Hughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4431. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support this bill which I guess just absolutely refutes the last speaker Joanne Hayes who—woefully ignorant—railed on about Opposition parties opposing it. Clearly the member has not been listening and maybe she should be paying more attention. The Green Party stands for a greener cleaner future so in the first reading we did oppose the bill because we had serious concerns that it was not on for this Parliament using the most awesome power of this House which is to make legislation to pass laws to benefit a single oil company. The Government had not made the case.The fact is that Shell Todd Oil Services had botched the job of applying for a marine consent for its wells. What the records in fact uncovered is this particular company ran to Cabinet before it had even put in its application when it realised that it had its time lines all wrong and that it would not get its marine consent application in on time if there were any appeals. It is absolutely staggering that a company that appeared in front of the Local Government and Environment Committee on the exclusive economic zone legislation—a company that had been involved along with the wider oil industry in the consideration around the exclusive economic zone legislation legislation that had to be fixed two more times because of Government botches in terms of the original drafting in terms of that rushed job—did not work out how soon it had to get a marine consent application in. Instead of actually putting in the application it ran to Cabinet.Of course Cabinet said: “Sure we’ll pass a law that benefits you in particular because you’re an oil company and we’ll do anything for oil companies including tens of millions of dollars of subsidies in terms of the fourth-lowest tax plus royalty rate in the world and in terms of calling out the navy when iwi fishermen get in your way.”—a Government that will do anything to drill it mine it frack it across New Zealand. At the time this sure did look like one law for oil. It looked like the Government trying to fix a loophole for a specific company.But I am also proud to say that the Green Party was able to improve the legislation with two significant amendments in the select committee. So we would like to acknowledge the submitters. We would like to acknowledge the committee the officials and the chair Mr Simpson and we would like to acknowledge the two changes. This legislation this amendment bill that we are debating essentially gives those companies that apply for a marine consent in the exclusive economic zone for example for oil drilling or gas mining in terms of seabed mining—if they put in an application before their existing permit expires this amendment allows them to continue the operation until they successfully get a permit.Two concerns here were that under the original drafting of the legislation essentially any company could wait until the last day of its existing marine permit before bothering to put in a new application because it knew it would be covered under the awesome power of this House. It could continue operating for as long as the process and the appeals would take. Plainly that is ridiculous. It incentivises bad behaviour such as putting in an application incredibly late. A company could do it hours before its existing permit expired and still be kosher under this legislation. So we were happy to amend new section 162(5) in clause 4 to introduce a 9-month window. This means that companies have to apply 9 months before their existing permit expires if they are going to benefit from the amendments contained in this legislation. That is consistent with other legislation such as the Resource Management Act. It is a way that we can incentivise these companies to make sure they get their applications in on time. We cannot have these “The dog ate my homework.” arguments that we have heard from the likes of Shell Todd Oil Services.The second amendment to improve the legislation argued by the Green members was that we needed a definition of “marine consent”. Under the original legislation the wording was fuzzy. It could have been argued that simply lodging an application was sufficient or did the application have to be signed off as complete? In terms of some of the applications the Environmental Protection Authority has received—for example the Trans-Tasman Resources case—three whole pages of additional information was requested by the authority in that application because it was not completed. So we have tightened up the legislation in terms of it having to be a complete consent application. So we have explained our original concerns. We have explained how the bill has been improved by the Green Party and that is why we will be supporting it.Ultimately this is a very small matter compared with the Government’s fossil fuel agenda which is simply massive in terms of all the taxpayer subsidies in terms of all the moral and legislative support and in terms of all the things the Government is doing. It is a shame because we know the future is in terms of the clean-energy economy. We know we have tremendous opportunities. We know from US data that there are four times more jobs in clean energy than there are in fossil fuels. We have international bodies such as the OECD and the International Energy Agency calling for an end to the more than $500 billion in global subsidies for fossil fuels.So perhaps the major opportunity cost of this legislation in terms of the submitters’ time the officials’ time this House’s time and the select committee’s time is that we could have used this time to build to foster and to empower a clean-energy economy which is where the international capital markets are going which is where the scientists are urging us to go to if we want to avoid the worst of catastrophic climate change and which is where real prosperity is going to come from. Instead of passing one law for oil in fact what this Parliament should be debating is the separation of oil and State. What we need to see is a fair go given for clean energy. Although we are opposed to the continuing fossil fuel agenda we can support this legislation which has been improved and I would like to thank the members and the officials involved.On the last note I would like to voice one last note of disappointment that the very company involved in this legislation the very company that singlehandedly benefits from this legislation–Shell Todd Oil Services—did not bother to front up to the select committee. There were wide questions on the urgency and the need for this legislation. We saw Nick Smith get it incredibly wrong; I guess there is a bit of a track record there. He exaggerated on the day this legislation was announced saying that 40 percent of the country’s gas supply was at risk when in fact it was around 20 percent—more than 50 percent wrong. We have not seen from either the Government or Shell Todd Oil Services any information regarding what would happen if this legislation was not passed. We now know that Shell Todd Oil Services successfully got its consent. Gas supply was never at risk. Was the question simply that this company would be charged extra for its long-term gas supply contracts if it could not fulfil them or was there a serious gas supply problem that would have affected New Zealand households New Zealand stoves and New Zealand industrial facilities?These questions were never answered and it was disappointing that the lobby group for the oil industry the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand came along but it could not answer a single detailed question when it came to this company benefiting. It is an awesome power of this House when we pass laws that benefit a single company particularly when it is a company dealing in the oil industry which we know has such a serious impact on our global climate and on the climate security for us for our kids and for our future generations. It was disappointing that it could not come.So let us move forward from this. Let us embrace the green-energy economy. Let us look at getting an effective carbon signal through a carbon tax cut. Let us get a green investment bank in place. Let us make it about a fair go for clean energy because when you are an outside observer you see all the steps that this Government is doing for fossil fuels including this yet on the other hand you see New Zealand entirely slipping off the renewable energy global index. Saudi Arabia of all countries has taken our place. We have slipped off it entirely. There is a host of smart innovative productive steps that this Parliament could be taking and this Government could be showing with leadership and that is what the Green Party is going to continue to champion. Thank you for the opportunity. Kia ora.