Twyford Phil: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 As my colleagues have said Labour is supporting this bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill with considerable reservation. We are willing to support its referral to a select committee at this stage because we feel that the issues the bill is ostensibly dealing with are important. They are important to New Zealand’s economic development they are important for the stewardship of our natural environment and we intend to hold the Government to account. We will be subjecting this bill to scrutiny at the select committee and we look forward to having debates there. 
This bill comes to the House against a backdrop of political debate about two huge issues for New Zealand: jobs and the environment. As Grant Robertson was saying earlier this Government’s philosophy about economic development and the environment is that you trade off one for the other and if you want jobs then you have to be willing to sacrifice the environment. It is a 20th century philosophy or maybe even a 19th century philosophy. Let us look at those two issues and let us look at the Government’s track record because that is the context in which we should consider this bill. 
 On jobs the Government wants to say that if you want more jobs and if you want economic development then you should support mining and you should support extractive industries at any cost. This is the Government that has presided over the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and it is absolutely unwilling to countenance a range of policy options that have been discussed in this House over the last few days and the last few weeks that would give more support to our manufacturing sector which delivers thousands and thousands of high-value skilled jobs. But this Government is apparently content to allow them to haemorrhage away as one industry after another announces mass lay-offs and skilled New Zealanders leave this country for jobs across the Tasman. The Government has—you just look at the statistics for the last 4½ years—an appalling record on job creation. Its idea of job creation is hiring more people in Work and Income to harass people who are on welfare benefits. That is this Government’s idea of job creation. 
Let us look at the environment. This is the Government that gutted the emissions trading scheme. We are no longer a leader. We are no longer a fast follower. We are just a kind of disinterested passive observer when it comes to dealing with the challenge of climate change. 
The Government brought in some ridiculously weak legislation to deal with the environmental regulation of the exclusive economic zone. It spent months and months in its first term of Government trying to engage New Zealanders in a debate about mining conservation land mining of schedule 4 land and was firmly rebuffed by the public on that issue. It has systematically underfunded the Department of Conservation and this is the Government that refuses to do anything significant about protecting the last few remaining Maui’s dolphins. So it does not have a leg to stand on when it comes to environmental issues and the environmental stewardship of our nation and yet it comes to this House and says to New Zealanders: “If you want jobs if you want economic development then you have to support our agenda on extractive industries.” Well I do not think that is the way New Zealanders see it. It is pretty clear that most New Zealanders want economic development but they are not prepared to sacrifice the natural environment that we treasure in this country. They want safeguards in place. They want reasonable controls in place. 
I think that when this bill is debated at the Commerce Committee the public will see that there are provisions in this bill that are simply about tilting the playing field all the way downhill to Rio Tinto - Zinc and other mining companies. As my colleagues have said there are two issues that we are particularly concerned about and unless they are resolved we will not be supporting further progress on this bill. The first is joint ministerial approval and the second is the economic benefit test. My colleagues have discussed both those issues. Unless we see satisfactory resolution we will not be supporting the further progress of this bill. Thank you.