Dyson Ruth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9311. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is fantastic to be speaking on Part 4 of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill which deals with amendments to the Reserves Act 1977. This was one of the less contentious areas within the bill. As I noted earlier it certainly would have been our preference as we indicated as this bill was introduced to debate to agreement the concerns that we had and obviously the concerns that other parties had as well. I thought that the Commerce Committee made really rigorous efforts in that regard and I want to commend the chair Jonathan Young for his behaviour and conduct of the proceedings. There were obviously strongly held views on many of these issues but unfortunately when we got to the end of the proceedings we were not able to agree on the fundamental points that we had raised when the bill was introduced.The primary one was the dual decision-making. This part here is one that the Minister of Conservation maintains. It is very good. It has some automatic scheduling of reserve land into schedule 4 and that is obviously an improvement on the existing position that the Minister of Conservation holds. But tragically it does not outweigh the weakening of the ability of the Minister of Conservation to make a decision in regard to minerals whether it is exploratory drilling or mining itself. That has been discussed in earlier parts of this bill but it is particularly relevant to Part 4 as well. It does not outweigh the concerns that we have about that dual decision-making.In question time today I also mentioned the comparison of the current structure of the Department of Conservation which obviously is responsible for the Reserves Act 1977 and the way that the department has now modelled itself on Cabinet dual decision-making where we have the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Energy and Resources taking decisions jointly where previously it was the Minister of Conservation’s mandate. In the same way the Department of Conservation in its proposed new structure is going to have two positions of equal status. One is going to be the chief ranger who is responsible for conservation issues and the other one in the same tier of the department is going to be called the relationship manager and that person will be focused on the business side of the Department of Conservation. Like most of this bill it represents a significant weakening of the mandate and the responsibility that the Minister of Conservation currently has.That concern was only heightened when on Easter Sunday we had the Minister of Energy and Resources the Hon Simon Bridges dumping on the Committee a massive Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 205 without any consideration of referral to the select committee. It is a significant piece of work that changes the rights of protesters in regard to their opposition to any activity on the continental shelf. If you look at how many changes the select committee made to Part 4 which was not a contentious area in comparison with some of the others there are significant alterations. There are large sections of Part 4 that have been deleted. There are significant insertions and obviously there was a lot of debate. So how could we have had this much debate and alteration in Part 4 a comparatively uncontentious areawhen the Minister Simon Bridges can justify dumping a significant controversial Supplementary Order Paper on the Committee on Easter Sunday without any select committee consideration or ability to debate it or change it? That is really the height of arrogance.I was very disappointed in the Minister’s behaviour when he was in the chair last evening. I was very disappointed in the behaviour of the Attorney-General. I have not actually heard before the denigration that occurred towards highly respected members of our community Dame Anne Salmond and Sir Geoffrey Palmer both of whom hold strong views but are very highly regarded. Dame Anne Salmond is the New Zealander of the Year and yet in this Chamber and in this debate they were treated very poorly. I really regret that in the same way that I regret the treatment that the Minister has given this Committee. If you can compare this Part 4—