Hide Rodney: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Hide Rodney: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7620] 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 The ACT party arises to oppose this bill and I agree with the National Party and Brent Catchpole of New Zealand First that the title of this bill has to be absolutely wrong. Members may not remember the Hon Harry Duynhoven because under the electoral law of New Zealand he has gone. I am quite pleased to see that he is not sitting in the Chamber because he is not legally entitled to be here. But this is his first mess-up as a Minister. He put out a press release to tell New Zealanders that they did not have the property rights that they thought they had. They had gone to the courts and won and the Government was going to turn around and extinguish those property rights and that is what Harry Duynhoven announced in his press release. 
So the title of this bill should be the “Saving Private Harry Bill” because that is what this bill is about—a Minister not prepared to follow the law of the land. When speaking to the title of this bill—the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill 2001—one gets the sense that this is just a little tidy-up of the legislation rather than the extinguishing of people’s hard-fought property rights. So we hear from a Government that on the one hand says: “Oh we can’t legislate here we can’t legislate there we can’t make this retrospective we can’t do that.” But when it comes to this bill the Government is not even prepared to explain in the title to New Zealanders that this Parliament is extinguishing miners’ property rights over which the Hon Harry Duynhoven—rest in peace—in his brief career sort of like a moth flittering around a light as an Associate Minister responsible for mining got himself caught in the high wire of the legislative and legal processes. 
Was that not something to come? This bill according to the ACT party should be called the “Saving Private Harry Bill”. Of course we oppose any suggestion that there should be a second bill—a “Saving Private Harry Bill (No 2)”—in order to save a Minister who in every decision that he has made whether it is a member’s bill for his own advantage or one as Minister finds himself incapable of following the law of the land— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: This is not an opportunity to go on about a Minister. We are talking to the elements of the bill. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes and I am explaining that the title of this bill is very much wrapped up with the behaviour of the Minister. I am sorry but it was the Minister who put out the press release which was the first that miners knew. I know that Shane Ardern will support me in that. I know that Dr Nick Smith will support me in that. You Mr Chairperson could have read about it in the  
Independent  
newspaper. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Do not bring me into the debate. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: We certainly heard it in the select committee and that is my point. This bill is all about the Minister Harry Duynhoven who had a brief career in this Parliament. 
Jill Pettis 
: That has nothing to do with it. Speak to the title. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I am speaking to the title. If Ms Pettis has a point of order she should stand up and take it. If she cleaned her ears out and listened with what brain she has she would understand that if it were not for Harry Duynhoven we would not be having a debate on this bill right now. If Harry Duynhoven had not put out that press release we would not need to be here debating this matter. That is understood by everyone who sat on the select committee and by everyone on this side of the Chamber. Why does Jill Pettis not understand? I guess it is what she said before about the difference between those who sit on that side of the Chamber and those who sit on this side—about 35 points IQ on average. Poor Jill Pettis cannot read what is in this bill. Poor Jill Pettis does not understand the history. Poor Jill Pettis does not mean Harry Duynhoven’s press release—