Mackey Moana: Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Marine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13622. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): It is with much disappointment that I rise to take a call on Part 2 of this Marine Legislation Bill—in particular with reference to Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. Once again we find the National Government removing the ability for New Zealanders to have their say on consenting processes surrounding oil and gas exploration. Once again it is watering down environmental protections. Once again it is not doing it through the regular process of this Parliament which would have seen a select committee process that would see debate and submissions on the particular amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper; rather it is dumping amendments into the Chamber during the Committee stage on a completely different piece of legislation. Part 2 actually amends the exclusive economic zone legislation that was passed last year. Here we have the marine legislation a piece of legislation that was actually primarily amending the Maritime Transport Act and what we find is that we are amending another piece of legislation to undo changes that we were promised at the time would not be made.What this Supplementary Order Paper does in clause 89 is take the three classifications of marine consents which are currently “permitted” “discretionary” and “prohibited”. “Permitted” means that it is allowed to happen and does not have to go through a big process. “Prohibited” obviously cannot happen at all so there is no process. And “discretionary” is where the bulk of the exclusive economic zone legislation detail lay because that is the process through which a company could apply to carry out an economic activity in the exclusive economic zone and the Environmental Protection Authority would run a marine consent process. We were critical of that process for a number of reasons when that bill went through Parliament not least of all being that there was no ability to appeal as there is under the Resource Management Act. There was only the ability to appeal on points of law not on points of substance. But at least there was a process within that exclusive economic zone legislation for the public for environmental organisations for geotechnical experts and for industry experts to have their say and their input into whether or not that marine consent should be granted.At the time there was a lot of public concern that the exclusive economic zone legislation was far weaker and far more permissive than the Resource Management Act. That Act applies out to 12 nautical miles and then beyond that the exclusive economic zone legislation governs all that activity. Labour raised serious questions as to why you would have two completely different regimes operating side by side and regulating exactly the same activity. The answer to that question as one of the submitters during the select committee process on the exclusive economic zone legislation told us was that it was deliberately more permissive because it was deliberately going to allow activities to go ahead that possibly would not have been consented under the Resource Management Act because of the risk factors involved when it comes to environmental protection.So there was deep concern about this particular piece of legislation. But whenever these concerns were raised the then Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley would reassure communities. He went toKaikōura and he reassured that community there because they are very concerned about the impact of oil and gas exploration on their whale watching tourism economic activities down there. They are very very concerned and Phil Heatley said to them: “I promise you that there will be a process within the marine consenting process where you can have your say on any application for oil and gas exploration in the exclusive economic zone.” That was a promise that the National Government made when that legislation was going through Parliament. That was the reason it gave for disregarding all the other concerns that were being raised about the legislation concerns about how permissive it was concerns about the lack ofenvironmental protection concerns about taking away appeal rights on points of substance—all these concerns were to be addressed by the fact that the public would be allowed to have their say through the consenting process. So here we are not a year later with an amendment that removes that right with an amendment that now says that we are not going to have just the categories of permitted discretionary and prohibited activities; we are going to introduce a new definition for a non-notified discretionary activity. This is a discretionary activity where the public will not get to have their say and the Minister has already indicated that oil and gas exploration for the drilling of exploratory wells is going to be a non-notified discretionary activity.Well the Gulf of Mexico disaster was not an exploratory well. This is not a low-risk activity as the Minister for the Environment has tried to claim. She said: “Oh it will happen over the course of about 6 weeks. You know it is fairly low-risk.” Well tell that to the people who had to deal with the Deepwater Horizon event in the Gulf of Mexico which was in an exploratory well and in one that was in shallower water than that of some of the applications that are currently being considered—much shallower water than the waters in much of the most recent block offer for 2014. The Minister’s response to that was then: “Oh well we write legislation for what should happen not what does happen.” Basically she is saying that nothing can ever go wrong so she is writing legislation on the basis that it will never go wrong and ignoring the fact that it does sometimes go wrong. On this side of the Chamber we think that actually the legislation and the regulation should be robust enough to ensure that all those protections are in place. A part of that is very very much that public input process. It is not just the public who input during that; it is geotechnical experts it is environmental experts it is people from the industry who are not currently connected but who want to have their say people who have experience in the oil and gas industry people who know a lot more than the collective wisdom of even this Parliament because of their own experiences. Why that is important is that there are real concerns around the Environmental Protection Authority’s ability to process these marine consents now completely void of any input from any outside experts or individuals or organisations. The authority does not have an investigative capability. It does not have that. So how is it going to be able to now make a crucial decision on whether or not this stuff should go ahead based on a complete lack of information from those who would be interested?We know this because when we sit on a select committee hardly ever do we get a piece of legislation that goes through without amendment after we have sat down and heard submissions. That is why the select committee process is such a good one. That is why it produces good law. We do not have the monopoly on all the information in our Parliament or in our select committee or even in the Environmental Protection Authority. We get an awful lot of benefit out of that process of having people come along and submit. I do not think there is a single member in this House who would say that the submissions on bills at the select committee do not add an awful lot to the legislation and the changes that are potentially then made before it comes back to the House.This change could have gone to a select committee because this decision to introduce a new non-notified discretionary classification was adopted by Cabinet on 25 February 2013 and this bill was reported back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on 27 February 2013—2 days later. So there is no reason why this could not have gone to a select committee. The Minister knew that this change was going to be made. Months of work would have led up to this finally going to Cabinet and being approved and all the while this legislation was sitting at the select committee and no one was told that this was coming. Again this is exactly what we saw with the changes to the Crown minerals bill where Minister Bridges held off his protest banSupplementary Order Paper from the select committee until we had reported back and then threw it into the Committee stage. This is exactly the same thing—exactly the same abuse of process happening again—in order to avoid the scrutiny that comes from a proper select committee process.The interesting link back to that protest ban in that Supplementary Order Paper on the Crown minerals legislation is that Minister Bridges could have instead amended this Act the Marine Transport Act to carry over the provisions that exist for dealing with dangerous or reckless activity at sea in our territorial waters out into the exclusive economic zone. So not only could he have done it under the Crown minerals bill and actually have given it to the select committee but he could have done it under this piece of legislation as well which actually governs that dangerous and reckless behaviour in our territorial waters except what we know now from the regulatory impact statement which was finally released once Treasury forced him to put it up on the website is that it was not about banning dangerous or reckless activity. It was about banning protesting—full stop.The Government does not want anything getting in the way of the only plan it has for regional economic development in this country. Here we are again greasing the wheels. Here we are again with another broken promise. National promised that the public would be able to have its say and here it is again taking it away in a Supplementary Order Paper on a completely different piece of legislation about which the Minister says: “Oh well we alerted people to it back in April.” Why was the select committee not told about it when she would have been doing the work on that Cabinet paper for the entire time that this bill was at the select committee over those months leading up to the reporting back on 27 February? The reason is that when it comes to watering down environmental protections when it comes to greasing the wheels for industry as much as possible and when it comes to shutting the general public out this National Government will stop at nothing.