Mackey Moana: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10215. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I think the best response to that speech is “Really?”. Really Minister? We passed this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill only weeks ago it is not even in force yet and already we are back here in the House having to clean up the mess because there were so many mistakes. That is a whole new level of incompetence that I do not think we have seen in Ministers so far. I mean it is still warm this piece of legislation. It is still warm. The body has not cooled down and here we are having to pass an amendment bill under urgency to fix all the mistakes in it.Unfortunately the reality is that this amendment bill is so shabby—and is being rushed through all stages tonight and tomorrow and not going to a select committee—that we are probably going to have to come back for another amendment bill to fix the mistakes in this amendment bill. Well Simon Bridges has completely outdone himself. This is a whole new level of incompetence. He has set a new record and I challenge any Minister over there to beat it. The talent is certainly there—the talent is certainly there. It is going to be a hard task to beat it but I think they can.This is not a minor technical bill as the Minister of Energy and Resources would have us believe. The original bill as he pointed out significantly changed the way the Crown minerals regime worked in New Zealand. There were elements of that bill that the Labour Party supported which included the implementation of the recommendations of the Pike River inquiry. That was really good. Unfortunately the rest of it was nothing more than a developer’s charter with scant regard for the environment and as the Labour Opposition we were not able to support it.I want to welcome the approaches that were made by the Hon Phil Heatley when he held the portfolio to try to come to some cross-party agreement on this very important piece of legislation. We welcome that. Unfortunately he was turfed out of the portfolio. We now have Simon Bridges and Simon Bridges does not seem to want to provide that security for industry. He is desperately looking like he is deep in conversation with TimGroser at the moment so that he does not have to listen to what I am talking about. We know that is not real—we know that is not real.Hon Lianne Dalziel: He’s “en-Groser-ed” in that conversation.MOANA MACKEY: He is “en-Groser-ed” in conversation. But the reality is that this is important and it is a shame that this is being rushed through the House under urgency with no chance to actually discuss the amendments that are being made.The Minister talked about this new permitting regime that he is introducing. It is a conditional permit which will allow prospectors who are not going to carry out drilling to be held to only the health and safety environmental and financial standards that apply to the activities that they are actually carrying out. Well on the surface of it that seems perfectly reasonable. The problem is that we are not sure that that is actually what the drafting is going to achieve and that is the value of a select committee process. This is an area where we are at risk of opening up enormous loopholes if we do not get it right. I am afraid that what is at stake is far too precious to take that risk. There is no reason why this could not have gone to a select committee just to have a look even for a truncated period given that that part is the bit that we are really looking at so that we can get advice as Opposition members on what this clause actually does and when it will actually achieve the stated aims and outcomes that the Minister has indicated.The wording actually says that “An applicant for a Tier 1 permit for exploration who does not have the expertise or financial ability to undertake exploration drilling activities will be able to be granted a permit on a conditional basis. If the permit is granted the permit holder will be required to undertake the committed work … and must then—based on the results of that work negotiate to sell all or part of its permit …”—and this is the bit that I am concerned about—“or build its own capability to do the contingent work so that it can commit to do that further work itself.”My question would be that if we are passing this because we are acknowledging that these companies that are going to be carrying out the seismic surveying—because that is largely what we are talking about—do not have the capability up front to carry out exploratory drilling so therefore are not going to be held to that higher standard then why would we expect that they are going to be able to go on and carry out that work after they have done the seismic surveying? Carrying out seismic surveying does not give you any experience in carrying out exploratory drilling so why is that part of the clause even necessary? Why do you not just end it at saying that they have to onsell the permit relinquish it to Government and that is it? That is what I understood the amendment was trying to achieve and what the Minister has said it is trying to achieve but that is not what the legislation says. The legislation says that a company that the Government deemed unable to meet the standards required to carry out exploratory drilling could in fact go on to carry out that drilling. I wonder why that is there.This is the kind of question that a select committee would ask of officials and there may be a response to that. I look forward to Jonathan Young’s speech. Maybe he can provide an answer to that question. But if the expectation is that only companies that meet those environmental health and safety and financial standards can carry out this work then why are we leaving open a loophole for them to carry out this work in the legislation? To me that is a real danger and in this area where there are literally millions of lawyers all around the world being paid literally billions of dollars to find these loopholes I want to know that our law is as tight as possible and meets those high standards. I simply do not have that confidence based on what the Minister said which does not match up with what the law says.But I want to come back to the area that I am really concerned about in this legislation and that is the extension of the incredibly Draconian and anti-democratic bans on protests beyond our exclusive economic zone and out into the continental shelf.The Minister has tried to say: “Oh that’s what I meant to do in the first place and it’s not really a big deal.” Well the Minister might think it is not a big deal but what we are talking about is 1.7 million square kilometres of area in the ocean. That is a big deal. When the original amendment Act was passed “offshore area” was defined as “any area within the territorial sea or exclusive economic zone that is on or above the continental shelf”. That quite clearly means that it is our territorial waters and it is the exclusive economic zone. That is it. That was what we understood when it went through the select committee process that is what we passed in this House just weeks ago and tonight we had the Minister amending that to say: “ ‘offshore area’ means any area that is—(a) within the territorial sea; or (b) within the exclusive economic zone; or (c) on or above the continental shelf”.So we have now just included 1.7 million square kilometres of deep-sea area that was not included in the original legislation. I would seriously question whether or not we actually as a Parliament have the right to pass this legislation. What we know is that we do not have the right to fisheries in the continental shelf and we do not have the right to regulate other activities above the continental shelf such as shipping. So if we do not have those rights to regulate those activities what makes the Government believe we have the right to regulate protesting? I want to hear the answer from Jonathan Young to that question because I know that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website makes it quite clear that we do not have the right to regulate activities in those areas.This brings me back to another very important area which is that once again we did not have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting or a legal opinion in relation to our international obligations on the original Supplementary Order Paper that introduced the protesting ban in the exclusive economic zone. We had the Attorney-General coming down to the House and giving a speech trying to insinuate that he had a legal opinion on its consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. When he was actually pushed and asked to table it it turned out he did not have a legal opinion on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which is highly unusual for something so controversial.Hon Maryan Street: Just his own opinion.MOANA MACKEY: Just his own opinion which he might think is a legal opinion. It is not the one we wanted. We wanted one that was actually applicable to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and there was no legal opinion. Once again on this piece of legislation there is no legal opinion on its consistency with New Zealand the Bill of Rights Act and no legal opinion on its consistency with our international obligations.Equally disturbing there is no regulatory impact statement on this piece of legislation. So the two regulatory impact statements we have are from the previous piece of legislation that we passed just weeks ago which do not refer to the new matters raised in this bill at all.I am a very helpful member of the House. I do not agree with this legislation—we will be voting against it—but I like to be as helpful as I can possibly be and aid the Government so I have drafted my own regulatory impact statement on this piece of legislation in order to advise and inform and help members because I want to be constructive and this is it. I have drafted it myself and it is very much in line with the other blanked out regulatory impact statements we have seen tonight in the House. I have copies for members if they think it would help inform their speeches just as the other regulatory impact statements have! It is very informative and it took me quite a long time—quite a long time! A lot of Vivid pen was used in the making of this regulatory impact statement but it really meets the quality of the other regulatory impact statements we have seen in the House tonight and I think it will go a long way to inform the debate! I am trying to be constructive Minister. I am interested in findingmulti-party solutions to these multifaceted problems and I am here to help—I am here to help. That is all I can say.This is a dreadful attempt by the Government to fix up a mess of a bill—Hon Lianne Dalziel: What does it say?MOANA MACKEY: It says “and”—it says “and”. So make of that what you will. It says “and” and that is a legal opinion and the rest of it is redacted—redacted for Government purposes. So we will be opposing this bill. It is a shameful attempt to extend a Draconian anti-democratic law. Thank you. I seek leave to table the regulatory impact statement that I drafted—