Mallard Trevor: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8855. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Gidday Mr Assistant Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Oh that’s what the Aussies say—gidday mate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: They say it in Wainui too on occasions. 
I am surprised at the lack of enthusiasm shown by the Government benches for this bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. I would have thought that those members would want to debate it seriously. I thought my colleagues in New Zealand First would want to debate it seriously too. Just a bit of naughty advice for them: it never pays to use the first reading speech notes for the second reading because that sometimes tends to indicate things are going to happen that are not. 
This bill has been to a select committee. The Labour Party supported it going to the Commerce Committee so that people could have their say on it at the select committee. We have listened to what the people have said and we are voting against it now because there were a number of questions that were open and they were not properly answered by the Government or by the amendments. 
There is a series of bottom lines around mining. Some of the bottom lines are the capacity to respond to accidents quickly. That has not been addressed in this legislation. There has got to be clear liability so that the taxpayers do not keep on fronting up for mistakes either directly or indirectly as we have seen Solid Energy has as far as Pike River is concerned. It should never have bought that. It should not have taken off the private sector the obligations around Pike River. We know it did it in an attempt to grease up to the Government which we now know it is in so much trouble with. There have got to be robust protections for the natural environment—and it is clear that that is not in this legislation—and there has got to be a benefit for the local economy. 
With all due respect to Dr Yang the previous speaker saying that in our most mineral-intensive province Taranaki mining is half the value of agriculture just has to emphasise the risk and the relative rewards. We have got to make sure when mining does proceed that there is not risk—that the rest of the economy is not being placed at risk. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: It’s oil—it’s not even minerals. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Having said that—and I see my old friend Catherine Delahunty not Eugenie Sage is interjecting—I have been a person who has been quite supportive of the mining industry and very unsupportive of the mining industry on the Coromandel. I have got a history of doing this case by case and looking at the value of different propositions. What I have found is that there are some things that are just absolutely pointless. Trying to get gold out of the Coromandel has over the years caused enormous environmental damage. People who want to do it more are I think nuts as are though people who say there will never be a use for the lignite that is in the South Island at the moment. 
I know it is somewhat controversial but as Minister for State-owned Enterprises I certainly did not object to Solid Energy buying farms and effectively the mineral rights to lignite in Southland because what is sitting under there is 400 years’ worth of transport energy for New Zealand. I am just going to say that again slowly: there is 400 years’ worth of transport energy for New Zealand. But I am the first to accept that we are a long way away from the science that is necessary to get that released. 
The sequestration—I have witnessed a number of interesting arguments between Don Elder and David Parker some public and some not on sequestration. There is no doubt that it will happen one day but whether it is 10 years away 15 years away or 30 years away the technology has got to be done before we can use that lignite unless we are going to follow the silly approach that Bill English wanted which was to burn lignite. I mean burning lignite in pellets is just nuts. It is a total waste of energy it is polluting and it causes all sorts of gas problems. The other thing that has to happen before the lignite can be used properly is that we have got to get the technology for hydrogen fuel cell batteries which are powered off the lignite moved along as well in order to use the power the energy that is sitting underneath the ground. So what you are hearing from me is that I think there are occasions—and a lot of occasions—when the energy that we have in New Zealand can be used and used carefully used properly and used responsibly. 
What we were hoping for—and the reason that we supported sending this bill off to the select committee—was that the Government had its head around this legislation. I might say that although I disagreed with him I thought that Phil Heatley actually had quite a good understanding of it. I mean he was wrong in a number of areas but he had worked hard he cared about it and he was a responsible Minister of Energy and Resources. He was on Steven Joyce’s “rah rah rah let’s dig it up” team but in the end we have had him replaced by someone who appears to have no interest in the area at all and who to date has shown no real understanding of it. 
The point I am making is that we gave the Government the opportunity and the encouragement to try to build—well I think it is fair to say that we will never get a consensus in this Parliament on this issue you know. While you have in this Parliament John Banks and Catherine Delahunty we will never get a consensus on mining in New Zealand. Throw in Damien O’Connor and it gets more complicated still. But what I was hoping for was that at least across the major parties in New Zealand we could get a level of consensus that would bring us to some legislation that could be enduring and that people could have some certainty about and that that certainty would mean that where it was appropriate and where proper care had been taken then investment would be made and it would be made in the sense that it could be ongoing and enduring. 
But what we have had from the National Government is that it is not interested in that sort of approach. What it is doing despite blowing the trumpet of being pro-mining is taking decisions in its legislation because it knows that the Labour Party will signal changes to it policy differences and the fact that the legislation will not be enduring. What that means is that the very investment that it wants is actually less likely to happen because people who are making investments especially in the current economic climate are going to say: “Hang about. Hang about. We’re going to wait and see whether our investments will be worthwhile or not.” 
In a funny way we are getting the policy objective of the Greens through the legislation of the National Government because instead of building a major party approach to it what it is doing is going off with a radical mining agenda that has no certainty and that in fact everyone knows will not continue. The result of that will actually be that mining will not occur because the businesses will not be prepared to put in the hundreds of millions of dollars that is necessary to start the mines. I think that as a policy outcome the Greens could well be happy with that but what I am concerned about is that proper planning proper safety measures and a proper approach to the environment will not happen in the longer term because of the radical approach taken by the Government especially by Steven Joyce who we all know just does not care about either real jobs—jobs that pay well for New Zealand workers—or the environment.