Delahunty Catherine: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8850. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare iteneira. Many happy returns to the mining industry. However this second reading of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill is not an occasion for celebration unless you happen to be a mining company—it will really work for them. This is because this bill is designed for mining companies. It reflects their values and the tunnel vision that sees conservation land communities and tangata whenua as barriers to be removed or manipulated so that they can reap the coal or gold or oil and gas which they sell to a population living beyond its means and needing to focus on more innovative alternatives. This bill is the miners’ bill. It is also the Government’s response to the 30000 people who marched down Queen Street and the more than 30000 the 39000 who made submissions against the mining of schedule 4 land. So the Government lost the media war. It was seen to have to back down on the issue but like any strategist it had another plan. That plan was amendments to the Crown Minerals Act and here we see them. 
This bill is a betrayal of many conservation values. We heard that at the Commerce Committee. There was a range of submitters from a lot of different groups who talked about the real betrayal of the 2010 uprising of popular support for the conservation estate and how this bill legislates that betrayal. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment as mentioned by the previous speaker Dr David Clark summarised the most disastrous issue in this bill. She summarised it by saying that the joint ministerial powers will undermine and weaken the Minister of Conservation. To quote the parliamentary commissioner “It cuts across the fundamental separation of functions and powers whereby the Minister of Energy and Resources grants permits for minerals and the Minister of Conservation grants access to the conservation [land]. The Minister of Conservation will remain accountable for the conservation estate but not in control. His or her core role as guardian of the conservation estate will be undermined.” That is what this bill entrenches. That is not the only issue but it is probably the most disastrous and the most seriously identified issue that went through our select committee process. 
However there are many clauses we have concerns about and I want to start with the Treaty issues. This bill claims to improve the relationship between the Crown miners and tangata whenua but what it does is in fact one of the worst forms of tokenism. There is a Treaty clause a standard Treaty clause in the Act—which is generally ignored by the miners and we have got experience of that in my home area of Hauraki—but there is also a new invention called iwi engagement reporting. This is a tokenistic annual report that a mining company must do to show that it has had a conversation with somebody from tangata whenua. It was opposed by NgaiTahu and a number of Taranaki iwi that submitted on the grounds that it is a breach of the Treaty that it is tokenistic and that it has no robust Treaty framework. The Green Party supports those claims. It is outrageous that it is called an improvement when all it is is tick-the-box tokenism. The mining industry at the select committee said “Oh no we’re going to have a better relationship. We assure you. We promise.” but there is nothing to make sure that that happens there is nothing in regulation and there is nothing in this that represents a robust Treaty framework.  
I move on now to some of the other aspects of the bill including the issue of the purpose. The purpose of the bill is to facilitate and attract miners. It has abandoned all pretence of regulation and balance in favour of promotion and facilitation of one industry at the expense of others. The purpose lacks balance and leadership and although a lot of the bill seems to be full of minor innocuous detail you have got to look at the embedded drivers. You have got to look at what the bill is set up to achieve. What it is set up to achieve is to convince the public. Although it is appearing to protect schedule 4 in fact it changes how the levers of power are delivered through a range of mechanisms. The stated focus is for a more efficient allocation and a fair return to the Crown but overall it is a fast tracking of the minerals and petroleum development within a weak context of the other values and rights that New Zealanders feel so strongly about. New Zealanders have expressed passionate opposition to petroleum and mining development on vulnerable land and this is being ignored. It is being ignored and was ignored at the select committee.  
The role of the Minister is equally unacceptable. The role of the Minister is to help the mining industry as much as possible and that role definition continues to be problematic when you look at the joint decision-making clause. Ministerial joint decision-making is a major political shift away from the idea that the Minister of Conservation should be able to talk about who should have access to the conservation estate based on an assessment of values enshrined in the Conservation Act. Those things are being literally undermined. So it cuts across as the parliamentary commissioner says. The compromise suggested at the select committee which was that joint decision-making would apply only to “significant” applications with “the potential to generate a significant economic return or that are high risk.” completely fails to address the core issues of concern which are mining in significant areas and mines that have potential to maybe make money for some foreign mining company but will do nothing for the values of the conservation estate. So the Minister of Conservation will be weakened considerably on these core issues that the public identified. In terms of the provision for public notification where the conservation Minister deems a proposal is significant it is inadequate because all mining activity on conservation land should be publicly notified. There are people who want to know; they should have a right to have a say.  
One of the most Machiavellian aspects of the bill is the provisions on Orders in Council. If you look at the supposed protection of schedule 4 as it exists that sounds all very well. But if you want to add to schedule 4 instead of going through the process via the Minister of Conservation Cabinet will now have the power to remove land from national parks reserves wildlife sanctuaries and scientific reserves that are not in schedule 4. So this gives unprecedented control to the higher ranks of Cabinet over and above the powers of the Minister of Conservation. You can guess that the status of the Minister of Conservation is not as strong as that of the Minister for Economic Development. It is not as strong as a number of other powerful Ministers so we will see what happens to the conservation values. So although we have ostensibly protected schedule 4 additions will be via this process and it will be interesting to see whether in fact we can get any.  
Net economic benefit—clause 31(6) proposes to add economic benefit to matters requiring consideration. Again we sought a definition from officials; they worked hard to provide it. We sought clarity because we are concerned that without full cost-benefit accounting the idea of net economic benefit will be narrowly defined in terms of particular immediate economic benefit. The quantification of cultural community and environmental values at the moment is badly understood whereas net economic benefit can be used to privilege the mining industry.  
The one part of the bill that we did support along with everyone else was this Supplementary Order Paper 152 on making sure that the Pike River recommendations were included. If the only good thing in this bill is that the workers get more safety that is a good thing. We support it. We believe that workers—both tier 2 and tier 1 miners all of them—should have the best possible protections under law. If we have learnt nothing from Pike River we should have learnt that and we fully support that Supplementary Order Paper. It needs to be there. We are a little concerned that the tier 2 miners get less protection because supposedly they are doing a smaller job. They are underground and they need protection; they should have the same level of protection.  
We are also very concerned about the length of permits. We oppose any increase in the length of the excavation permits as these are often granted with nil public input and nil accountability to local communities. We do not see any justification for the bill lengthening these permits except for the convenience of the mining companies but then that is what this bill is about. It is about how to make the Crown Minerals Act more convenient for the mining industry. It is about how to facilitate the industry’s access to a whole range of land including the conservation estate.  
Our speakers in the House have talked about the wonderful economic benefits. I live in the Coromandel; our economic benefits come from our visitors. They come from the aquaculture industry. They come from annual returns which are $350 million a year from our visitors. They come for beaches. They come for beauty. They come for the uniqueness of our area. They do not come to see holes in the ground on a regular basis. They are actually attracted to our area for its absolute contribution in terms of the environment. We stand for the environment and the people who came to the select committee stand for it. What was disturbing to see was both the tangata whenua concerns about consultation and the submitters who passionately believe in protecting those values for future generations being completely ignored and the setting up of this bizarre and unprecedented control by joint ministerial powers. We will rue the day that we created this kind of double jeopardy. It is not where this country wants to go. We saw the people marching the streets saying “Protect the land.” and it is now being ignored under the bill. This bill is a disgrace.