Wong Pansy: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7885] 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 I would encourage the Associate Minister of Energy to continue to take calls in this debate on Part 2. Part 2 is the substantive part of the bill and quite a few principles are at stake. 
In my first contribution I talked about the process and that issue has continued to worry me and it should worry the public. I would like to share with the public the two new sections that have been introduced in Part 2. New section 111(3) in clause 22 states: “The rights of any person who has made an application referred to in this section before 5 pm on 19 September 2002 must be determined under the final judgment decision or order given or made (including any appeal) in the proceedings  
Glenharrow Holdings Limited 
” etc. We then find something very similar in new section 111A(2) in clause 23: “The rights of any person who has made an application for an extension of duration of a mining privilege under section 103D of the Mining Act 1971 before 5 pm on 19 September 2002 must be determined under the final judgment”. 
The question remains a puzzle to myself and I am sure the public. Right at the beginning the mining industry was told that some amendments would be made to some administrative technical matters. A bill was introduced to the House that made substantive changes. It extinguished property rights in that mining operators would not be able to renew their licences gained under the old Act. In the middle of a Commerce Committee hearing the Hon Harry Duynhoven introduced a deadline and said that any person who had not submitted an application at 5 p.m. on 19 September 2002 would not be able to apply under the ruling made in the court case won by Glenharrow Holdings. 
The Minister should take a call. We know that an appeal is ongoing; we do not know the decision. We know that by introducing a deadline in a press release the Minister has imposed a decision that no other mining operators would be able to renew their licences anyway. Why are we debating this legislation in this House when the decision has not gone through the whole judicial process? Glenharrow Holdings won its case but it is under appeal. The fact is that no other licence operators are able to renew their licences under the old Act so why does this bill suddenly have to be introduced and debated in this House when the whole judicial process is still ongoing? We still do not know what might be the final outcome of the appeal. Why the urgency? This Committee needs to know. Maybe there are some very good reasons that we need to finalise this bill. I understand that Part 1 is basically technical adjustments. 
The Minister should take a call to explain why given that all the decisions have already been made in terms of people not being allowed to apply for licence renewals and given that we are still waiting for the outcome of an appeal case this House is passing legislation that has two provisions that sort of say we actually do not know what the final outcome will be. The final outcome awaits the court decision. It seems to me very strange that this bill was rushed into the House at Christmas time 2001.