Sage Eugenie: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3688. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill should be one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to be considered by the House this year. It should be as significant as the Resource Management Act was when it was passed in 1991 because it establishes a long-overdue environmental management regime for our oceans. Yet I am not proud to be speaking on this bill because it is bereft of a commitment to the sustainable management of our oceans. The serious concerns about the bill on this side of the House mean that unless there are major changes in the Committee stage the bill is unlikely to be enduring as a piece of legislation so there is no certainty for the industry that the pro-development regime that is in this bill will outlast a change of Government. The National Government has praised the Land and Water Forum as a collaborative process but there has been no similar effort to find common ground in relation to the management of our oceans despite their strategic importance to New Zealand.  
The whole debate around this bill starts with the purpose clause. It is at the heart of the bill and the criteria and process that the bill sets up for both the Environmental Protection Authority and the responsible Minister to consider marine consent applications and regulations are deeply flawed. The Minister for the Environment was honest when she said that the bill was about unlocking the economic potential of the exclusive economic zone but the Green Party disputes the Minister’s view that the bill is environmentally responsible. When you have a purpose clause that requires decision makers to “achieve a balance” between economic development and the protection of the environment the environment loses virtually every time. That is because jobs and dollars trump those things that are much harder to measure: the decline in the population of a species or the contraction of its range.  
The Hon Ruth Dyson referred to an open letter that New Zealand’s major environmental NGOs released today. They expressed in that letter profound concerns to the Minister Amy Adams about the bill. They said that its purpose clause is “certain to lead to the degradation of the marine environment. It is also likely to lead to extensive litigation and uncertainty for industry looking to invest in offshore exploration.” This whole concept of balancing and trading off the environment against the economic gains jobs and dollars is outdated 1970s thinking. It is as if the Rio Earth Summit and the Brundtland Commission never happened. Sustainable management which members of the opposite side of the House object to in relation to the oceans is about allowing economic activity to provide for human well-being while safeguarding the life-supporting capacities of natural ecosystems and the ability of present and future generations to provide for their needs. But this bill has no environmental bottom-line and no obligation to require users to avoid environmental harm. That is why it is contrary to our international obligations in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea because there is a requirement in that treaty to protect and preserve the marine environment and to make economic use subject to that protection and preservation provision.  
One of the bill’s other major flaws is that there is no hierarchy of matters that the Minister must consider in developing regulations and the Environmental Protection Authority must consider when deciding applications for marine consents. That leaves far too much discretion to the Environmental Protection Authority and to how it is going to balance off environmental protection against economic development. That risks decisions being very expedient and pragmatic. Again as the NGOs said in their letter to Minister Adams the absence of a set of environmental principles to guide decision makers means that the bill remains “directionless woolly and will invite extensive litigation.”  
We had a number of submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee making very constructive suggestions as to how the bill could be improved. But the fact that the mining industry was very supportive of the bill and that the Straterra representative said it was a very very good bill shows that the bill is obviously biased in favour of development and does not provide for sustainable management.