Robertson Grant: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 22 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4663. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Mr Chair I thank you for the call and I thank the member Nicky Wagner for her contribution. I want to make a general comment about the matters on Supplementary Order Paper 100 that cover Part 4 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill and then raise some specific questions about those changes. The general comment is to say that there are significant changes in this Supplementary Order Paper as to how the transitional provisions will work. 
The member who has just resumed her seat has given an explanation around one of those—around the Supplementary Order Paper changes to clause 151A—but there are others as well around clause 149A and in particular around new clause 151AA that are major changes. It would have been good to have had select committee consideration of those. I am not doubting the word of the member or anything like that but to understand the impact of this with an Supplementary Order Paper that finds its way to us just a couple of days before we come to debate it is not satisfactory. We have said time and time again in this process that what everyone is after is certainty. What people want is the opportunity to be able to understand what the requirements will be and frankly in this particular part of the Supplementary Order Paper all we have got is uncertainty and questions that remain for us about what the impact of these changes will be. 
The member who has just resumed her seat says this is not about making things easier for those who already have licences to prospect or who have had consents granted. Although that is what she says what is on the paper in front of us looks like a regime that has been designed to make it as easy as possible for those companies that are there. It has some very flexible language inside it. It moves from “existing” activities to “planned” activities and what we on this side of the House want to know is that the scope of any planned activity is limited. When I look at clause 151A I am not certain I get that especially because we have references within clause 151A back to earlier clauses. As Moana Mackey said we were hoping that the Minister for the Environment would be able to get up today and explain to us how clause 151A works in with the earlier clauses around assessments. We have had some comment on that from the member who has resumed her seat but I do find it difficult to accept that this could not have gone back to the Local Government and Environment Committee to clarify it because I suspect that in future years we are going to have to come back and do just that. 
I just want to speak about clause 149A before I come back to new clause 151AA. Clause 149A is around existing petroleum activities becoming discretionary. I want to note particularly that what happens in clause 149A is the overriding of clause 15 of the bill. That is where our concerns start because clause 15 of the bill is a very important clause within the bill. It actually gives the powers to the Environmental Protection Authority around what restrictions there should be. These are the kinds of things that people would like to see in any piece of legislation that comes through to this House where we are actually trying to make sure that we have clear rules and clear guidelines for everybody involved. 
I know we are not supposed to refer back to parts but it is relevant because subclause (5) of the amended clause 149A overrides clause 15 which has already been passed and is around the restrictions on work in the exclusive economic zone. It is around things like the construction placement alteration extension removal or demolition of structures submarine pipelines or submarine cables; the removal of non-living natural material; the disturbance of the seabed or subsoil; the deposit of any thing or organism in the seabed; and the destruction damage or disturbance of the seabed in a manner that is likely to have an adverse effect on marine species or their habitat. That is clause 15. 
Subclause (5) of the amended clause 149A overrides that. That is a very significant thing to be doing within a clause that has just arrived on a Supplementary Order Paper telling us that for existing petroleum activities we do not have to worry about any of that. That will be because there are already restrictions within the permits and the licences that people have but I cannot compare those at the moment. As a member of Parliament expected to look at this bill I cannot compare back with what those existing licences are. All I know is that we are about to pass—if the Government gets its way—a clause within a bill that tells me that none of those things matter any more and that for those activities all of those things are out the door. From our point of view the destruction damage or disturbance of the seabed in a manner that is likely to have an adverse effect on marine species in their habitat is a serious matter. So this is why we have a problem with these new clauses being dropped on the Committee by way of a Supplementary Order Paper because we should be able to go back and look at what the impact of this is. 
The last matter I want to raise is around the new clause 151AA because I think this is an area as my colleague Eugenie Sage has already expressed in this debate where we have got a whole new area around planned activities—not just existing activities—and these are activities with licences granted under the Continental Shelf Act 1964. The issue we have here is firstly that we are not talking about just existing activities. We are talking about planned activities but they may not even be activities as Eugenie Sage has said that have begun. These are licences that potentially have been held for some time yet we are expected to say “Well that’s fine they can just carry on.” That is not an argument about certainty. These activities in many cases have not even started yet and we are saying these activities do not now need to be subject to the new legislation that we are putting in place today. 
Again this was dropped on us at the last minute it was not discussed in the select committee it has not had the scrutiny that people would expect— 
Paul Goldsmith 
: You would never do that would you? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well Mr Goldsmith says we would never do that. I do not know that we have. Does it make it right Mr Goldsmith? Does it make it the right thing to do to drop something in the Committee in an area where everybody across the Committee wants to create the most robust law that we possibly can? That is the problem we have got—having something dropped on us where we do not know whether we are actually going to be able to create the most robust law that we can. 
So we have a concern now that we are creating two or three different regimes for planned activities under different laws that will not be under the new processes that we have agreed to today. That is inconsistent potentially dangerous and not what we would like to support. Unless the Minister is able or a member of the Government is able to stand and reassure us around new clause 151AA we do not believe that that is a clause that we could possibly support. Overall we think that this is an example of why the Government should send this particular Supplementary Order Paper back to the Local Government and Environment Committee to enable proper scrutiny. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 100 in the name of the Hon Amy Adams to Part 4 be agreed to.