Sio William: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4642. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):The Labour Opposition supports this bill and supports it because we did not want to be responsible for putting the environment at potential risk if this piece of legislation did not pass. I will talk more about that. The second point is that we have been critical of the relevant Ministers right from the outset when the main legislation was passed and debated in this House in 2012. We said then that the main legislation was poorly drafted it was weak legislation and this bill is evidence of what we said then. The third point I will make in my concluding remarks is to acknowledge that despite our criticism of the Minister for the Environment and this Government we do acknowledge that the select committee that reviewed this piece of legislation the Local Government and Environment Committee actually improved the legislation. I give credit to the chairman Mr Scott Simpson for the way that he ushered through our debates and discussion and I would suggest to that side of the House that he ought to be a fine replacement for a Minister I saw last week who seemed very frail and seemed all beaten up. The last thing is that I would strongly commend those from the public who took the time to submit on this piece of legislation because it is not a piece of legislation that is inviting for the public to make submissions to.It is a piece of legislation that has only four clauses and the first clause is really about the title. I said in the Committee of the whole House that the title is a mouthful: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. That itself prevents a lot of our public from participating and coming forward. In fact the first thing is you would wonder what the legislation really is all about and the title does not give that away. Clause 2 of the bill is a standard clause. Clause 3 then makes reference that the main Act the Act that came into force in 2013 goes back to 2012. I will repeat again that our criticism of the then Minister Amy Adams and of the present Minister in this portfolio is that they rushed through the legislation. It was poorly drafted it was weak legislation and again having us being here in this House debating this bill is evidence of what we said.The Government members pointed out the fact that we also had legislation in the previous Government that needed improvement. I would say to the Government: do not use that argument because the present Government is now in charge and has the power to make these changes if it so wishes. Using the argument that previous Governments made mistakes actually sends a bad message to the public because what the Government is saying is that because the previous Government made a mistake it is OK for it to make mistakes. Our role as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition is to help the Government provide good legislation. The sign of an arrogant Government is when it stops listening to the Opposition and that is what I mean. If it had stopped being arrogant and actually listened to the Opposition this legislation—the main Act in 2012—would have been a far better piece of legislation and we would not have to debate this here today. I acknowledge that the Government did on this occasion listen to some of the public submitters and on the whole it was because of the workings of the committee chaired by Mr Scott Simpson that we have a piece of legislation that we are pleased to support.The final clause of the legislation is really the major amendment. The reason why we are having to amend it is because of Shell Todd Oil Services which is a company that operates the Māui Gas platforms. If this amendment does not pass we then put at risk the environment by having to temporarily close the operations of the Māui Gas platforms at great cost and also potentially put the environment at risk. That is the sole reason why we are supporting this. By amending this legislation it allows Shell Todd Oil Services to put its resource consent in barring any appeals that may come in place. I note that some of the submitters were quite critical of the fact—and I reiterate what some others have said—that a company such as Shell Todd Oil Services surely would have had the means and the resources to have got its act in place so that it could have entered its resource consent with sufficient time taking into consideration any potential appeals that might have come its way. But on this occasion we have had to amend the bill to give them sufficient time in order for the Māui Gas operations to continue and not to put the environment at risk.Some of the key issues raised by submitters were that they did not want to provide an open-ended time frame for existing operations to continue outside the exclusive economic zone legislation regime. I think the select committee heard that the select committee took note of that and as a result we put a time frame of 9 months. Another key issue that was raised by submitters was the preferential treatment for the petroleum industry. We have not talked about this in the debates but it is an issue that comes up time and time again from many in this country of ours who are concerned about the way this Government seems to be able to freely argue that for purely economic reasons it is OK to exploit oil and gas without any due consideration for the environment. Its rhetoric about maintaining a balance—I think the public stills needs to see evidence of that. Yes we can exploit for economic reasons but where is the protection of the environment? Where does that lie? Who becomes responsible for the wreckage of the environment? Because in many cases on an international level we see examples of that with oil spills in other parts of the world and what not. We have been fortunate but that does not mean we are immune. I think that if we are allowing companies to believe that they can run roughshod over our legislation and if Governments are not vigilant to the point where they are producing legislation that is weak and poorly drafted as is the case with the main piece of legislation then we put our environment at risk.I remember some of our elders—and these are mana whenua in Tāmaki Makaurau—who often remind us that they have a world view about protecting the environment and the reason is because we are passing the environment to the next generation. What is it that we pass on to the next generation if we do not take care of the present environment that we are living in? To argue that purely for economic reasons it is OK to allow certain companies to have unfettered power to exploit and to explore our environment—I am just issuing a word of caution to the Government that if it talks about the blue-green argument then it needs to produce evidence of how it is that it is protecting this environment for the next generation coming through. I want to acknowledge the submitters. There were few submitters on the bill but I say again that I am grateful for the way that they conducted themselves and the evidence that they produced. Thankfully all members of the select committee were able to take on board what they said and I think that is what we saw in the final draft of this bill here. Thank you.