Jones Shane: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Jones Shane: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21219. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. Before I turn my attention to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill I would like it to be known that those of us who participated in the hunt owe a debt of gratitude to the man sitting in the Speaker’s seat. However some of us are better shots than others— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Did you catch anything? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: One approaches these matters looking at it as either a resource or a pest. My puku says that no pest if it is good for us should be allowed to disappear without being devoured. This bill is not good for us. I say to the Minister for the Environment that we on this side of the House especially those of us who have had family or friends go into the mining industry or the exploration industry are not antagonistic to the notion that we should use the natural resource endowments that we have in our country. We do not find it inimical that we should look for jobs so that we do not end up agreeing with the policies of the current Government of exporting too many of our young people over to Perth and other such areas where they work in those mineral or mining industries but remain reluctant to create our own mining industry. I want to put that on the record. That is not where we on this side of the House are coming from. Much of the roots of this party go back to the very industry and land base that this bill is endeavouring to cover off. 
I think it is important that we call the Minister on his track record in relation to this bill. He is a qualified engineer so without a doubt he has more than a passing political interest in environmental policy. No one can be qualified in engineering without having a sense of how resources the environment people and effects all work together. But I remain very reluctant about seeing much benefit from the statutory process that this bill outlines. For example will we see a rerun of the water imbroglio? We all knew how important the effects of poor water utilisation were and the negative effects of that and we look to this Minister to address that problem. We were served up with a dilution of what was a promising set of ideas. It is not unreasonable for us to have severe doubts about the man’s stewardship and I guess the man’s gall in bringing this bill before the House. 
I could go on to talk about land-based mining and exploration and obviously I have in mind lignite. We may disagree as a matter of public policy whether such exploration activities will increase the economic benefit to our country or worsen our international obligations. These points are legitimate in this debate. When we come back and say that we are not going to back this bill it is not because we are unwilling to back the utilisation of our natural resources. We are deeply fearful that this framework will not incentivise those who are investing capital those who are taking risks and those who are in the business of exploration in terms of addressing the negative economic or dare I say environmental externalities. Therein lies the rub. This is a framework the Minister is bringing forward but how on earth can anyone have any confidence in it? It is a bit like the ill-fated transport legislation that the disgraced Steven Joyce now that he has ruined New Zealand’s reputation through the train failure is seeking to bring forward—that is too much power descending to a subsidiary level of legislation. We will not know how robust how actionable or how enforceable this particular set of rules and standards will be because of these regulations that will flow from this legislation. If it is to have any fangs then that is where they will be found. They will not be in the motherhood and apple-pie statements that are in the title of the bill and a host of other florid terms. How is the public to derive any confidence that when things go wrong the people perpetrating the wrongdoing will be held accountable? Therein lies the major weakness of this bill. 
There is a philosophical debate as to whether legislation ought to create strict and highly prescriptive criteria that can be enforceable. This bill does not seek to do that. What this bill seeks to do is dilute and water down the raison ďêtre of the Resource Management Act. It draws a distinction between the agenda of growing economic output and trying to safeguard the environment. It calls for a balancing act. Well who will do the balancing? The balancing will be done by the regulator. Who is the regulator? The regulator is that Minister sitting over there the Hon Dr Nick Smith. It is not unreasonable for us to say that we should look at the man’s track record in respect of two major types of natural resources. It may be that the Minister thinks that this is a more efficient way for us to manage the effects of this exploration activity. Well efficiency has to be measured against not just confidence but also effectiveness. The public have every right to demand that we test the effectiveness through an open democratic parliamentary-based process not in shady drafting amongst officials who more than likely will suffer political pressure to come up with a level of regulation that not only simplifies—simplification is not necessarily a bad thing—but also when we suffer dilution and the ability to enforce environmental standards is written so far down that no court and no legal organisation as a part of the judiciary is capable of enabling a citizen or a group offering its services on behalf of a citizen to hold them accountable. That is a deep constitutional point. 
Why on earth if this area is so big as the Minister for the Environment has just described it has he taken this path of least resistance? We would not tolerate it with land-based activities. The sad thing is that there are fantastic resources in the ocean environment. On that point the Minister and I probably agree. I personally would like to see the development of that iron sand stretching from Ngamotu New Plymouth right up to somewhere near the Kaipara Harbour. I think it is a fantastic idea and that we should seek investment. I would prefer to see the investors in the form of our State-owned enterprises but if we have a set of environmental standards that are doubtful or dubious then we are not building a fast flight into development; we are building more roadblocks and more fear and it will spread severe anxiety in the community. That actually incentivises them to slow down the process not to hasten it. That is a small example where I think most members of the House would see great benefit if we could extend on what the Maori hapu in Ngati Mahuta near the township of Taharoa did when they sought to move ahead with the export of iron sand. That is a small example where we need an industry around that type of natural resource category. 
The Minister should not believe that by coming up with this threadbare piece of legislation where the majority of the decision making will be done through regulation he will build a constituency within garden-variety Kiwis to improve and increase the pace of this exploration. It will have the opposite effect. I say to the Minister that it will have people who do not want to see that kind of industrial exploration worsen the sense of ill will about it. I think that is a tragedy with this bill. The tragedy is that the bill will have the opposite consequence yet many of us on this side of the House are very keen to see such exploration and activities happen but happen only when we have a framework that is transparent that shows accountability and that does not have the effect of looking as though it is riddled with weasel words and is sneaky. When it is sneaky it will enhance the fears of those who in many cases are just as well organised as those who are taking the risk and putting together the capital. I think it will have the opposite impact at a time when we on this side of the House are willing to explore ways to enhance jobs and grow wealth through a clever and defensible utilisation of our natural resource endowment. Unfortunately this bill will have the opposite impact.