Hughes Gareth: Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Marine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13625. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair.Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on Part 2 of this bill the Marine Legislation Bill. I want to talk about two Supplementary Order Papers in particular—two amendments. The first is Supplementary Order Paper 347 which inserts new clause 102A. I do not want to bore anyone watching Parliament TV with a whole bunch of jargon. What this amendment does is it gives Kiwis no say when it comes to consenting exploratory wells in all of New Zealand’s deep water. Why? Because the Government does not want to give Kiwis a say. Why? Because it does not like what it will hear. The fact is that New Zealanders do not want the risk to our environment and economy from risky deep-sea drilling or risky exploratory drilling that they saw in the Gulf of Mexico from an exploratory well 1.5 kilometres down when we know we could see drilling twice as deep in New Zealand’s waters. They do not want to see that and that is why in this amendment the Government is shutting away their ability to have a say.It is embarrassing for the Minister of Transport to have to amend this bill. I mean this is legislation that Parliament passed last year legislation relating to a consenting regime in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. Here is the Government having to change it again only a year later and it is doing it through a back door. Instead of doing it through a normal select committee process where an amendment would have its due diligence from a New Zealand Bills of Rights Act vet this Government is introducing it through a back door through an amendment to take away Kiwis’ rights to discretionary exploratory drilling. It is just not on. It is the Kiwi way that we should have a say.It is deeply ironic that this Government in partnership withDulux is going to ask Kiwis what colour it should be painting Department of Conservation huts—of course inDulux paint—but not what they think about deep-sea exploratory drilling. This is an activity that could affect all of us. In the Gulf of Mexico we saw 600000 tonnes of oil enter the environment. It makes theRena look like a puddle. Three hundred tonnes had a huge impact on the taxpayer’s books on the local economy and on the local citizenryyet here we are looking at potentially 600000 tonnes of oil and the Government wants to do it without giving the public any sort of say.I would like to ask the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment what she is worried about and why she is scared about hearing from the people of New Zealand. I am curious as to why in the Minister’s explanatory note it says that “The amendment requires the Minister when recommending whether regulations should provide for a discretionary activity to be a non-notified activity to take into account the desirability of allowing the public to be heard …”. The desirability of allowing the public to be heard! I find this language incredible. It is anti - New Zealand it is anti our values and it should not be going through this back-door sneaky path.What we have seen of course is that this is a pattern of this Government particularly in the energy and resources sector. We saw the Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges in an embarrassing display of poor lawmaking having to amend the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We had the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill in front of this House. Now it is an Act and it saw the Anadarko amendment which took away Kiwis’ right to protest at sea an honourable Kiwi tradition. We are seeing a process of this Government circumventing normal legislative due diligence and good process and it is all for the outcome that is to support the oil industry and the extractive economy in New Zealand. It goes to the heart of the Government’s “drill it mine it frack it” approach to economic development. That is no economic strategy. There is no plan there is no innovation and there is no looking to the future. It is simply hoping that someone will find something and will not leave too much of a mess as they get it out and we will clip the ticket albeit with the fourth-lowest tax and royalty rates in the world for oil and gas.The Green Party has a clear position when it comes to deep-sea oil drilling. With our amendment we would rather see deep-sea exploratory drilling made a prohibited activity. That is what more than 99 percent of submitters to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee wanted—not this non-notified discretionary activity class but a prohibited activity. I hear the Labour Party talk about deep-sea drilling an awful amount but I still do not hear what its position is on this bill.Also in respect of Part 2 of the bill we have new Supplementary Order Paper 363 introduced by me. This amendment would enact the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and insert a new section 37(5) in clause 105 that would amend the exclusive economic zone legislation to simply make seabed mining in benthic protected areas prohibited. At the moment we have the inconsistent situation where bottom trawlers cannot trawl within 100 metres of the seabed and dredgers cannot dredge the seabed but we see mining companies granted permits by this Government to literally vacuum up the seabed in benthic protected areas. It makes a mockery of our marine protection laws to allow this. [Bell rung] Thank you Mr Chair. I will be very brief because I need to get to the Business Committee. My Supplementary Order Paper 363 simply means that benthic protected areas would actually be protected. I think that if you cannot trawl and you cannot dredge you should not be able to literally vacuum up the seabed. I think that most New Zealanders would agree with me.It is akin to the schedule 4 mining proposals about which New Zealanders stood up and said that some parts of our country are off limits. Some parts of our country have intrinsic value. In fact when you look at the economic opinion on it you see that we are stronger and more prosperous as a country by having protected areas on land. When it comes to the sea we have got only 0.4 percent—that is less than half of 1 percent—protected in marine protected areas. The Government should not be allowing mining of benthic protected areas.Again I would like to issue a challenge to the Labour Party. I would like to see it support my amendment. I do not think that the Labour Party stands for mining marine protected areas. I do not think that its members want to see the Labour Party voting for mining marine protected areas and they are seeing an inconsistent approach. So the challenge is that the votes will be cast and the Labour Party can make its opinion—it can cast its votes and make its choices its way—but let us hope that the Labour Party members send the Labour Party a clear message that when it comes to deep-sea drilling let us not just hear talk; let us see some walk as well. Let us see a strong position. When it comes to seabed mining let us not mine marine protected areas Labour. What we can see is a greater prosperity for all of our economy if we focus on that “clean green” brand.All in all what we see in the Minister’s amendment is a back-door way to take away Kiwis’ rights to have a say. That is deeply un - New Zealand and deeply disappointing and that is why the Green Party will be voting against that amendment. Kia ora.