Eckhoff Gerrard: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Crown Minerals Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7882] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I would like to make a contribution to this debate. Part 2 is headed “Amendments to transitional provisions relating to minerals”. I look at the word “transitional” and I wonder what certainty it gives to an industry in this country that potentially could be worth $86 billion. That is worth reflecting on for a moment. This industry has been determined I believe by the geological people as being worth potentially $86 billion. Here we are in the Committee debating Part 2. The Government has used words like “transitional”. “Transitional” to me means temporary uncertain—a bridge. To provide uncertainty for this industry indeed any industry is just totally unsatisfactory. Probably the most debilitating impact one can have on any industry is to deny certainty to deny licences that have been granted and exercised in total good faith only to find a Government comes along and says that it wants to look after its friends that it will not exercise total control but that it will exercise control over the company Glenharrow Holdings and extinguish its property right. 
This Committee is discussing at this time a hugely important issue. It is not just about the mining industry; it is about the fundamental premise of property rights in this country and whether a company legitimately exercising that property right should expect the Crown to come in with something like Part 2 and exercise the total control that the Crown does have. There is no question about the ability of the Crown about the ability of Mr Duynhoven to exercise his right as Minister; whether it is justified and appropriate is an entirely different matter. 
There seems to be a certain irony in this whole process. Just recently we needed to validate the Minister’s warrant in this House and here we are discussing Part 2 and having to validate this bill in the Minister’s name. Both have been done with retrospectivity. That is absolutely wrong—certainly in this particular case it is totally and utterly wrong. 
The determination made by the Minister by press release is as I mentioned earlier a hugely debilitating exercise for the industry. I wonder what this word “transitional” really means. What does the Government really mean by “transitional provisions relating to minerals”? It has already been mentioned in this House that this industry requires huge amounts of capital. How can an industry survive if it has what is known as “transitional provisions”? Where in this bill is the certainty that should be given to the mining industry? I mentioned earlier that there has been a determination that the mining industry could be worth $86 billion to this country. We would not have to worry too much about funding hospitals and schools if we had that sort of industry contribute even a fraction of that money on an annual basis. 
We are never going to attract miners into this industry as long as we have phrases such as “transitional provisions relating to minerals” which are just so ambiguous. One could argue quite justifiably that even the concept of who owns the minerals and indeed what a land title actually means today are ambiguous in the context of the debate we are having over foreshore and seabed.