Delahunty Catherine: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata ko tēnei rā. I would like to start my speech on this legislation with two quotes. One is a traditional tangata whenua whakatauākī. Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua—people perish but the land remains. However in the case of this legislation after it goes through the House some of the land may not remain. The other quote I would like to give is from the miners of Waihī in 1912 inspired by the funeral of Frederick Evans: “If blood be the price of your cursed wealth Good God we have bought it fair”. The cursed wealth referred to is the wealth of large companies especially overseas ones and their exploitation of both people and the environment. The Crown Minerals Act as it will be is set up to facilitate both of those above all else. We hear about Taranaki. We hear how wonderfully it is going. We hear about the West Coast. What we see in those communities and in my community is two-tier economies: economies where sections of the community are benefiting and other sections are being left behind and I will refer to that later in this kōrero.However back to the cursed wealth. There is only one substantive redeeming feature of this legislation and that is Supplementary Order Paper 152 amending Part 1 of theoriginal bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill which included the recommendations of the Pike River commission of inquiry. If nothing else at least we can support the lives of workers and the Greens supported that Supplementary Order Paper.However the rest of the legislation is mainly a declaration of war challenged by the public at the select committee: the Minister of Energy and Resources as a promoter of mining not as a regulator; the joint ministerial decision-making over the access to the Department of Conservation’s land—and there were a huge number of submissions on that issue. The only change was to make this for significant issues. Well any application on Department of Conservation land has significance to people. There were the public notification issues the extensions to exploration licences and the tokenism towards te Tiriti rights via iwi engagement reports that have no proper framework or recognition of any kind of veto. The fact is that coal is a fossil fuel oil is a fossil fuel and we need to transition away from this dependency on these fuels towards a sustainable and renewable economy.Then there are the Orders in Council that undermine the Minister of Conservation. The undermining of the Minister of Conservation throughout this legislation is a very very serious matter and the Orders in Council mean that instead of the Minister having rights over designations it will go straight to Cabinet and we know what happens there under this Government.The net economic benefit is the wrong criterion because decision making cannot be about just economic benefit. It needs to be about a net total benefit including the environment because no environment—no economy.And then there is the legendary Supplementary Order Paper 205 the “Anadarko clause” to lock up the defenders of the marine environment if they go anywhere near an oil rig or an oil vessel. It was opposed by I think 79 percent of people who were recently surveyed. It is also potentially a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and I also am dubious that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been consulted properly on this legislation. Forget about rights in international waters let us breach any kind of protocol and jam this Supplementary Order Paper into the legislation at the last moment! It is very very sad to see the Government following appalling process and ignoring the Commerce Committee which we sat on. Despite some of the bright young faces on the Government benches this is forcing an outdated authoritarian dictatorial knee-jerk response against Te Whānau-a-Apanui and Greenpeace because they won. It is not only unfair but ridiculous and the Government has now made an enemy of some very middle-of-the-road citizens who may not want to go out on the water themselves but do not believe that this is the kind of behaviour they would expect from a Government or that it is a recognition of people’s legal and human rights.Also there was my Supplementary Order Paper 211 which was voted down which would have stopped any confusion about schedule 4. It would have stopped prospecting exploration and mining in schedule 4 land and it would have clarified to all parties that no mining promises made to the public by this Government were actually fulfilled. This legislation further erodes the integrity of schedule 4 by changing the definition of “minimum impact activity” and according to the Minister of Energy and Resources under questions from me last week it will allow for drilling for exploration but not for mining. The Minister does not understand mineral exploration. You do not drill for exploration. You drill so that you can mine and then when you have got your permit because you have done your exploration drilling you mine it; you do not drill it. Never mind Minister you will catch up and you will hear from the public on this matter. There is a simple approach to schedule 4 land that this legislation should be supporting:leave it alone. That is what the people marched for that is what they asked for and that is what should happen.Another part of this legislation refers to a very controversial decision that has been in front of the courts. Yesterday I stood on the Denniston Plateau. I stood there with an astonishing vista of mountain and ocean an astonishing and delicate array of native plants and geology. I will hold this photo up for the benefit of the House. This is me yesterday on the Denniston Plateau in front of this astonishing array of national treasures. If any of you have been to the Burren in Ireland which is a national treasure in Ireland you will know that there is a similar feeling there—a feeling of absolute diversity a feeling of absolute beauty and a feeling of absolute specialness which the Irish are capitalising on for their economy but we are about to destroy. This includes of course the kiwi our national bird. Well why not mine it? It is only a kiwi. There is the gecko the giant snail and in fact a wonderful large kōura that I took a photograph of in a crystal-clear piece of water up on the Denniston Plateau. It was right in the area where Bathurst Resources proposed its open-cast mine. Some things are not compatible. You cannot rehabilitate after you have open-cast mined an area. There will not be any of these species left.I also stood in the museum to honour past miners as a great-grandchild of a mining family who stayed poor until my family left the industry. Like so many miners’ families poverty and the cycle of poverty the boom and bust remains. But open-cast mining on the scale proposed by Bathurst Resources on the Denniston Plateau is supported by a provision of this legislation that will allow joint decision-making by Ministers being retroactive in effect towards Denniston and this cannot be mitigated. There may be 200 or so jobs for 5 years and then the West Coast will be back to the boom-and-bust cycle of which the collapse of Solid Energy is so typical.The Mayor of Reefton came to the select committee and asked us when there would be a genuine regional and infrastructure pay-off from all this mining in his area. He stated that he loves digging up gold and coal but asked when he would get that sustained benefit for his community because it was not happening. The answer Mr Mayor is never. It is not about local sustainability. Times have changed but still the pattern for mining communities is the same all over the world. It is a boom; it is a bust. Whether it is Waihī whether it is Reefton whether it is Westport it is a boom and then it is a bust. In the meantime we bust things that cannot be fixed like the Denniston Plateau.However on a more positive note times have changed. The idea of green coke from woodchips producing green steel is still a new idea beneath our horizon but it is a growing idea. Humans are endlessly creative. We can find other things other methodologies other economies than destroying places like the Denniston Plateau. That should be part of a national park not a net economic gain as it is described. It is unforgivable devastation and there will be national resistance. There will be positive and celebratory national resistance to oil drilling in the ocean. There will be positive and celebratory national resistance to the destruction of the climate and biodiversity and communities who deserve so much better. There are huge opportunities in places like Denniston for wonderful things to happen.The Government needs to wake up with this legislation because the Government is losing the last shreds of its credibility as a just Government or a Government with any kind of vision. This legislation represents Government at its worst building in bias and legislating for privilege instead of supporting an economy that is sustainable. When the people of this country marched in the streets they marched because we want to love and protect our special places. We want the integrity of our oceans to remain. We know that we can create employment that is sustainable and that is healthy for future generationswithout destroying these very important places let alone taking away the basic rights of citizens to non-violent protest.The failure of imagination in this legislation is extreme. It is very very disappointing to see it go through. There are some technical amendments that will tidy up some of the frameworks some of the permitting regimes but in the end this legislation has come down squarely and fairly on the side of injustice on the side of the miners who want to take our resources and use them for the short term not for the long-term vision of our communities. Stand with us on the Denniston Plateau because we will be standing there and see what it means to actually believe in the sustainability of our environment. Kia ora.