O'Connor Damien: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9329. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): The previous speech was very interesting with a lot of facts provided by the member Gareth Hughes who indeed identified some of the many concerns we have. I will talk on the title and the commencement clauses of this bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. There are a couple of issues here that I would like to raise.The title of the Act is to be the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Act 2012. The bill deals with a lot of issues there have been Supplementary Order Papers come up and the Commerce Committee recommended a few amendments. The most valuable contribution that this bill provides in my view is the implementation of better health and safety standards and requirements at every level of the permitting regime.There is one thing I would say with regard to the title. Given that the Pike River disaster identified and alerted us to huge flaws problems and systemic failure in the regime that oversees minerals extraction in this country probably the least we could have done was acknowledge the changes that are being made as a result of that disaster and I guess give recognition to the terrible loss. It might have been fair to consider changing the title of this bill which will become an Act to recognise that some of the key provisions and the greatest advancements made by this bill will be in the area of health and safety.It still will not guarantee the implementation of the standards because unless the Government and the Minister carefully read the report provided yesterday to the Labour Group of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment accept it and admit total systems failure right from the top to the bottom and revamp and resource it the changes made in this bill will not mean as much as we think they might or as much as they should.So the title which we are debating at the moment at the latter stage of debate on this bill could perhaps have been changed to better reflect and recognise the reason that we are making some of these changes here. We are making these changes because of health and safety. We are making these changes for the protection of miners—protection of their lives and protection of their health and safety—and for their working conditions.I am I guess asking the Committee and the Minister whether we could perhaps have thought better about this. Rather than just plough on with the same title that wasdelivered to the select committee changes should have been made to reflect the significant incorporation of Supplementary Order Paper 152 which was a direct result of the report of the royal commission to the Government. And I acknowledge the Government’s taking of that report reading it and making the changes necessary.Another significant change to the title could have been made on the basis that this bill is putting huge pressure on the Department of Conservation. Although it is permitting it should also be protecting Crown land. What New Zealanders expect and what any landowner wants is the right to have a say over what goes on their land what occurs on their land and the rights that they have. As I have said before in the House although there will be some who think this is a wonderful step forward for the mining industry the compromising of landowners’ rights—that is the compromising of the rights of the Minister of Conservation to oversee the land for conservation purposes—sets a precedent that should worry any other landowner as well.If the Government is so blind and ignorant to the realities of the world that it thinks it can plough ahead with mining at all costs—even though it was challenged over the issue of schedule 4 land and stepped back from that—in an unbalanced way without proper protections for individuals and without proper protections for natural and environmental values then it is dreaming. It will undermine the progress that the mining industry has made over the last hundred years in terms of better awareness of environmental protection. I applaud the industry for the progress it has made. But a Government that drives inappropriate change will drive appropriate reaction and that may very well make it harder for the mining industry to progress some of the projects that it has. So it is a warning about trampling over the rights of landowners as was the case prior to 1992 when the Crown which owned the rights to the minerals under the ground was able to override the rights of the people who owned the ground. We find that rather abhorrent now but it was the situation until the early 1990s.The Government has reintroduced some of the principles of that here on the conservation estate where the landowner—the Minister—does not have the right to have the final say and there is in fact a compromise situation. Some may see that as comfortable. It is just a warning for other landowners. So the title could have been changed to better reflect some of the significant things that are happening in this bill.The other issue I will raise is around the commencement date. It will be 2 years after the date on which the bill receives the Royal assent. I guess that families and other people who are connected with the Pike River tragedy would say: “Why the delay?”. Indeed it is upon us to implement as quickly as possible the changes to ensure proper health and safety. The Government will say it has done that but actually if you have a look at what has happened with the resourcing in the Labour Group of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment you will see that it is pretty pathetic. It has got a few more people on the ground it has got a bit more resource but whether it is sufficient is a question that I leave open because the damning report into the Labour Group’s systems would say that a total revamp is needed not just a few people added into the system.So the delay that the commencement date allows could do two things. It might allow the Government to go away and properly resource it to ensure that the provisions in this bill will be upheld and policed but it might just mean that the Government carries on with an inadequate regime of health and safety and oversight in the mining industry. I hope the latter is not the case. We need to make sure that any miner who goes underground—be it for prospecting be it for mining purposes or be it for the maintenance of a mine as is the case in Spring Creek—is going to a safe environment and that all the conditions laid down by the company by the ministry and by the miners themselves are at the top end of international safety standards.I have made my points regarding these two issues. I just hope that the progress here in health and safety does indeed deliver us a world-class system of protection of workers as they go into any mining environment and I have to say that that does not mean just an underground mine; it includes open-cast situations as well. I have been mining in Australia myself and I understand the dangers. They are not present just in underground mining and I hope that the Government resources the provisions laid out in this bill to ensure that they indeed can be policed.