Hughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4788. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the third and final reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Economic Effects) Bill. The Green Party for a long period—in fact for the entire time of our history in Parliament—has called for overarching oceans legislation to deal with the issues that this House is dealing with now but also for overarching legislation that looks at spatial planning and looks at marine protection. We believe that what we need is a holistic package on how we relate to our oceans. We agree with the member Dr Nick Smith that Labour in its 9 years should have acted. It had the opportunity but did not. But we disagree with his misrepresentation that the Greens were silent over that period. In fact in the entire time we have been in Parliament we have been calling for this. 
Our oceans face a number of challenges—from the recent news of the Arctic melting at a record level this summer through to acidification overfishing and pollution. It is important that we get this right. This is a historic opportunity for our Parliament to make sure we do pass enduring robust legislation for iwi community and recreational users—everyone who has an interest in our oceans which is all New Zealanders. We are intrinsically connected to our oceans. We love our oceans. We want to do it right and unfortunately this Parliament is missing an opportunity to pass enduring robust legislation. Instead what we are doing is passing a permissive weak bill which quite simply is not going to be protecting and preserving our exclusive economic zone; it is simply going to facilitate risky extractive activities. It is going to make deep-sea drilling “eezy”. 
We have got the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. It is internationally significant. It contains some amazing ecosystems. But it is also something that we know very little about. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has only scratched the surface if you will of what is in our oceans and what is down in the benthic environment and we really do risk trashing not only that valuable “clean green” brand but also some special unique ecosystems in this rush for minerals and extractions. 
What we are going to see as an outcome from this bill is quite simply a feeding frenzy of lawyers as they try to interpret what “favour caution” means when we have had the opportunity to use the internationally and nationally recognised precautionary principle instead. We are going to see the lawyers in their feeding frenzy try to debate the adaptive management provisions. We do not think the bill has been drafted to an adequate standard and it is simply going to be benefiting the lawyers. 
We saw a raft of amendments that were not in the spirit of working with the Opposition parties and not in a manner that was going to see Opposition support and a realistic and honest conversation with the Opposition. We saw the amendments tabled at the Environmental Defence Society conference which is a shame because all the Opposition parties went to the Minister for the Environment quite constructively trying to improve the bill. Sadly we saw these amendments slammed down on the Table if you will. We would have preferred the bill to go back to the Local Government and Environment Committee because what we saw was just spin— 
Hon Amy Adams 
: You came I listened and I changed the bill. Rubbish! 
GARETH HUGHES 
: —quite simply spin coming from the Minister who is talking about rubbish over there in the corner. We saw spin. There were a few improvements but there were the other measures that did not make it because of the Olympics being on. Those were things like the “Anadarko clause”—the transitional provisions that are sops to the oil industry. We should have seen another select committee appraisal of these significant very thick amendments so that we could have got it right. We missed an opportunity. 
We have got a number of objections to the bill. We do not believe that the bill is going to be meeting our international obligations. We think the purpose clause is still too weak. We have gone only halfway to improving it. The bill entirely fails to account for climate change. It ignores the precautionary approach. It fails our Treaty of Waitangi obligations. Quite simply it fails the principles of natural justice when it comes to appeals in the High Court. And it fails to look at the other side of the coin which is spatial planning and marine protection. 
Before I go into the substantive part of my contribution I would like to thank the submitters thank the officials thank the Minister and thank Nicky Wagner the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. We saw a number of very high-quality submissions made to the select committee. Some of those people are in the Chamber today and I would like to thank all those people. 
Firstly what we need is overarching holistic oceans legislation that looks at spatial planning and marine protection. What this bill is going to do is move the spectre of deep-sea drilling closer. The Government has got no plan when it comes to the economy apart from “drill it mine it frack it cut it sell it”. It is the lazy approach to economic development. It takes no vision no planning and no sense of where future trends are going. It simply hopes that we are going to find some of the last century’s energy sources in the ground without looking to the future. It is a lazy path to economic development which puts our environment at risk yet we are going to see hardly any taxes hardly any royalties and hardly any jobs for New Zealanders and the profits are going to flow offshore. 
 This bill is regulating how we deal with consents be they for phosphate in the Chatham Rise the gas hydrates the methane deposits which this Government is deciding to subsidise—and it was revealed last week that the Government is subsidising research into extracting the gas hydrates stored at the bottom of the ocean—or risky deep-sea drilling. So when we look at the international obligations numerous submitters such as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment told the committee that in their opinion the bill failed to meet our international obligations. The bill as it came out of the committee was strengthened but the Minister’s amendments further weakened our consistency with our international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to protect and to preserve our marine environment. 
The Minister said she had a legal opinion on the previous drafting that shows that some people think this bill will be consistent. What we need to have is a new legal opinion based on the new wording. If the Minister thought it was going to be consistent with our obligations why on earth can we not say that it is going to be consistent? The fact that the Minister had to remove from the text of this bill that it be consistent with the convention shows that this Government is worried that it will be interpreted consistently and all we are going to see as Moana Mackey pointed out is lawyers interpreting this. It is the lawyers who are benefiting from this not the environment. 
We saw the Minister strengthen the purpose clause but only halfway. She has moved away from that flawed ideology of balance where you can degrade the environment a little bit if you are going to get a little bit of gain or you can degrade it a lot if you are going to get a lot of economic gain. We have gone away from that flawed failed ideology and instead we have seen the sustainable management principle but we have gone only halfway. We are trying to make it closer to the Resource Management Act but we are failing to have the requirement for decision makers to recognise and provide for it. We have gone only halfway because we do not have all the other provisions that would be made in a similar environment under the Resource Management Act. 
For the Green Party our economy relies on a healthy environment. We need to have environmental bottom lines and those are quite frankly missing—absent from this bill. I think the most damaging part of this bill is the failure to account for climate change. In fact it is more explicit than that. The Environmental Protection Authority is unable to consider the effects of greenhouse gases and climate change when considering applications. This is 2010. The Arctic is melting at a record rate. We know that it is happening. We know that humans are causing it. 
Hon Members 
: 2012. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: Well if the Government side wants to quibble about the date but will not have a proper debate around the big issue facing our planet it shows this Government’s priorities. It does not care about the future of the planet. It does not care about the environment. All it cares about is facilitating risky deep-sea drilling for its lazy economic plan. 
It is egregious that we are seeing the environment removed from the bill. It continues the bad trend of the Labour Government in 2004 when that Government removed it from the Resource Management Act treating it as if the planet does not matter. We see the member Annette King’s common-sense provision around the Moriori ignored by this Government. We see the Treaty of Waitangi provisions weakened. When it comes to the Environment Court we think it would have been more appropriate and fair to have appeals to the Environment Court. Instead what the Government has done is allow appeals only to the High Court on points of law. We have got a specialist court the Environment Court. We have got a body of case law developed. The Government quite simply wants to expedite these risky plans in our environment and remove the ability for Kiwis to have recourse to natural justice. 
We did see improvement on the penalties—probably the only suggestion from the Green Party that we have actually seen picked up by the Government—and we acknowledge that. But what we also need to see is the Minister of Energy and Resources actually making sure that these companies have got to have full insurance liability because at the moment that is not there. The transitional provisions the so-called “Anadarko clause” are simply a sop to the industry to make it as easy as possible for it to exploit our environment where we get so little environmental gain. There is no marine protection and no spatial planning provisions. This is not oceans legislation; this is an “eezy” deep-sea drilling bill. 
What we need to see is future Governments strengthening this law as we have missed a massive opportunity in this House. It is disappointing that the Minister for the Environment would not engage constructively with the Opposition so we could have seen a robust bill that had the support of this whole House. I do not think we were that far away but it is a shame that we will not see that today. I have outlined a number of reasons why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. We support the intent of an exclusive economic zone bill. That is why we voted for its first reading. We will not be voting for an “eezy” drilling bill.