Cunliffe David: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4380. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to take a call in the second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. It may as well be called the “Tidy Up Bill” because that is what it is.For people listening into or viewing us this afternoon there is an old law about Parliament that on “Thank God It’s Thursday”—in the dark last hours of Thursday afternoon just before the House rises—it is the oldest trick in the book for the Government to try to push through things that it really does not want people talking about too much. The Government members must be hugely embarrassed about this bill—terribly embarrassed about this bill—because we told them when they passed the original exclusive economic zone legislation that they were doing it in a rushed manner with incomplete consideration and new terms that had not been properly designed which my colleague David Parker reminds me interrupted a whole lot of jurisprudence of settled law around the Resource Management Act. We warned the Government then and the public that if the Government rushed the bill through we would be back in the House tidying up its mistakes—and lo and behold here we are.One can only imagine the phone call from the shy retiring chief executive of Shell Todd Oil Services to Minister Nick Smith where he said: “Jesus Nick we’re gonna have to close down Māui.” Nick said: “What do you need?”. And he said: “Well I need you to change the law because if an appeal was lodged we haven’t got time to get our appeal through before we could be closed down because your law does not provide a guarantee of continuity while an appeal is being considered.”I actually agree with Shell Todd Oil Services on this one. I think it is fair enough that on an asset like the Māui gas field platform there ought to be business continuity while an appeal is being heard because the law—Hon David Parker: That’s what would happen under the RMA.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: And that is what would happen under the Resource Management Act. That is a perfectly fair thing to expect. The alternative as well as it being strategically incomprehensible for New Zealand that we would have the Māui gas field close down is unfair and flies in the face of settled jurisprudence as my colleague David Parker reminds us. But that all begs the question of why the law is as the law is and why we therefore have to be here in the dead of Thursday afternoon fixing up the Government’s mistakes.This is a Government that is increasingly accident-prone. That is the charitable way to put it. This is a Government that is lurching from stuff-up to broken promise. We have just had a Budget where the Government could not find the magic surplus again—zero for seven compared with Labour’s nine of nine. It is a Government that broke its promises on affordable housing on its targets for growth and—very relevant to this bill—on its external balance. Of which balance you will recall our hydrocarbon exports are a very important part for which this platform provides a cornerstone. The Government thought it was going to be able to get our exports as a percentage of GDP up from 32 percent to its target of 40 percent by 2025. How is it going? It is going backwards is how because exports as a percentage of GDP are now forecast to go down from 32 to 26 percent and that is even assuming that this bill goes through and the Māui gas field platform is not closed down.This measure this bill is a pooper scooper of a law change: a “Mr Fix-it” a last-minute save a caught-the-egg-before-it-hit-the-floor kind of bill. I see National members are giggling with delight at the plight of their Minister. They know that is one more space in Cabinet for the class of 1999 or whatever it is over there—the class of 2011. Hope springs eternal on the face of the young. There is Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga thinking well there are a couple of slots up the Cabinet ladder he can scramble when Nick Smith becomes the tea boy. Imagine for a second we were not passing this bill. Imagine Nick Smith’s parliamentary future—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Slim down the Minister he is saying.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Well we can slim down the debate by coming back to the content of the bill. The bill is accepted on several points. Firstly that if this law change is not made Shell Todd Oil Services could be vulnerable to a mischievous or vexatious appeal which would potentially suspend production while the appeal was being heard even if it did not result in it being upheld. That flies in the face of previous jurisprudence and it would be an inappropriate and very unwanted effect for New Zealand and one that I think Shell Todd Oil Services has a legitimate expectation that the law would protect it from.The Government has tried to shift blame to Shell Todd Oil Services saying that it was too slow putting in its application and that it left it too late. It is kind of interesting to see the honey dripping from the mouth of the Minister for the Environment as he is heaping praise on Shell Todd Oil Services on the one hand and then actually putting the boot in with the other to try to spread blame for this legislative incompetence that has got us here on a Thursday afternoon. It is not difficult to imagine that a Government that was trying to import the principles of the Resource Management Act into the exclusive economic zone legislation would in doing so import the principle that business does not stop on appeal unless the appeal is upheld. Otherwise the consent is taken as granted especially if it is an ongoing one.This is not the only example of haplessness around these issues. It is my privilege to be the Opposition spokesperson on the innovation and scienceportfolio and as part of that I get to look pretty closely at the grants made by Callaghan Innovation. It has made a grant to Chatham Rock Phosphate which was one of the applicants whose appeal for subsea mining rights was declined by the Environmental Protection Authority under this law. I am not going to comment on whether that was a good decision or not—Catherine Delahunty: Great decision fabulous.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —because that is an independent juridical body. It may well have been a good decision; some of our colleagues certainly see it that way. But my point is that there is such uncertainty under the law—because the drafting quality is so poor and we are back amending it yet again the amendment to the amendment—that who would know? And what is that uncertainty doing for business confidence in New Zealand? How do investors feel when they look at this shambles of a Government that cannot even continue existing Resource Management Act precepts into the exclusive economic zone legislation? It has a chilling effect on investment which is why the Government has had to go cap in hand to the mining and energy industries and give them a few lollies in the Budget—at the expense of the environment it might be said. Environmental research has gone down; mining and energy research subsidies have gone up I guess perhaps in part to make up for this shambles.Trans-Tasman Resources the sand mining proposal off Taranaki was also declined by the Environmental Protection Authority. And again without commenting on whether that was the right decision or not—it is an independent juridical body so I am not going to go to the substance. But I am going to say that there is a lot of surprise in the business community about the uncertainty that is attached to this law. However it is interesting to see what happens then. I note that the Chatham Rock Phosphate managing director Chris Castle told the Otago Daily Times that he had been in to have talks with “key Ministers”. And here is what he said when he discussed this Act with those Ministers: “Changes will be made soon; the wheels are already turning … Then it’s going to get easier”.Well let us just consider that. Here we have a law passed by the democratically elected Parliament of New Zealand. The law may be a shambles—that is the fault of the Government—but it is the law. The law is then passed to an independent agency the Environmental Protection Authority to administer. It makes decisions based on the facts. Those decisions are subject to appeal. What happens during the appeal is the subject of this debate but it is an independent process. Then when a company—and I make no comment as to the nature of the company or its work—does not get the decision it wants it beats a path to the door of the Ministers and then says publicly it is going to get easier. Well what does that say about the independence of the Environmental Protection Authority process? What confidence can New Zealanders including other members of the business community have that the law is robust sound easy to understand and impartial? That should be the objective whoever is holding the Treasury benches.To sum up the Government imported considerable legal uncertainty when it did a quick and hashed-up job of taking parts of the Resource Management Act into the exclusive economic zone legislation—new terms legal uncertainty and a breaking down of jurisprudence. As part of that the protection of existing operations under appeal was forgotten and we are back today to fix up that omission. We believe that Shell Todd Oil Services has a right to continue to operate in those circumstances and we certainly do not wish to see Māui gas field stop production. That is why we support this bill.