes of Simon Bridges—is it extends the protest ban. The most controversial part of the last legislation was that this new protest ban was introduced but not for health and safety—not for health and safety. That was what the Minister said at the time: “Oh we care so much about health and safety we’re going to introduce this protest ban.” If that were the case it would have been exactly the same health and safety ban on all vessels but it is not it is just on protest vessels and it covered the exclusive economic zone. That has now been extended to cover the continental shelf—the water above the continental shelf. That is extraordinary.It is very clear from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade advice on its website that New Zealand does not have jurisdiction over that water. We do not have the right to pass laws in relation to activity in that water. But oh no Simon Bridges mastermind of this Parliament has decided he knows better than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade he knows better than all the advice. So now we have a reduction in the health and safety the environmental and the financial security considerations in regard to exploration and we have an extension of a protest ban into an area that we do not have jurisdiction over and that is why this bill should be thrown out.