Smith Lockwood: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Smith Lockwood: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7628] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 Part 1 of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill is one of the less controversial parts because it is mainly technical and relates to issues surrounding permits granted under the Crown Minerals Act. It is Part 2 that is the hugely controversial part of this bill. That said there are some issues in Part 1 that do relate to the controversial issue as well. I would like the Minister in the chair Chris Carter to advise the Committee whether I am correct on that so that we can make our voting judgments accordingly because some of the clauses—3 4 5 etc.—relate to quite technical issues in respect of permit-holders. 
I have checked through the principal Act and a number of those issues do not appear to be of great substance; they appear to be more technical. However clause 9 “Unit development” provides that section 46(1) of the principal Act be amended “by inserting in paragraph (a) after the words “2 or more permits” the words “or existing privileges”. The Committee needs to know exactly what that means if we are to vote sensibly on that provision. If we look at Part 2 we will see that certain matters are still to be determined by the court—the Court of Appeal or ultimately the Privy Council—in respect of property rights under mining licences issued under the old Mining Act of 1971 or the Coal Mines Act of 1979 where applications have been filed to renew extend or vary those licences. I suspect that Part 2 of this legislation will preserve certain privileges for those who happened to get those applications in prior to the Hon Harry Duynhoven making his announcement at 5 o’clock on 20 September 2002. The Committee needs to know whether the reference to “existing privileges” under clause 9 is a reference to the fact that those property rights have not yet been resolved by the court. If I am right in presuming that that is what is meant by those words it again emphasises the untimely nature of this legislation. 
The Hon Pete Hodgson is not an unintelligent Minister. I would like him to cast his mind over the fact that it would be totally unfair if “existing privileges” referred to those who ignored advice and applied for licence renewals licence extensions variations and whatever prior to 5 p.m. on that fateful day in September 2002. It would be unfair on those who believed a Crown agency that said they did not have the right to do that when maybe they did have the right to do that and when in talking about “existing privileges” this legislation is presuming they might have had the right to do that. It would be patently unfair for this legislation to be saying that those who ignored advice and made such applications prior to that date have existing privileges but those who took advice from a Crown agency and did not seek to renew such licences do not have existing privileges. 
This Parliament cannot consider that to be fair but in respect of those amendments to Part 1—in particular the amendments under clause 9 to section 46(1) of the principal Act—I would be only too happy for the Minister in the chair to take a call and say: “Lockwood you’ve got it totally wrong. The existing privileges being referred to have nothing to do with the matters before the court”. I am prepared to accept that if the Minister says that is correct. But if it is not we need to know.