Street Maryan: Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Marine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13630. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Marine Legislation Bill. I want to do two things. First of all I want to reiterate some of the points that my colleague Moana Mackey was talking about earlier in response to a call from the Green Party to find out just what Labour’s position is on deep-sea drilling. I keep wondering why those members keep asking because we keep saying it and they keep not hearing it. So I will say it again—I will say it again. When we talk about deep-sea drilling it is not clear from anybody’s definition what deep sea means. We have heard certainly those of us on our side of the Chamber Greenpeace for example say that deep-sea drilling is anything beyond about 200 metres. I would be happy to accept that as a definition because if we were to go in that direction its rationale for a depth of 200 metres is that that is the depth at which a human diver can go in order to repair any failure of equipment or any spill or any leakage from oil drilling equipment. But it begs the question about what the criteria are and what the science is that would determine what deep-sea drilling is. Surely the whole point should be about the protection of the environment. When we have clear criteria for the protection of the marine environment around this area then this Parliament could expect the Labour Party’s support. We do not have that and we need to consider those issues as a totality before we start sounding off about what we think deep-sea oil drilling is.What is very true is that the deeper one goes in offshore drilling the greater the pressure on those oil and gas deposits. When the rock holding down those oil deposits for example is pierced the oil emerges of its own volition. They do not have to pump it up to the surface because the pressure of the water is so great that it forces the oil up. This is what happened at a depth of 2700 metres in the Gulf of Mexico and that was the problem. It was too deep too risky and the pressure was so great that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil escaped and was responsible for the degradation of the environment that we have seen subsequently.We will have a look at offshore drilling and we will insist that criteria around offshore drilling are based on environmental protections not just 200 metres. What makes it better at 199 metres than it is at 201 metres? It all depends on the environment. It depends on the ecosystems. It depends on the benthic areas that are there. It depends on whether or not there are any benthic protection areas in that domain where the drilling is taking place. That is the first point.The second one I want to make is in relation to Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. This Supplementary Order Paper replaces Supplementary Order Paper 340. It amends this legislation by making a number of changes to Part 2 of the bill. Some of them are simply technical amendments but primarily its purpose is to provide for some discretionary activities to be prescribed as non-notified activities for which an application for a marine consent is not publicly notifiable. Again we are seeing this Government do what it has done in other pieces of legislation coincidentally or not that relate to oil and gas exploration. Certainly in respect of oil and gas exploration the Government is much more lenient on oil and gas companies than on anybody else.To deprive the public of their right to have a say on whether or not exploratory drilling should happen off their shores is an affront to democracy. It is as simple as that. It is clear from this Government’s previous behaviour that that is how it intends to proceed. When that tricky little business of democratic participation gets in the way it will ride roughshod over it and it will find ways of writing out of the legislation any requirements for public consultation. That is what this amendment does. It is a travesty. There are people—including the Gisborne District Council committee which because of its own experience with the possibility of offshore drilling exploratory or otherwise is looking to oppose this particular provision—who want to have a say. It does not matter whether offshore drilling is something that is likely or unlikely to happen for those people; what they want is the ability to have their say. So how can any potentially adverse impacts on the environment be assessed if it is going to be up to only the Environmental Protection Authority to determine and to give permission for things when it does not have its own investigative capacity?One other thing that I just want to draw attention to in Supplementary Order Paper 347 is this Minister’s particular penchant for regulations that are so broad ranging as to be likely to be used to undermine the original purpose of the legislation. It says here in new section 29AB(2) inserted in clause 100 by Supplementary Order Paper 347: “The Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister make regulations that prescribe requirements methods or technical standards for emergency dumping of waste or other matter.” I use this one as an example because it is talking about the emergency dumping of waste which is a particular consideration but it will be the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister who makes the requirements and who makes the regulations that prescribe the requirements methods or technical standards. How is it the Minister’s responsibility to determine those regulations without any scrutiny from this Parliament? That is not appropriate.We know this Minister because of his track record with road-user charges and all sorts of other things. We know his track record and his protégé Simon Bridges’ track record in bringing in Supplementary Order Papers after select committee reports have been returned to the House and we know that they have no regard for anything other than the agenda to which they are committed—that is to drill and mine everything they can in order to get some economic improvement—because they lack imagination to do anything differently. That is at the heart of this. Even democracy gets in the way of any economic improvement that might be an alternative to drilling and mining. It is this lack of imagination and lack of a plan to modernise our economy that is going to be the death of this Government.