Williams Andrew: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9369. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on the third reading of this legislation arising from the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. Can I say on behalf of New Zealand First how disappointed we are that it has come to this when it was doing so well under the former Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley and then under the current Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges. It was all going along swimmingly well. We had said in this House during the first two readings that we supported economic development we supported as a party the Government’s initiatives in terms of improving the well-being and the prosperity of people within this country in terms of accessing our minerals and the resources that are there both onshore and offshore and we felt it was in the interests of the New Zealand economy to support this legislation.We heard a number of months ago in the first reading how $2 billion had been received by the Crown since 2008 from royalties of minerals and resources and that is very good. It could be improved a lot with a review of how much is charged in terms of those royalties. But again New Zealand First felt that that was a positive thing for the economy. We also supported the idea of a two-tiered system for the permit management so that higher risk higher value minerals would have a higher level of permit management as compared to lower risk lower value minerals. The bill also would sift out applications that did not meet the standards. We saw merit in that in the beginning and in terms of ensuring that those who were applying did meet the required standards. We also were impressed in the early days of this legislation when it came first to the House that there would be increased community consultation in relation to the Crown interests and in terms of taking resources and minerals from both onshore and offshore. Indeed this lined up with the Act that was put through Parliament last year the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act on which New Zealand First also supported the Government in terms of that 200-mile limit—the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. Again we saw merit in New Zealand taking a responsible attitude towards looking at the resources that were out in the vast ocean and looking at it in an environmentally sustainable manner in terms of recovery of some of those resources.That is where it was all going swimmingly well and New Zealand First was supportive of the legislation. Unfortunately a deal-breaker occurred in the last week or so in the form of Supplementary Order Paper 205 of the Minister of Energy and Resources regarding protests on the high seas against mining exploration drilling or resource recovery in our 200-mile limit. That Supplementary Order Paper which was dropped in at the very last minute at the eleventh hour floored us somewhat because we felt that it was inappropriate. I spoke in this Chamber on the matter last week and said that we felt it was inappropriate to start mixing a bill that was going to become an Act all focused on minerals exploration and focused on the actual operations of mining and mineral resources with starting to take into account the safety health and well-being of people on the high seas who may be going about their daily lives in terms of protest at certain activities out there—drilling mining or whatever. We felt that was really undermining the heart of what Kiwis stand for. We always support the underdog. We always support the person who is prepared to stand up and be counted.As I mentioned in the Chamber last week we ourselves are a country as a country and as a Government that was prepared to go to Mururoa Atoll in 1973 with our two frigates the HMNZSOtago and the HMNZSCanterbury and make it known to other Governments and other authorities that we did not support what they were doing there in Mururoa in terms of nuclear testing. We felt that it was our legitimate right to go there to do that in a safe manner and to do it in a responsible manner. We did feel that it was our right to go over there and cause a little bit of mayhem on the high seas for the French at the time. Likewise I think a lot of New Zealanders who were opposed to nuclear vessels saw merit in the protests at the submarine USSHaddo when it came into port in New Zealand and many protesters went out to voice and show their opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion. Again although that perhaps did not go down well with all New Zealanders a lot of New Zealanders did uphold the right of those protesters to go out there and show some opposition to nuclear activity. So we did not feel it was quite right for the Minister to say “Well that can still occur; it just can’t go on within 500 metres of any vessel on the high seas” and that these protesters should just line up outside the head offices of the mining companies or outside their respective onshore bases but should not actually do that at sea. At the end of the day we all know that often protest results come about only by people actually being at the coalface of the protest and making sure that others are aware of it. New Zealanders I think will always uphold the right of lawful and reasonable protest.In that respect we did feel that if there were going to be concerns here they should have been addressed under a different Act not under this Crown minerals legislation. They should have been addressed in some alteration to the Maritime Transport Act to ensure that the master the crew and the passengers of any vessel were taken care of in a way that kept their safety and well-being uppermost. We felt in that respect that section 65 of the Maritime Transport Act which says that “Every person commits an offence … which causes unnecessary danger or risk to any other person or to any other property irrespective of whether or not in fact any injury or damage occurs.” is already in the Act and perhaps the legal advisers could have looked at ways to extend that out to encompass activities in our economic zone so that it was seen as a safety and health issue and not simply a sidling up to the mineral and mining companies to perhaps take the heat away from them in terms of their economic activities.That was a gamebreaker for New Zealand First. It is a bit unfortunate. I have spoken to the Minister on a couple of occasions as late as this afternoon and asked whether the Government would withdraw that provision—somehow take it out of the legislation—so that we could focus back on the actual Crown minerals the resources the economic benefits and all that sort of thing and away from the aspect of taking away basic rights of New Zealanders to protest. He was not able to do that and said it was too late unfortunately to address that situation and it could not be done at this stage. So as a result New Zealand First is not unfortunately going to be able to support this legislation.Having said that we know that it will pass because the Government has the numbers for this to pass and it will go into law. We do just signal to the Government that we do not think this was necessarily the right way to do this. We think it is very important for jobs and for employment in this country that we do address the Crown minerals situation but we feel at the same time that those minerals need to be reassessed in terms of how much we charge in the way of royalties and how much we get back from those royalties. New Zealand First for instance has come out with some very good policy in recent weeks where we would return 25 percent of all royalties taken from any region back to the region where that resource is taken from. We believe that is a very positive thing for regions throughout New Zealand so that of the economic benefits returned tothe Crown at least 25 percent of them are returned back to where they are taken from. In that respect we certainly hope that some of those sorts of recommendations are taken up by the Government in the future because we do want to see this country prosper we do want to see more jobs and more opportunities for our people in this country and we do want to grow the economy. But unfortunately while this gamebreaker sits here within this legislation New Zealand First cannot support it.