Robertson Grant: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10245. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): It is a privilege to take a call in the Committee stage and to take a call from you Mr Chair. It is of course in the real world Friday night. I am here under some level of sufferance although I have now learnt that the Chiefs in fact did beat the Hurricanes 17-12. I personally blame the National Government for that result. Had I been at the game I am quite sure there would have been a different result than that. That will make my contribution to this Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill perhaps even longer than it might have been had the Hurricanes managed to win that particular game.Mr Chair as you noted this is a debate around Part 1: clauses 4 5 and 6 of the bill. This is the bit that Simon Bridges tried to tell us was the original policy intent that just got missed out the first time around 6 weeks ago when the Crown Minerals Amendment Act was going through the House. I think Simon Bridges should actually just keep amendments to the Crown Minerals Act as a standing item on the Order Paper. That will just make things easier. We will just come back to it once a month correct all of the mistakes that Mr Bridges makes and then he can just get on with making a few more and we will come back and correct them as the Committee is now having to do here in Part 1 of this bill.In all seriousness it is concerning that on an issue of such importance to the Government—the Government puts a lot of store in the question of minerals extraction and what that will mean for New Zealand in the future—the Government is so sloppy in its lawmaking on that issue. But that is not just the end of the matter. The fact is that it is sloppy in an area where health and safety concerns are huge and where environmental impact is massive. This Government has been completely loose with its lawmaking. We saw it in the exclusive economic zone legislation and we see it again here in the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. We need a proper regime around these matters. These are matters of great significance to our economic and environmental future. It simply is not good enough to have to be back in Parliament 6 weeks after the amendment Act went through making yet another amendment to it.Part 1 of the bill as the Minister of Energy and Resources has alluded to changes the process for what happens with particular types of tier 1 permits. This is where there has been a permit granted for committed work that committed work is undertaken and a different company is now allowed to undertake the later work the contingent work. I have some questions for the Minister in the chair that I would like him to answer around Part 1. In particular I would like a further explanation about exactly why it is that thisdid not appear in the first version of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 because it seems to me to be a fairly significant matter.The fact is that the Government clearly intends it that under this legislation there can be new prospectors coming into the process of work at a later stage than what had been envisaged when the Act was passed. Looking through the material the regulatory impact statement on the last version of this bill—we do not have one for this version of the bill—it was quite clear to me in reading that that actually this was not envisaged. This actually was not envisaged. There was a process that was gone through to talk about what would happen with permits but when I actually read that original regulatory impact statement I cannot see that the Government did intend for this process to occur. I would like the Minister to take a call and answer to us how it is that it was missed out. If it was not just missed out what has changed?My second question for the Minister—it is a question that I think a lot of people will be asking—is: who has spoken to the Minister? Who has come to the Government in the last 6 weeks and said: “Guess what? You haven’t allowed for what we want to do.”? Gareth Hughes mentioned in the earlier readings of this bill that there are companies wanting to work for instance on the continental shelf and the question of protesting which we will come to in Part 2. But what happened here? Who was it who came to the Government and said that they wanted this permitting regime that has been changed here under clause 6 to be changed?That is an important matter because the track record of this Government is to kowtow to corporate interests and to vested interests when they come knocking. Be it Warner Bros or be it Skycity the Government will bow down. It will say: “That’s all right; the laws are for sale.” Well who was it in this case Mr Bridges? Who was it who came to the Government and said: “We think we need your law changed.”? That is the question that Simon Bridges needs to answer. Why are we changing this today? What went wrong? And who was it who wanted it changed? Simon Bridges should take a call and tell New Zealanders the answers to those questions.When we look at the changes that are suggested here I do have some significant concerns about the process. If we work through the process an applicant for a tier 1 permit for exploration who does not have the expertise or financial ability to undertake the exploration drilling activities can be granted a permit on a conditional basis. The permit holder can undertake what is called “committed work”—it is essentially seismic surveys—and then after that they can acting as the farminee farm out their rights effectively. This as the Government would like to tell us provides us with a different route for this exploration to take place.The two key elements to making this work are whether or not this can be managed through tighter permit conditions. The tighter permit conditions have to be put in place and monitored by the Minister. That is the concern that I have: whether or not the management of these permit conditions can be undertaken and whether we can have confidence that they will be undertaken by the Minister in the way that we want. Again the track record of this Government is one where if corporate interests come into play the Government will back down.If we look at new section 29B(3) in clause 5 we see that “If a permit is granted in accordance with this section—(a) work cannot be undertaken after the exploration drilling committal date unless before that date—(i) the Minister has upon application by the permit holder satisfied himself or herself of the matters set out in section 29A(2)(b) and (d) …” of the original Act. Those are the matters around health and safety. So what they are saying is the Minister has to satisfy himself—in this case himself—around the matters of health and safety. Well what confidence do we have in this Government to do that? I do not believe the track record of this Government is suchthat we can say we have confidence that the Minister’s satisfying himself as he has to do under section 29B(3) would actually be in the interests—[Interruption]—I thank my colleague Megan Woods for that—of the New Zealand people. That is a problem.The permit holder themselves then goes on to be able to do the drilling and so on that was originally envisaged in the initial permit. So at that point in time a new player has entered the New Zealand extractive industries has gone into our pristine environment and has decided that it would like to be involved in this. It has picked up a permit that somebody else has got. What confidence can we have as a Parliament passing this law under urgency that we have in place all of the rules and the regimes to ensure that if a new player comes in we can have confidence in it? All we have got under this law is Simon Bridges to give us that assurance. That is all we have. Given his track record of coming to this House 6 weeks after he put up the last bit of legislation to amend the mistakes he made then does that give New Zealanders confidence when he is the one thing—the one thing—that stands between some kind of cowboy player entering the New Zealand extractive industry—Hon Maryan Street: Sector.GRANT ROBERTSON: —sector—thank you it is very late. The one thing that says whether this new player is up to it is Simon Bridges the Minister.I simply do not believe that the new section 29B(3) provides us with the kind of assurance that New Zealanders would expect. In Part 1 of this bill that is the substantive matter that I want to raise. I simply do not believe that the Government has made the case for why this change has been made today. We need to hear from the Minister to tell us why this has happened now who has come to him and asked him and then we can actually start looking at the detail of whether or not we have sufficient rules and safeguards in place to ensure that any new player entering the extractive sector has the attributes that we would expect of them. This is sloppy lawmaking from the Government and this part of the bill needs significant work.