Goff Phil: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9272. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want first to comment on the extraordinary contributions made by Ministers in the chair tonight. First of all we had an appalling attack from Chris Finlayson the Attorney-General denigrating people like Dame Anne Salmond who has just become New Zealander of the Year and Sir Geoffrey Palmer for reasons it seemed that Mr Finlayson did not like the lectures Sir Geoffrey gave when he was a year 1 student. I think it was jealousy or maybe it was just sheer bitchiness. Actually I think that is the best way of describing it. But I regret the fact that when prominent New Zealanders who have contributed so much to this country speak out against a piece of legislation because they see that legislation as breaching fundamental rights set out in our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights the response from the Government is to denigrate the people who complain about the right of protest being breached. And that man is the Attorney-General. He has the responsibility to uphold the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and yet he is supporting a piece of legislation that the Government did not have the guts to put before a select committee or to get the normally required submission from the Attorney-General as to whether this legislation is in fact in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.Then we had an unbalanced contribution from the Hon Nick Smith—that is the only way I can describe it. He had the temerity to talk about jobs—Hon Member: Oh come on. Below the belt—below the belt.Hon PHIL GOFF: He talked about balance and I will come to that in a minute. He talked about balance; this is a Government that destroyed the balance in the Resource Management Act. That balance once existed between conservation values and development in a carefully crafted piece of legislation that has lasted through successive Governments and has been endorsed by successive Governments which they are ripping apart to the extent that a prominent member of the National Party Guy Salmon who actually does believe in conservation values has said that it is an absolute disgrace that his National Government is putting through something like that. So Nick Smith has some cheek talking about balance in this House.But then he came into this Chamber to talk about jobs. “This is all about jobs.” he said. This is from a Government that has destroyed more jobs than it has created in the last 5 years—destroyed 30000 more jobs than it has created. Government members are talking about mining. Mining is one of the areas where proportionately they have destroyed the most jobs. Then in the House today they said they were going to destroy another 1300 jobs in the hospital wards so they could give frozen pre-cooked meals to sick patients who need decent nutrition. Do not come in here Dr Smith and talk about balance and jobs because you are on very weak grounds on both fronts.But what I really want to object to in this bill—well actually there is another thing that I want to object to. It is about something that Simon Bridges said. You know I think arrogance is often proportionate to youth but Simon Bridges had the cheek to say that rights were a two-way process—a two-way process. You know it is terrible that Government members have to protect those huge multinationals with all of their resources and all of their wealth and all of their power against the ordinary New Zealander who has no wealth has no resources and has no right other than the right of protest and now they want to take away that right of protest. That is a disgrace. Do not come in here Mr Bridges and talk about rights being a two-way process because what this Government is doing is simply being an apologist once again for the multinational companies that come to this country and want to take from this country rather than give to this country. You know representatives from Warner Bros came here and they walked away laughing—laughing at the naivety and the amateurism of the Prime Minister who handed out another $67 million to Warner Bros and then gave it a piece of law that his own legal advisers said was not even necessary.So here we have another example. We have got Warner Bros. We have got Skycity and now we have got the multinational oil companies. This Government has decided that it will bring in a law abrogating the longstanding right of protest on the seas in order to satisfy the big business that came along to them and said: “We want you to do this.” Simon Bridges young and naive as he is immediately brings into this Chamber a Supplementary Order Paper which he never put before the select committee to judge whether it had substance and whether it was appropriate. The fundamental thing about democracy in this House is that legislation goes to a select committee and before the select committee ordinary New Zealanders can have their say. Simon Bridges has stopped ordinary New Zealanders having their say on this piece of legislation and that is a disgrace. This is obnoxious legislation brought in by bad process and—