Mackey Moana: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10273. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I am very pleased to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. I will come to the title soon but I think the commencement is a good place to start. Clause 2 says: “Commencement—This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” My question would be this: will it? Will it orwill it be something else that we have had to pass in the meantime because of all the mistakes in this piece of legislation? I do not think we can have any confidence that this legislation will in fact come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent because I suspect we may have to pass yet another amendment bill before the original amendment Act comes into force because of course we passed the original amendment Act only 6 weeks ago. The body is not yet cold it is still warm and here we are having to amend it substantially again.This is a record for National Government Ministers I think. I do not think we have ever had to see a bill come back to Parliament so quickly to be amended under urgency through all stages because there were so many mistakes and errors in the original bill including a significant error where the Minister of Energy and Resources forgot 1.7 million square kilometres of water—1.7 million square kilometres of water he just forgot to include in the original bill. That was of course in a Supplementary Order Paper that did not go to a select committee. It did not go to a select committee at all and no member of the public got to submit on it. There was no chance for public scrutiny no chance for select committee scrutiny and no chance for officials to give us the information that we need. So we are here passing this amendment bill to the amendment Act. When it comes to the commencement I do not think that the Minister can have any faith that this is the actual legislation that will come into law and that is an indictment upon him as a Minister.When it comes to the title I could suggest that perhaps—pre-empting what is certainly likely to happen in the next few months—instead of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill we could just call it the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment Bill” and that might be somewhat closer to what we are actually going to end up with thanks to the absolutely shambolic process that this has gone through.There are more questions than answers—in fact no answers have been provided. The Minister sits there on a quarter-million-dollar salary and will not even do his job which is answering very basic questions—and very serious questions—about the legality of the law he is passing and about the rights of New Zealanders that are being taken away stripped away under this legislation. The Minister sits there like a dried arrangement pretending to read his magazine because he does not know the answers or he is too arrogant to provide the answers. Frankly it is an absolute outrage. The Minister is simply not up to it. That is what has become quite clear from this process tonight.Maybe another potential title for the bill could be the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Passing Laws in Jurisdictions We Have No Right to Pass Laws in) Amendment Bill” because there was a very serious question raised with the Minister in Part 2 of this debate—a question that he has refused to answer and that is absolutely extraordinary. I know he is trying very hard to pretend that he is reading right now but I know that he is listening. He should feel ashamed of himself. The question was Mr Bridges why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is telling us on its website—confirming what happens under the Continental Shelf Act the relevant provisions of which my colleague Jacinda Ardern read out in full—that international law states quite clearly that New Zealand has no right to pass laws in the water column above the continental shelf in the high seas. It has no right. Why when the example that the ministry gives is that we have no right to regulate activities like shipping is it that the Minister is telling us that we are able to pass laws that restrict the activities of vessels above the continental shelf? Those two things do not match up.Either we do have the right to pass laws in the water column above the continental shelf or we do not. The United Nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade tell us that we do not. Minister Bridges in this legislation tells us that we do. He hasnot actually said it in person because he has been too busy pretending to read and trying to avoid answering questions. So which of those two is correct Minister? Is it the United Nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade or is it you? It is simple. Is there any acknowledgment? No. Take a drink of water that will chew up some time. It is simply—